Home and my Sherry

Sherry says she doesn’t remember asking for time off from work, just called and said my husband it back from overseas and I am going to see him.

That’s my girl. My mama came with her to keep her company, the drive is about 250 miles. Sherry said at times she reached 90 mph on straight stretches (remember there are no Interstates yet). Imma thinking the police are afraid to chase her that fast!If she had been born in the mountains to a moonshiner, she would have made a good runner.

Mama got us two rooms. Daddy drove down the next day to pick mama up and take her home. I am not sure, maybe Sherry stayed until I was discharged but at least until my next weekend pass. I honestly cannot remember. I just remember having my WIFE again….

Of course we visited Dallas and Marion. At discharge I realized I need to find work fast. Mama and Daddy had an extra room so we stayed with them while Sherry worked and I looked for a job. In Jan. 1958 unemployment was 6% and climbing. It looked like you couldn’t buy a job. 

I didn’t tell you did I. Sherry broke the news to me a few weeks after I was back, “I Think I AM PREGNANT.”(NOW how did that happen?)  The pressure is on. We have no insurance.  The military had given me 90 days to decide if I wanted to re-enlist and I seriously began to think of re-enlisting.

(Civilians for a couple months, jack with no work)

Over two months of beating the streets, I got a job with the Charlotte Observer. Six days a week working nights with Mondays off, pay, about $1 an hour. My job was putting the Parade Magazine inside the Funnies by hand. Sherry was getting more pregnant by the day. I lasted about a week. I had promised my bride a lot more than this. The whole time I was thinking about joining the Air Force. So I did.

My announcement, “Hey sweetheart, I get sworn into the Air force in the morning, what do you think?”

“I think that is fine, but let me tell you something before you say ‘Yes Sir’ again, I don’t plan on starching and pressing ALL the uniforms, I want that clear up front.” 

“Yes mam, okay it is a deal, we will be stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi. Down on the Gulf Coast. I already quit my job.”

Really, no wife wants to live in with their in-laws no matter how good they are, and mom and dad were wonderful.  BUT with a job making $1 an hour, it would be awhile until we could afford to rent or buy.

SOO off we went into the wild blue Yonder! The beginning of the times through out ours lives that we would load everything we owned into a car and take off. She was worried, being pregnant, she had planned to have her mama close when the baby came.

But I married a trooper, let’s go.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

(Our Friends the Matthews 1958 and 2008, we are still friends)

She took that vow serious, for better or worse. I knew I was lucky. Church has always played a big part in our lives, and this would be no different. We met Rev & Mrs C.H. Matthews. He helped us find an apartment. We became life long friends.

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Sherry in front of our ‘53 Plymouth and our Apt to the right.