Our first apartment

Our first apartment was in the Komohana Apartments on West Division Street directly across from the C-J. It was a one bedroom apartment that faced out onto Border Street (now UTA Blvd). It cost $130 a month and included paid utilities.

I was making $2.00 an hour, $80 a week gross and about $65 net of taxes. Kay Ellen had her UTA job and was teaching piano from our apartment. She made as much as I did, possibly more. We had one car, a yellow 4-door Ford Custom that my parents had given me before we got married. Fortunately, they also paid my car insurance as a wedding present for the remainder of that year.

The last semester we registered for classes, I had to close the savings account I had started as a small child and withdraw all the money to pay for my tuition. I think it was $120.

While we were at the Komohana's we got a little black daschund puppy. We named him Blackjack. Blackjack and I would go over to the Swift Elementary (now UTA Nursing school) building basketball court and I would shoot baskets as he ran around on the asphalt court. We also rolled down the hill and basically had a good time.

I almost killed Blackjack one night when we got home from going out to eat and to a movie with Gary and Carolyn. We had just bought a brand new hide-a-bed couch. At dinner Carolyn told us how a puppy she knew had chewed up a new couch. When we got home the fabric was ripped up on one of the arms. I threw Blackjack across the room and yelled at him, grabbed him, stuffed his nose into the torn couch, and threw him again. In later months he also tore up the carpet in front of the glass sliding doors waiting for us to come home. We got our deposit back only because they had promised us new carpet and hadn't put it in yet.

We stayed in the Komohana's 6 months before moving to a "higher caliber" 2-bedroom apartment at the corner of Mitchell and Cooper. Those apartments were later condemned and torn down. UTA rebuilt student aprtment housing there. We were there a year before getting our first house on Briarwood, where Granny and Daddy Don are now.

Jessica and Cindy, I hope these last 2 posts tell you a little of what you wanted to know about how Kay and I met and our first year or so of marriage. If not, I'll try to elaborate in a later post.