A Flawed Legacy - 14

We were broke, no question about that and I was not handling it well.   I had a tendency to get angry - very angry, and I almost blew it.

Fortunately, Janice had called my sister and she came to our rescue.  A place to stay until I got on my feet and no apologies necessary.  The next morning, I was on the street looking for a job - any job, and was told there was a bookkeeping job open at "Danny's" restaurant and although they would hire me, I was not interested in keeping books - at a restaurant.  Funny - in a sense, they would go on to become Denny's, the same as the ones in your area.

Somehow, I found that they were looking for concession managers at a local entertainment center - Melody Land theater, if you are familiar with the Anaheim area.  I was hired right away as an attendant, but it was a job - in the evenings, so I could look for a better job during the days.  Turned out well as we had an absentee Manager and he let us alone, if we were doing what needed to be done - no complaints from the main venue.  We started hiring Marines from a nearby base and met their expectations.  Then, my sister wanted to work as well, so that helped.

I had called a friend - an employment agency owner I had met at an association meeting and he had an interesting proposition.  He had sold a franchise to a young woman looking for a business opportunity and she had grown tired on the work involved.  It so happened that she owned a house in an up-scale neighborhood where we could live as long as we paid the utility bills and was satisfied with a negotiated amount of any fees I collected.  It looked good, but I was about to learn a valuable lesson.  You don't open an employment agency if you cannot afford the costs of advertisement to attract people looking for jobs and even though I was pretty good of locating people, interested in changing jobs. it was slow going and I was not earning any real money.

Imagine my surprise when a former manager called me to see if I was interested in being his assistant in a plastic manufacturing company, nearby.  It was too good not to accept so we moved from our very spacious house to a two bedroom apartment.  It was good to get back on a regular salary and I loved the job.  There were three principal owners of the business and they were interested in my job, how it was going at in turn, I was keeping them informed of the customers we were serving.  It was obvious, it was a "family owned" business and the employees - in key positions at least, were treated as family.

And we were pregnant again.  We had also discovered a house we could own on a contract basis; that is, we made a down payment and as long as we kept up monthly payments on a regular basis, we could eventually purchase the house.  To tell the whole truth, I was proud of "our" accomplishments.

Then, there was an argument and Janice ran off to our bedroom and apparently,threw herself down on the bed.  I tried to comfort her and suggested we go out for some ice cream. On the way, suddenly, her water broke and we headed for the nearest hospital.  There was no time to call for our doctor as she was rushed off to a delivery room.  Within an hour or so, they brought our second daughter to me and - to be perfectly honest, I was shocked.  Mary Kathryn had been beautiful child and here was this scrawny little girl, delivered two months two months earlier than her due date.  Melinda Suzanne was about to take over my prayer life as I was told, her chances of survival were slim at best.