Temp and fired

My husband, before I met him, was a student at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He was a communications major; in the National Guard he was a radio operator. He got involved in the campus radio station. It was a 100 watt station, “with all the power of an ordinary lightbulb!” A 100 watt incandescent bulb was the standard bright indoor light for homes. This was the 1980s, before LEDs, when flourescents were still only long sticks that annoyingly flickered.

He enjoyed playing music and talking on air; he was good at it. His taste in music was classic rock: Iron Maiden, the Who, Rush, Jimi Hendrix, Yes, Ozzie Osbourne. He had a lot of say in what the campus radio station played.

But he was also an alcoholic, kicked out of school, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stopped drinking, was baptized, moved across country to Idaho, attended a religious college there, married me, moved to Utah, and worked making semiconductors at Signetics. For the first several months of our marriage, he tracked down people he owed money to, and set up payment plans. Several of them forgave the debts, asking him to pay it forward. I worked as a temp worker, a few days at this business, a week at that business, until I got a long term assignment at BC Ice, in their accounting office. I was pregnant, and after six weeks at BC Ice I was put on bedrest. It worked out; I had completed what they needed me for. My husband repaid as many of his debts as he could track down, and then determined to finish his bachelor’s degree. This meant returning to Shippensburg, because he already had three and a half years of credits done. Our son was born; my husband put in his notice at work.

One day my husband came home early, saying he had been fired. This astonished me, especially because he was happy about it. He had recently been awarded 50 dollars for suggesting an improvement to the production line. Turns out a higher up had visited the factory that day. My husband was talking in his loud enthusiastic voice about how he’d be out of there in three weeks. This higher up heard him, of course; my husband’s voice could be heard a mile away. But this boss took it to be a bad attitude. He fired my husband on the spot. My husband immediately accepted, but demanded severance pay. He got it.

When he got home, he said to me, “I guess we hang out for three weeks.” I stared at him. I think even then I knew that was a bad idea. I suggested moving sooner, while we had the money to make the move. He paused, then agreed. He made arrangements, while I cared for our newborn. The result was that when our son was about six weeks old, we moved across country. My husband drove the V-8 Chevy Malibu, a big boat of a vehicle, towing a Uhaul trailer. We put the carseat in the middle of the front bench seat. There was actually room to sit comfortably on either side!

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