THE NEW YEAR... changes ahead (Part 78g)

I can truthfully say that I was shocked by what Corrine had told me. At no time did I ever see Rena as anything but a bright, ambitious girl with a bubbly personality. No where did the darkness of her life show through, at least in my presence. I asked Corrine if she or anybody else in the department had done anything to help her out. Corrine gave me a blank stare as much as to say ”No. Was I expected to?“ I knew I wanted to do something but I had no idea what or how. The news left me very upset, almost depressed. To me it seemed like nothing ever went right for her.

As I said at the beginning of my previous post, I wish I hadn’t written the information about Rena... but I did. I could write at least one whole post on what happened but I won’t. Suffice it to say that I did get involved. The results were something I have mixed feelings about almost 50 years later. It got very complicated and was a case of seeing good intentions go wrong.

Even though getting the new tape drive up and running at work meant more work for all of us we were excited about it. Other than a daily visit from Leo things were going well. At home I was living a blissful life as Elle’s desire to become pregnant was paying big dividends for me. When we received notice that Ruthie (of Jimbo and Ruthie) had a son right after the first of the year it even got better. Just about every wish (fantasy) of mine was being fulfilled. It was like “no” had been removed from her vocabulary. I was really looking forward to President’s day weekend where we would be going to the city taking advantage of the tickets to Radio City Music Hall my mother had given Elle for Christmas. It would be a few days for just the two of us.

It took a few weeks for me to catch up with Dick at the park office and his “news”. He had gone on vacation and as I really didn’t see eye to eye with his brother, Ben, decided to wait. I hadn’t put up a patio room for them since before Christmas and knew I still owed about $400 on my room. I was hoping he was going to offer me another way to help pay it off.

I knew the park was filled up as all the new pads that I helped them build were taken and I knew that adding the patio room business was to help keep the cash flowing. But when I was told that he, his brother and father were going to build a brand new park up on the by-pass I was surprised. Their idea was to limit it to “golden agers” (50 and older) and to move those in that age group to the new park. Dick showed me a rendering of the site and compared to the existing park it looked like “paradise”. One of the biggest things was that they were going to do was keep trees rather than bulldoze them down as had been done in the existing park. It all looked very nice and I felt somewhat honored to be told of the plan before it was announced to the public.

That wasn’t the only news. The plan was to revamp the existing park as well. They were going to take on a new line of trailers (yes, trailers). Starting in the mid 50’s travel trailers had started to become popular. They had missed the trend and the chance to get the franchise for the Airstream trailer, the “Cadillac” for the genre. However, they had just gotten a franchise to sell the Avion trailer, a “knock off” of the Airstream. To that end they were going to expand the “transient” (their name) area of the park and make it a featured part rather than an afterthought as it stood in it’s present state. The goal was to have that done by mid Spring. It was an ambitious project and Dick asked if I’d be interested in working on it. As I still owed him money and was no longer working it off by building patio rooms I said “yes”.

While I was with Dick I took the time to ask what he knew about the “mystery woman” who was now living right across from me. He laughed when I called her that. As you know, rumors, or the “skinny” are often wrong. The only part of what Elle had been told that was right was that the woman was the daughter of the owners of the trailer. She was not an “engineer” and was not part of the new electronics company. She worked for a brand new company with a brand new concept and was the assistant to the manager. The company was actually a local precursor to big box stores like WalMart. The company was going to offer just about anything and everything and at discount prices. They had built a 30,000 square foot building out on the by-pass and the target for opening was April 1st to take advantage of the Easter selling market. After giving me the “real scoop” he commented on the fact that she was a “looker” and gave me a wink. I decided that I would have to make an effort to, "by chance" run into her. I'd already been scoping out her wash line but with no results.

With the departure of Elle’s friend Alice and her daughter Julie, our oldest daughter, Jean, didn’t have a best friend to play with. Elle and I had been happy that Julie had come along when she did as she replaced Dina, Jim’s daughter, who we were concerned about. She appeared to be “slow“ and used questionable judgment. Another thing was that she tended to be ”bossy“ and Jean was very reticent. But, with so few female children in the park around Jean’s age there wasn’t much choice. I’d continued to be friends with Jim but Elle had not spent much time with Dora, his wife. We decided that Dina was better than not having any friends at all so Elle set out to re-connect with Dora. However, I still had some concerns.

To be continued...