Vicki saying to me that they were going to get sick and soon they did.
One by one, the scouts began to go to the side of the boat and got sick. Vicki laughed and said, “I told you so” at which time she too started to get sick and found herself at the side of the boat along with these boys.
Vicki later told me she gets motion sickness easily when she does not keep her eyes on where we were going. This made it difficult if we went anywhere with people as Vicki could not sit in the back seat for very long before needing to change to the front seat in an effort not to get sick.
After about 4-months of not working and with the bills starting to pile up, I urged Vicki to go back to work. She quickly found a job but her first day was not what she expected. When Vicki came home, she walked in and said, “I hate you for making me work when I don’t want to and I hate you for making me move to bum-f***-Egypt!” She told me we lived just too far from her family, from all of the good shopping and she did not like it.
When Vicki calmed down, she apologized and we remained in the desert. It did however take her a few years to get acclimated to living so far away from her family (a 2-hour drive away) and not being so close to all of the “good shopping”. As the years progressed, Vicki and I both grew to dislike driving in the big city and looked forward to returning home to the desert whenever we went to visit our families.
I had been working the late shift and went to bed early in the morning. One morning after Vicki got up, she went to take a bath and much to her surprise, she found a guest in the tub. I was soon suddenly awakened by Vicki screaming and then jumping on the bed saying, “Thomas, get it! Get it!” When I asked her, “Get what” she used her hands to show the large size of what she saw. Using these hand gestures, she screamed while trying to say, “It is.........big”, “It is...................huge”, “It is a rat!” So, I got out of bed and went to get this oversized rat in the tub. When I arrived, I found a very small and very scared baby field mouse in the corner of the tub shaking from fright!
I used a small basket to catch the baby mouse in. I took the little thing outside and let it go in the vacant field. Well, I guess it had no desire to be in the field as it turned and ran back towards the house, then under the garage door and in it went. I did not have the heart to tell Vicki it was back in the building before me. Vicki took a photo of me after I caught the mouse as I was her hero. As you can see below, she titled the photo; I am not sure who she was calling a rat!!
Vicki and I discussed having more children but I told her I would first like to adopt Jason. We contacted the county were told we could hire an attorney or we could do all of the work ourselves. The Social Worker told us of a book titled “How to Adopt a Stepchild in California”. We immediately bought this book and I read it. I decided I could do this and started the lengthy process of adoption.
Since Vicki’s ex was absent and we had no idea where he lived, we had to file abandonment papers with the court and start a 1-year search for him to notify him of our intentions. We were told if we did not locate him after one year, we could proceed with the adoption.
Adopting a stepchild was a difficult process but I enjoyed learning how to do all of the paperwork. I kept my eye on the end results and looked forward to the day the courts would verify that Jason was legally mine. You see, from when I first met Jason, I thought of him as my son and all of this was just a formality to me.
For Jason’s fourth birthday, we invited several family members to our place for a celebration. Vicki and I bought Jason a battery operated ride-on jeep and gave it to him while we were all sitting in our living room. Jason was so excited; he jumped in and stepped on the accelerator. We did not have time to react before he collided into Vicki’s Grandpa Wilford! No one was hurt and we all got a big laugh out of this.
We then moved the jeep outside along with Jason’s new red wagon. Jason and nephew Chris talked their Uncle Kevin into pulling them in the wagon and they had a hard time staying inside. You see, Kevin pulled them up and down the hill in our back yard and the wagon would often tip over, dumping both boys out. They both quickly got back in and said, “More”.
While back in the desert, Vicki and I enjoyed living in a house rather than an apartment. We decided to look for our own house to buy, instead of renting. We were pre-qualified and were limited in what we could afford.
It seemed the only house we could afford were those that were too small or too old and in need of a lot of repair. A friend (Bob) had suggested we have a house built, as a new home with no landscaping would be cheaper than a house with established landscaping.
Vicki and I went to several local builders and only one told us he could build us a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house for what we could afford. He told us to pick out a vacant lot; he would purchase it and build our house on it. The builder told us when it was done; he would then sell us the house. Vicki and I found a ½-acre lot that we really liked and in December, construction began.
Chapter four
1987, Our 4th Year Together
While our new house was being built, I found myself there nearly every day before work to watch the progress. Having not seen a house built before, this was all new to me and I enjoyed watching the different steps.
I remember watching the workers frame a wall but forgetting to put the window in the wall or the space for the closet door. When I asked them about it, they quickly told me to mind my own business and continued with what they were doing. I called the builder and explained what had just occurred. He then drove to the site and saw what they had done. When he asked them if they built the wall according to the plans, they said yes. He then asked them where the window and opening for the closet were as they were in the plans and the wall they built did not have them. Before they could come up with an excuse, he reminded them they were building the house for me and told them in his absence, I was to get whatever I wanted and if they had any questions, they could ask him.
During the construction, my parents came to visit and my father and I went to see the new house. I remember as we walked into the back yard area, my father asked me if they would be building a house behind us. When I asked him why he thought this, he pointed out that the area behind my house had been freshly graded and why else would they do this. I told him that this freshly graded area was my back yard. I guess since his house in the city was on a lot of about 1/8th of an acre, my 1/2-acre lot seemed big to him.
In April, the house was completed and Vicki and I moved into our very first house that we owned. What an amazing feeling this was. To own our house, a home that was new and built solely for us. Don’t get me wrong, it was nothing fancy as this was a typical ranch style house but it was ours. We were not in a cookie cutter housing track where all of the houses looked the same.
My brother Tod had been in the US Navy for several years and was assigned to work in the torpedo room of a nuclear submarine. He enjoyed submarine life and we were fortunate they had family day aboard the boat on rare occasions.
Vicki and I along with my dad went to San Diego for a day out on the sub. When we arrived, we had to identify ourselves with a photo ID and then had to sign an oath of loyalty to the United States and promise we would not talk about or disclose anything we may be instructed not to talk about.
Once onboard, we were escorted to our assigned area (the torpedo room of course) and given a safety lecture. We were soon on our way to head out to an unknown
