Word got out at work and my fellow co-workers started their crusade to get me out of the house. The two young women, both younger than me but spoken for, wasted no time in finding the right place. As luck would have it they happened to find an ad posted in the shipyard on a bulletin board. Knowing me all too well, these two ladies ripped the poster off of the bulletin board and presented their find to me. I was flabbergasted but was proud to have co-workers who cared about me that way.
I had been working at the current site for about a year. It was the same place where my father was working so we shared the same commute. Mare Island Naval Shipyard is located in the small town of Vallejo. Some called it a hick town and others an underdeveloped community. But Vallejo would soon be my new home, forty miles away from my parents. We had to find some time to scope out the place. My boss, who got to know my father as they worked on projects together, watched over me as though my father entrusted him with my care. Not only did he find the time to send my two co-workers and me to checkout my potential pad, but he even paid for lunch - he came with us..
The house was a small place that sat in a plot of land that could hold four more structures of the same size as the house. In front of the house was a wall of trees with live rosemary bushes supported by a low level fence along the side. The outside was very rustic and looked more like a shack than a house. But once inside our mouths dropped to the wall-to-wall, bare hardwood floors. The walls were made of knotty pine and the ceiling was vaulted. It was like a ski chalet only I would never see snow there. A wood burning stove was used as a fireplace and actually could heat the entire house. The yard, being the rest of the plot of land had three kinds of trees - apple, plum and apricot. There were strawberry plants and artichokes. The yard was long enough to get some football practice in. I think my two co-workers liked the house more than me, for they were non-stop in constantly pleading to get me to just say "yes, I'll take it". And not to disappoint either one, I said those exact words.
My boss was overjoyed, I wouldn't have to come to work tired from the commute. I could become part of "the family". My boss was big on house parties, so now there would be one more house to party in. In December of that year, after I formally moved out of the house we had a party close to Christmas time. It was the first one I hosted for my co-workers but it would not be the last.
As a final note to this story, I have the most incredible parents. Remember the rent I paid my parents every month while living in their house? How do you think I was able to put half down on the house? Let's just say that when I sold the house five years later I returned the money that was used for the down payment plus 10% interest. And I still came out with a tidy profit, some cash to pay off a honeymoon. But that is yet another chapter of my life .