Ghosts of Christmas Past, 1977 -- The Fiasco

I got married in May 1977, right after Keith graduated from Harding College. We moved to his hometown of Fairhope, Alabama and rented a sweet little cottage in town. He worked at the local grocery store -- Greer's. Just before the holidays he was offered a promotion to produce manager -- if he would be willing to transfer to the store in Monroeville, Alabama. So... we were out of pocket for the holidays, in the process of relocating, and we were staying temporarily at Keith's mother's house. She had all four of her children home for the holidays that year -- Charlene from Arkansas, Aubrey from Texas, Sonny (who lived next door to her), and Keith. I only have two pictures from that Christmas. This one is the four in-laws. That's me in front. On the left is Aubrey's wife Florence. Behind me is Charlene's husband Garland. And on the right is Sonny's wife Lucia. (These pictures were taken with a Polaroid camera.)

Someone wrote 1978 on the photos, but it was 1977.

This is Keith and me standing in front of the truck we borrowed to move to the trailer we had rented, sight unseen, in Monroeville. We loaded up all our worldly possessions and were supposed to meet the landlord there on Christmas Eve so he could give us the keys. Well... 

It's a 2-hour drive from Fairhope to Monroeville, and when we got there -- no landlord. This was long before cell phones, of course. (I don't even know if we had the guy's phone number with us.) It was nighttime, Christmas Eve, and we had to turn that truck around and drive all the way back. Needless to say, we were the butt of a few jokes from the in-laws. Sometimes I can't believe how really dumb we were back then.

We did get moved into our trailer in Monroeville the next day. We borrowed Keith's mother's 4-foot artificial Christmas tree and put it in our living room. We didn't have any ornaments (or any money), so we decorated the tree with the Christmas cards we had received in the mail. I sure wish I had a picture of that pitiful little thing.

At the time we lived there, I felt like Monroeville was the jumping-off place at the end of the world. Keith's job wasn't all it was cracked-up to be, either, and we were both fed up with the whole situation. By Christmas of 1978 we had moved back to Arkansas.