Church work in California was not the best fit for Ron. There was a desire for more education, which meant another move. Since he was an intelligent teacher/philosopher type of person, this should not have been a surprise. I would have been content to stay near family and friends, but yielded to his restlessness and academic ambitions. In our familial microculture he was head of the household in charge of our future trajectory, so once again we left our California families for the east coast PhD studies. No worries, it’s what young married people did among our peers. At the time I was fully invested into that hierarchy.
We returned to Princeton by taking a courageous (or possibly stupid) drive across America during the gas shortage of 1979. At that time, a driver was eligible to gas up every other day based on the last digit on the license plate. Even numbers on even number dates. Odds on odd. You get it. One call to AAA and we learned that the rules changed once we left the state. Interstate travelers could fill up any day. Lucky break.
Our 10 month old son John was beginning to walk, and we didn’t know how squirmy he might get, strapped into a car seat on the 2,740 mile drive from Santa Ana to Princeton. Piled around him the remainder of the back seat was stuffed to the car windowsills with our householdings. The trunk and a uhaul roof container held the remainders, but no furniture except a portacrib, for ease at hotel stops. We planned to buy second hand things when we reached the destination. It was as clean slate a move as it could be with a baby on board.
In Ron’s hands, the steering wheel. In my hands, a AAA Triptik map book and a road atlas. No GPS, no cell phones in 1979. I was the navigator, often flipping long narrow map pages to anticipate the next stretch of highway, rest stops and hotel stays. In those days, we had no credit cards. Everything was paid for with cash or travelers checks.
For a 10 month old, the hours and hours of engine drone and endless boredom of the highway meant that John often slept during highway hours and was awake late into the night during hotel hours when we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep. If I recall correctly, Ron did all the driving and I did all the child care. Seemed fair.
The first day we reached Flagstaff Arizona and ran over a big rock, kicking it up under the car, where it hit the gas tank. Oh boy. Way to add worry to the trek. Quick trip to the nearest service station, and ah! Some luck found us. There was no leak, only a dent, and yet we progressed to the next destination with this young mama thinking we were about to blow up or leak out all the precious expensive fuel on some long desolate highway. You know, the kind of two lane snake of a highway, with old cracked pavement partially covered in desert sand, and sparse joshua trees guarding unfriendly open wilderness complete with postcard-worthy dusty, scratched up signs probably installed in the 1940’s saying “last gas for 300 miles.” And “You just passed the last service station in New Mexico. Texas: 250 miles.” Or perhaps we would kick up another rock that would finish the job on the gas tank. Parched and abandoned on a lonely road, we would dry up and die.
Die, we did not, and I’m still here to tell you about it and maybe even laugh about my fears. A little.
Even with dreadful imaginings running through my mind, second day we reached New Mexico, and on into the Texas pan handle which greeted us with fresh sheets of rain and an exciting stoppage on the highway during a severe storm complete with flash flood warnings. We learned a Texas rule of the road: when you cain’t see, you cain’t drive. We took our clues from the drivers with Texas license plates and waited it out. Rain cleared without an actual flash flood washing us into some Texas gulley. So onward.
Onward through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania. I don’t remember much about those states or our stops so they must have been without incident. Until…
We passed through Harrisburg and Hershey PA within sight of Three Mile Island. 1979. The horrific Three Mile Island reactor meltdown accident had happened in March and we traveled in August, same year, 5 months later. It was so eerie to be within sight of the silos and the reactor that had failed. We wondered if it was safe, but didn’t have a route to avoid it. I wanted to hold my breath, shield myself and my family from possible lingering radiation and yet…I also entertained an odd curiosity to see it as we passed by. Look quick! The accelerator was ever so slightly pushed closer to the car floor.
Finally we reached the New Jersey Turnpike and headed north to Lawrenceville, just south of Princeton. Campus housing wasn’t ready yet, so we stayed in the one hotel we could afford, the Red Brick motel just outside Princeton. Nothing was clean but I’m going to leave out the details. It was so dirty I wondered if it was rented out by the hour. One night at the Red Brick motel was more than enough.
Even though the trek was long and sometimes challenging and we left our families back in California, arriving in Princeton felt like a homecoming. Student life is temporary, so friends from before had moved on, but I knew how to dress for the climate this time, had some co-worker friends in the area and knew my way around town and campus. Ron had his studies and also headed up the Christian education library on campus as a part of his financial aid. We were assigned an apartment in North Hall, the interior laid out like a motor home; the whole apartment was 8 feet wide with a tiny kitchen at one end, a living room where we ate, slept and well, lived, and one bedroom for John that you had to pass through to get to the bathroom. Quiet, now! Don’t wake the baby! Narrow dormitory living for our little family of 3. It’s what you do if you want to live on campus. We made it work in that apartment for a year.
I took a job at Princeton Bank as a teller that lasted about 6 months. It was an exciting time in banking, if ever there was an exciting time in banking. 1980 brought the advent of the motor bank where the teller stayed in a little kiosk separate from the bank building. And debit cards. Whee!
I bought a new sewing machine in 1980. A Viking Husqvarna maroon colored model with ALL the fancy stitches. It was the gateway drug to a life of theater and ballet costumes, and allowed me to be self employed for many, many satisfying years. I remember when I bought it, because it was the same year I became pregnant again.
We knew there would be another move to go along with that baby. We settled in to the big one-bedroom apartment in Tennant Hall, right across the parking lot from North Hall. Ah, more space. There we stayed until 1982.