daily java

Daily Java:

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:24)

Our first apartment was a small one. It was in Germany in 1971 when I was in the army and it was really little. As I recall, it was big enough for a table and chairs with a small kitchen in a cupboard and a chest in the main room and a bed with a chifferobe in the bedroom. There was also a bathroom, which we were fortunate to have. Many had to go down the hall to one.

The bed was longer than American beds and really too narrow for my comfort. I was 6’3” tall and 190 pounds but I was a little too big for our bed. The pink and orange checked sheets we had brought were both too short and too wide for our bed. But it had one redeeming feature. It was ours.

The apartment was no more than 10 or 12 by 20 in all but it was ours. We were newlyweds and it really didn’t matter how small it was. It only had three windows, one in each of the rooms (bathroom included) and they had shutters that came down and locked out the light completely.

The main room had a tiny kitchen in a cupboard. It was a little sink with two hot plates and some shelves above. Below was a dorm sized refrigerator. We went down the street and bought our groceries every day like the Germans did. We laid meat against the freezer so it would last longer. We also discovered that if we took the dividers out of the one ice tray that fit in the tiny freezer we had more ice for our iced tea, something that Germans didn’t drink.

We were broke almost the entire time we were in Germany. We had enough to buy gasoline to drive our Volkswagen places and to buy minimal groceries, but we had no extra money.

But it didn’t bother us. We were, after all, newlyweds and were happy just being together. We walked and explored and drove around a lot. Even though German gas was expensive (over $1.00 a gallon at a time when it was less than 25 cents a gallon back in America), we got a gas ration from the army and it was enough to do what we wanted.

We drove to castles and to other cities during times when I was off from work and we had a great time. We visited museums and sat in restaurants in palace courtyards and had Coca-Cola with lemon like cultured Europeans. I learned rudimentary German and could make myself understood and we dressed German so that we wouldn’t stand out in crowds like American GI’s often did.

I bought German shoes so I didn’t have to wear GI brogans like other GI’s. I cut my hair at German barbers and Ella let hers grow. We fit in. She was beautiful and I loved her. We had a great time together.

This time together did several things. For one, it set us as a couple without the interference of parents. When you take your new bride 5500 miles from home where a phone call is over $40, it makes a difference. We learned to like each other as well as love each other. We were our friends. We also had friends in the Church of Christ there in Germany and that also made a difference. But in general, we were our friends. We were alone in a foreign country and we liked it.

We set ourselves as a couple and it has remained in our lives ever since. We are our family. As the kids have gotten older and left, we have gone back to being a couple, our own friends. We love each other and are bound in a way that a lot of couples are not. She is my home, no matter where we go. She feels the same way.

I love her and have loved her since we moved into that apartment in Germany on the third floor of that doctor’s house. We paid $100 a month and it was worth every penny. Even on the month when someone came in and stole what little money we had and we had to count pennies and eat cheese sandwiches for a month, it was still worth it. We had a furnished apartment with a $4 transistor radio for our entertainment, and it was great. I loved her then and I love her still.

I can imagine no life without her and still remember her in that tiny apartment in Germany. She knew no German and waited each day for me to come home to her, hanging out the window like all the other hausfraus. She was so beautiful and so lovely.

I will love her forever.