Memories of Early Married Life

In a few more days my wife and I will observe our 37th wedding anniversary, and I have to admit I don't remember a thing about the first one.

I was still in college when we married.  Our first home was a small townhouse apartment in an Iowa State University married student housing complex - University Village. 

Neither of us had really lived on our own before, so setting up a household was something new.

We started simple, which meant everything we possessed was previously owned by someone else.  The kitchen table and chairs came from Mom and Dad Balvanz, as did an ugly old couch.  Mom and Dad Voss provided a rocking chair and other needed items.

The entertainment center consisted of a 13-inch black and white television. Two 2-foot long boards and a dozen bricks were stacked up to make the shelving unit. 

Our bedroom suite belonged to my Grandmother Buchanan, who passed away a few months before our wedding.  It was one of those beds that had removable wooden slats supporting the box spring and mattress.  Occasionally, for whatever reason, one or more slats would slip loose from beneath the box spring and crash to the tile floor with a loud thwack!  It was especially startling if we happened to be asleep when it happened.

After graduation in early 1974 we moved to my first job in Grand Island, Nebraska.

We celebrated our first two anniversaries while living in apartments. We first moved into a one-bedroom apartment arranged for us by my new employer, and about a year later moved across the hall to a larger two-bedroom.

During the apartment years we slowly began to buy new furnishings and decorate to our own tastes.

But we discovered that two years in an apartment was about all we could stand.  In the spring of 1976 we purchased our first house - a three-bedroom ranch on a third of an acre. 

The house was officially in the city of Grand Island but stood at the edge of town and was not hooked up to the city sewer system.  We had a septic tank instead.  Having grown up on a farm, I was familiar with these buried behemoths of awfulness, but the experience was new to Jolene. 

During those first years I was worked from 3:30 in the morning until around 4 p.m. each day, while Jolene's hours often carried until late in the evening. 

This arrangement gave me opportunities for adventure.

Living on the outskirts of town an occasional mouse found its way onto our premises, and one day we discovered that a mouse had stumbled his way into the house. 

Jolene discovered it first. I simply had to followed the screaming. 

The little critter made his appearance in the kitchen and scampered beneath the stove.

That afternoon Jolene left for work, but not before making it clear to me that the mouse better be gone before she returned.

I never owned a rifle, but I had owned a pellet gun since I was a kid. So that evening, while I was home alone and the house was quiet, I loaded my gun and laid down in the kitchen doorway about 15 feet from the stove.

The sun was setting and as the room began to darken the mouse cautiously stuck his nose out from under the stove.

It was all I could do to keep from squeezing the trigger too soon.  Only his head was visible. Too easy to miss. 

Beads of perspiration appeared on my forehead as I restrained my breathing.  Patience.  Patience.

I laid there for over half an hour as immovable as a sniper, may right eye peering directly down the barrel until, finally, the mouse was convinced I was not a threat.

Stupidly, he crept out from under the appliance into full view! 

I squeezed the trigger.

Pow!! He was down! 

I could not have been more proud if he had been a 12 point buck.  I had bagged the wily Nebraska rodent. 

Needless to say, Jolene was thrilled.  It was easy to impress her in those early years.