We were pretty happy to be married only five months when we were able to buy our cute little first house in Norfolk. It was a sweet little ranch with an actual staircase to the attic. It was on thirteen acres of wooded land. The older couple, the Porters, who lived there had actually built the place in their later years and we know they didn't really want to leave, but it was no longer easy for them to live there. We got to meet them when they were selling their special home, and they even left us a bottle of wine in the fridge when we moved in. When we ran into them later, we offered for them to come up and visit, but they said they just couldn't.
The Porters were avid gardeners. Every year I tried to keep up knowing the name of the flowers that were blooming. We tried our hand at the vegetable garden which we were still reaping the benefits of some previous vegetables they had planted that kept coming up. But the biggest surprise treasure was the cultivated raspberry patch. So, delicious and so plentiful. We were even able to sell them at the local store. Stupid us, first year, we didn't realize that you always sell delicate raspberries, not by the quart but the pint. We sure gave people a bargain the first year of selling. We maxed at 450 pints one year. We tried to move some of the plants to my parent's house but I don't think they ever took.
At one point in time, we went to a boy scout camp that were auctioning off all their cabins. All the other people buying them were disassembling them and using the materials Not us, we hired a company to move it to our property. (Side note: someone stole our windows before we moved it. It should not have been too hard for the police to figure out who it was, but they did not pursue it.) It was quite a site seeing the truck carrying our house up our 450 foot long hill! It became our place to have the kids birthday parties, for one thing. We looked into starting a business of a party cabin and I would plan birthday parties for kids there. I so could have done that as I always gave themed parties with plenty of games. The cost of insurance for such a business killed that dream. We also thought the thirteen acres would make a pretty neat campground, but we never pursued that.
Now that I've mentioned the albatross, I'll talk about the driveway. The house came with a jeep with a plow. If Mr. Porter, a senior citizen, had conquered that driveway with it, we could do it too. However, the first year, it died. I don't think we ever got to use it. It did start when we bought the house. Side note here: the septic system also went one week after we moved in! We didn't blame the Porters and we even purchased our spaceship looking like septic tank from someone we had met at the Big E, I digress.
We tackled that driveway with snowblowers, which seemed to break cotter pins often. Later we paid to have it paved thinking that would help. I'm sure it must have a little, but it didn't feel like it did. I can also remember standing there in tears shoveling a path up to the house. I don't know if we ever had anyone plow that driveway, maybe once. At times we parked at the bottom of the hill and pulled the groceries in a plastic shed to the top. Let me remind you, this was Norfolk, CT, the coldest and snowiest town in Connecticut. We lived there during the blizzard of '78. I can remember being pregnant in 1979 and trudging through knee deep snow that hill.
Both of our kids were born while we lived there. They were one of four reasons we decided to move: we were outgrowing our cute little home, it was a toll call to my parents in East Hartland, it was a distance from our jobs and finally that driveway. We might have stayed, we could always add on and George grew up in Norfolk and liked his hometown, but that driveway...
I have to add one happy memory of that driveway. Our first year living there we threw an adult Halloween party with all kinds of crazy games for the adults to act like kids. People had to park at the bottom and hike up. Joe Sverni, George's good friend and an usher in our wedding, rented a gorilla costume. He picked a spot behind a tree halfway up our driveway and I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
I have more to say on what happened when we left our first home, but I've gone on long enough this time. The lesson from all this: Although there were reasons to grumble and shed a few tears at our first home, we were so blessed to have had that home so early in our 20's and the experiences we had there. We also learned to look at the driveway first when purchasing a home.
"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
I Thessalonians 5:18
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