Welcome back to my life adventure "B.M." (Before Marriage)!
Actually, as you've noticed in some of the earlier episodes, I noticed Kathy in 1973 but really hooked up with her in 1974 and we became engaged in 1975. So this summer will be 50 years of becoming connected together. Then we were married in 1976 making this past anniversary our 47th.
But onto the continuing saga. I had mentioned previously about Greg Laurie's film released this year "The Jesus Revolution". We were able to view the film a couple of weeks ago. It was a full reminder of what was happening in the late 60s and early 70s. All around the time of this adventure of mine being penned in this blog.
Shortly after high school graduation (1971) and my 5 months into 1972 at WOLBI, I became a working man at my first 40 hr week job. A pre-Walmart New England retail department store opened their first chain in my home town of Southbridge, MA. A number of their early stores were housed in former mill manufacturing outlets. AMES (a Hartford, CT company) was one of the first to begin taking advantage of the new shopping strip mall concept. A new complex was opening in nearby Sturbridge where a grocery store, bookstore, coffee shop etc. was being built. On the opposite end of the grocery store within the strip of stores was AMES's new offering, that would take them out of the mill warehouse. To open the new store, Ames was hiring a crew of stock boys to get the store moved from the mill to the mall. I was the 25th boy to be hired for this venture. I spent more time at the new complex than the mill as I was setting up the future store. Being one of the last persons to be hired for this duty much of the set up was near completion. And as Grand Opening was about to take place the company began the dreadful duty of laying off the no longer needed stock boys. Grand Opening came, a guy who became a friend and I were used on that day to promote a fun atmosphere for the customers coming into the store. So they dressed us up as Fred and Barney from the Flintstones. The costumes were the type with the big heads and short arms and legs like the characters you see at Thanksgiving Macy's Parade. Enough of that.
So the layoffs began. One would figure that the last to be hired would be the first to be laid off. And I was that last one. But one by one, the stock boys were let go but I was still there. Out of the 25 hired there were only two left. Number 1 and 25! Number one was a guy named Angel. With a name like that, how can you lay him off? I forget if he was the one who played Barney but we became friends, the two who evaded the lay offs!
So, I bought a vehicle for cheap. A 1964 Ford Econoline Van. It had a very small 6 cyl engine and a three speed column shift transmission. I got it for cheap for two reasons. One, my Dad was friends with the Rambler dealer owner and two, the van had a huge dent near the gas filler in the driver side back. Even so it was my first vehicle and I loved it. I quickly made friends with all my Ames employees because I was known as the 25th stock boy hired who never got laid off! The store manager took a liking to me as well. He would have me drive his family home during the Grand Opening a few towns away and also had me drive to another Ames store about two hours away to pick up supplies his store was short on.
One woman who worked the register (I think) was named Alice. She thought I was a cute teenager and would often talk with me. Oh, by the way, Alice was in her 70s! As I was driving in that van down Main Street in town, I say Alice and I shouted out and beeped at her to say hi. I was looking at her and not the road and as I turned back my vision to the street a car was stopped dead in front of me. I slammed on my brakes but was too close to avoid hitting the guy's bumper. The van was a flat nose, with nothing but linkage a floorboard in the front. And even though I was traveling less than the speed limited while waving at Alice, the impact did a lot of damage to the van I loved. The linkage for steering and shifting were wrecked and the floorboard was pushed all the way up so the clutch had no movement downward. The floorboard came all the way up to the clutch.
So, I became known as the kid who totaled his car oogling at a 70 year old woman! How do you live that down?
So, it was back to Syl's Auto Sales with Dad to replace my totaled van. I was really hoping for another one. I loved that one so much. To my disappointment all he had in my price range was a '64 Rambler American. It was a cute car but not a van. So the humiliation of the events of the accident continued with the purchase of this ... ahhh, cccaaarr. Ugh.
So this was Mike Tremblay by day. But the Mike Tremblay after work is what I want to focus on next time, in offering number 9. But as a preview: A new mission was beginning by a few guys including myself at our church in Eastford, CT. We called ourselves "Fishermen for Christ". Wait until you hear the similarities of what we were doing on the East Coast to what was occurring on the West Coast! Stay tuned, that's next!
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