OCTOBER
In October we barely had enough money to pay $285 in rent and have enough to go to Minnesota for Fran's parent's 50th Anniversary which was October 12th. Fran really didn't want to go but with me pushing her, we did. We drove straight through to Kasson Minesota in my Pinto and we took Sam along with us. At one point Sam for some reason snapped at me and slightly bit me. I felt so sorry that he was being uprooted again. When Fran told her family about the incident, the men said they would have shot Sam for biting me but Fran said she was glad that I wasn't like them and just kept loving Sam. Minnesota was really beautiful with rolling hills and everything so green that is everything that wasn't changing colors for the fall. I met Frans parents finally for the first time Vernon and Lorna Fuchs and also her younger sister Kathy Helton. She came all the way from Vancouver, Washington. The next day the rest of family arrived. Her older sister Mickey came by herself from Chicago, her sister Julie Georgen came by herself from Detroit. Connie and her husband Dean Svenby came from Fargo North Dakota and Ronnie and his family came from upstate Minnesota. Her dead brother's widow and some of her children also came. It was really a wild experience meeting her family and also gathering up some genealogy. For the 50th Anniversary we all went to the Kasson Lutheran Church for the reception It was really nice. One of the big surprises is that Mike Allred of all people came as he was going to school at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester which is near where Fran is from. I Knew he was back in Minnesota and I was surprised when he agreed to come to the reception to see me and I suppose to meet Fran. It was fun seeing him there after all this time. After the reception, Fran and I went to Zumbrota where a Mr. Nelson took us to see Peter Svee's home. He is Fran's great grandfather from Norway. The reason why I was late returning to work was that Fran and I wanted one more day so we could take her sister Kathy up to Minneapolis to catch her train back to Washinton as no one else was willing to take her. When we returned to Texas I worked two more weeks until Hammer fired me
31 October 1977 Monday
I was fired by my supervisor Jack Hammer as he didn't like the way I ran the operation because I was more interested in the store's personnel than corporate profits. I was always letting the kids off to attend high school events. Also he didn't like that I took longer time off on my trip to Minnesota than I had expected. One of the reasons he fired me is because he chewed me out for the way I scheduled people to work. Most of my workers were black high school kids and one time I scheduled a night shift not even considering that everyone on that schedule was black. Jack hollered at me because he said I should have scheduled at least one white person to work that shift because white people would not go to the stand if they only saw black kids working there. He said If one white person was there then people would think that person was in charge. All though I was fired it made me realize that I wasn't all that prejudice anymore because I didn't see skin color but just bodies to fill the shift.
November
November was really hard for us as we were almost destitute. We barely had enough money to pay November rent but nothing much to live on until I could find work again. It was during this time that I caught Chickenpox. Evidently I never had it as a child and as an adult it was miserable. We couldn't afford for me to go to the doctors so I just suffered miserably. I was unemployed for half of November until I found employment as a substitute Teacher within the White Settlement School District where I taught primarily at the Brewer High School. Fran went back to work after finding a job at Harper's Bakery on Camp Bowie Blvd. It was a real crummy job for her but it was a weekly paycheck. Also she was able to bring home bakery goods that didn't sell that day. One I really remember was a "Groom Cake" which was a chocolate cake with Mocha frosting decorated with burnt almond slivers. I had a pretty steady position at Brewer High School when a biology and physical science teacher quit. I took over all his classes until Christmas Vacation when they found a permanent science teacher. That was kind of weird because I had a degree in History and knew next to nothing about science. The kids at Brewer were pretty tough and once when distracting me they set my wastebasket on fire just to watch my reaction. I just but a folder over it to smother the flame and gave them no reaction. After that they kind of stopped messing with me. I was only about 9 or 10 years older then most of my students.
The best thing about living in Ft. Worth was the wonderful Ft. Worth Fifth Ward and the availability of Texas genealogy for me. Fran and I just loved our Ward and the Bishopric. Bishop Call was a just a neat man. Fran was called to be a Beehive girls advisor the very first day we attended church in that ward. In Utah we were hardly even noticed so this was the most active we both were in the church since before we were disfellowshipped. I was eventually called to be a second counselor in the Sunday School Presidency under Bro. Greg Burr. A lot of the Ward was made up of BYU graduate students who were working at General Dynamics. I helped a lot of the Ward members with their genealogy. The Ward had a Thanksgiving dinner and Fran and I went to that.
DECEMBER
I was collecting unemployment when not working over Christmas Vacation and that's the only thing that saved us. While in Ft. Worth Fran and I got to meet Allen and Martha Cox, a distant relative of mine on the Peacock side of the family. We even went down to Cleburne in Johnson County, several times together in order look up relatives there. Bishop Call gave us Temple Recommends to go to the Temple and we made an appointment to fly in to Salt Lake to be sealed on our first anniversary. Fran and I spent Christmas Day alone with no tree or really gifts as we wanted to save every bit of money for plane fare in January. While I was off work I read James Mitchner's Centennial about Colorado. For New Years Eve Fran and I stayed home and had clam chowder. New Years eve will always be special to me now because that is the day I proposed to Fran and asked her to marry me.
I do not regret having gone to East Texas but when I had time I had no money ad when I had money I had no time. All in all it was a failed experiment.
Additional Material
One time I gave into my homosexuality and went to this Department Store in Downtown Ft. Worth I believe was Montgomery Ward. In one of the Men's Rooms there was so much blatant Homosexual activity going on between whites and blacks with such abandoned that while I watched I was too intimidated to participate.
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