Carole and I have been doing some things in the past few weeks that we either have never done or havent done in a long time. Well, this week really takes the cake. Well be quietly celebrating our 50th wedding anniversity on Sept. 5. Boy, have things changed since we married in Oconto WI in 1964. It wasnt off to some exotic place for our honeymoon. We made the trek, U-Haul trailer in tow, to my workplace in Butte MT with stops in Minneapolis, Bismarck and Miles City along the way. Once we got to Butte we set up shop in an old house that was converted into apartments. Our rent was $60 a month. Our car payment was 55.87 a month. I was making $110.00 a week (before taxes) at the Butte paper, Carole wasnt working at all, dinner for two was $2.35 for two at the quaint upstairs Pekin Cafe and we paid for that by check. Our first purchase was a television from Osellos for $167 which seemed outlandish. We didnt own a credit card and it was three years into our marriage before we got one. We didnt have a telephone. We paid neighbors Carol and Joe in an adjoining apartment to use their phone and that didnt happen very often. Our electricity and heat bill was seldom more than $7.00 a month. It was rare to spend more than $30.00 a month on groceries. We moved to Rochester in 1967. The first thing we noticed was the higher cost of living. Our rent soared to $125.00 a month. But gasoline prices werent bad. During one trip to Jacks Texaco we put 18.8 gallons of gas in our car and it cost $6.20. You cant get two gallons of gas for that now. There were ways we cut back on expenses during our 50 years together. We never owned more than one car and still dont and we ran one car for 13 years and 176,000 miles. We bought our first and only house in Rochester for $29,500. We didnt even have to make a down payment. Our monthly payment was $220.00. Forty years later were still living in the same house. We saw Rochesters population go from 40,000 to over 100,000. We saw the number of pizza places go from one (Golden Georges) to somewhere near a bizillion. We saw an open field where Apache Mall shopping center now stands. There were only two fast-food places -- King Leos and OHenrys -- and just one oriental restaurant (Wongs). Carole didnt have red hair, I didnt have gray hair. Yes, a lot of things have changed. But one thing hasnt changed. Were as happy now as we were 50 years ago.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:40:43 +0000
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