1986

There are tough times now for many people: unemployment, illness, medical expenses, home foreclosures, savings and retirement money losses. I remember back in 1986. We lived in a nice home in San Diego at that time. However, I did not like the house. There were no kids nearby for our children to play with. They had had many friends in Utah close by. We moved to an apartment in La Mesa instead. My husband was working in the computer department of Handyman, a large company with many stores. I had quit my job so I could go to Sweden with the children all summer long. My parents paid for the trip. We left in June after school was out and stayed there till August, just before school started again. While there, the company my husband worked for closed down and he lost his job. He looked for work and did not really find anything he liked. So when we got back from Sweden, we lived on our savings and decided to move back to Utah. We put most everything we owned in storage and took with us what could fit in the back of our little grey pickup. Actually, we did not have any money left to rent a moving van. Gary's brother lent us $200. We left for Utah Thanksgiving weekend that year.

Luckily we had good friends in Spanish Fork, who let us stay with them. Gary looked for work and got a job with Computerland in Orem in January as a salesman with a base salary of $1000 a month. After a couple of months we were able to move into a duplex in Alpine. I had found a job also not far from there. We still did not have enough money to get our stuff from storage, so we rented a couch for the living room and a dinner table with four chairs. The kids had a room each and I slept on the couch in the living room while Gary slept on the floor.

We lived there for about two years, when we were able to buy a house again in the same neighborhood where we had lived before our move to California in 1984.

I often think of that time. I am so grateful that Gary had a good education to eventually get a good paying job so we could get our own home, and that we had good friends who took us in. Unfortunately, there are many homeless people because of one reason or another: no work, no special skills or trade or enough education to get a decent paying job, medical expenses, no family to help, no good friends close by, etc.

I just hope that Gary will be able to keep his job till he retires. They have had many layoffs where he works and so far his position has been secure. He is a good provider and a good man!