Living and laughing with a disability - cerebral palsy; ordinary life, extraordinary circumstances.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Our old home...POOF!

Jodie and I lived in three different places during our first three years of marriage.  Friend Sam still razes me on that.

In 1992 we moved into a brand new manufactured home.  We bought the home in McMinnville and chose all the amenities inside.  We had it moved into Baseline Woods in Aloha, no, it was Beaverton, no, it was Hillsboro.  The cab company refused to send us a cab...they said we didn't exist.

Memories...Jodie and I sitting at the kitchen table with our 3-paneled corner window drinking coffee and watching the world go by...

...Management telling us to clean our lot from the wood scraps left from the home installers.  Boards were frozen to the ground.  Old man Frank across the street came over to help.  Franked talked to management for us.

...Jeff and Crystal next door with their little girl.  Jeff live for the Fourth of July.  He was a pyro!  The neighbors gathered a potluck under our carport.  Jeff lit off his arsenal of fireworks.

...The retired neighbors on the other side.  She was skeptical of having a disabled couple next door.  Watching our every move...it wasn't hard with as close as the homes were together.

...A favorite memory of mine...Jodie and I had come home for lunch from our jobs at Child Welfare in Hillsboro.  Brother-in-law Ken came by and surprised us with pizza.  Ken was a bigger than life kind of guy.  He was in sales...he could smooze with the best of them.  He fought a brain tumor with grace until that December day in '94.

...The day Jodie told me that something felt different.  She thought she might be pregnant.  My immature faith: "No, God wouldn't do that to us."  I bought more pregnancy tests.  Friends Brad and Lori came over.  Lori gleefully came out and said "Troy, your going to be a papa!"

In July of 1995 we move to the eastside of Portland.  Jodie's mom ran a daycare and we knew we'd be needing that.  We moved into another manufactured home...this one on it's own lot...however micro it was.

Progress moves us on, but memories never abandon us.

Polygon Northwest plans housing complex for former Aloha mobile home park | OregonLive.com

No comments: