POVERTY LEVEL

While the genius was still in the Army, he began applying to graduate schools for his master’s degree in engineering. Several really good offers came in (Lehigh, MIT, University of Kentucky are a few I remember), but the best one was from the University of Florida. So in the summer of 1963, we packed up all our belongings and headed to Gainesville.

Ashley was nineteen months old, and I was six months pregnant with Jim IV, so it was not easy to travel at this time. To make matters worse, our Plymouth Fury began having major problems about the time we hit Atlanta. We were pulling a U-Haul, and the car just wasn’t up to pulling that load. The problem was that we couldn’t get the gear to go into the low slot. So we had to be extra careful and be sure we stopped on the downhill; that way we could start off in second gear. What a tense and scary trip that was, but we made it to Gainesville in due time.

We had applied for Flavet (the married student housing that were converted army barracks), but we couldn’t get into them until December. The reason we wanted to be in them, of course, was the low rent ($25/month); instead, we had to settle for paying $85/month for a cute little wood frame house on the main drag. I actually loved that little house with its living room, dining room, and kitchen across the front and two bedrooms, bath and hallway across the back. It even had an attached single garage at the kitchen end. The genius bought a secondhand bike and commuted to classes on that. I would have been satisfied to stay there, but I knew that the rent was a strain on our budget.

The genius had a full ride plus $200/month from his scholarship. I know that sounds like an impossible sum on which to live, but it was actually doable. And my parents helped out with an extra $50/month for ten months. But it was a very tight time indeed, and when the opportunity came for us to move to Flavet, we took it. By then, Jim IV was born, so I indeed had my hands full with a two year old and a newborn.

I wish I had words to describe the apartments. They were tiny two bedroom affairs with a kitchen so small, I could hardly turn around in it. There was no bathtub, just a concrete shower which defied all efforts to remain mildew free. There were eight units on 2 levels, and everyone joked about the huge roaches. The bug people would come and spray and the roaches all ran across the street until they sprayed over there, and then they all came back over again. I couldn’t put down roach pills which had worked before when we lived in Florida because this time I had a toddler running around. That little house we had moved from seemed like a palace compared to this.

But there were reasons why it was enjoyable, and I will explain those tomorrow.