Tuesday, March 04, 2008

3337 Sherman Ave, North Bend, Oregon

Exterior, front... along with our 1979 Ford Courier pick-up, which is really a Mazda

Exterior, rear

Day before yesterday I posted a photo of My Favorite Frog and The Second Mrs. Pennington that was taken in our home in Oregon. North Bend, Oregon, to be exact…which, along with its sister city Coos Bay… forms one of the nicer places I’ve ever lived. The geography is good, what with North Bend being on the Oregon coast and all, the weather is generally fine albeit a little wet, and the people are friendly, for Oregonians. Which isn’t to say they’re Unfriendly, it’s just that they’re Oregonians…the folks who supposedly originated the term “Californication” and most definitely invented the UNgreeting Card. They can be a bit stand-offish, especially to outsiders, and especially if they think you’re gonna stay in their Fair State. But we managed to muddle through…

Me on the front steps

North Bend is also the town where TSMP and I bought our first house. Even though we were poor, we managed to buy a house about a month after we arrived in Oregon in August of 1978…more about HOW we managed to buy the house comes later. Like most first houses, our was small… a two-bedroom place with about 1,100 or 1,200 square feet and a single bathroom, built in the late 40s or early 50s. But the place had wonderful fenestration, new carpet, new paint, and a great big oil-fired, hot water heating system with massive radiators that pinged, clanged and hissed in the process of getting the house warmed up. The home’s previous owners had also been avid gardeners and bequeathed us a rose garden that was both beautiful and fragrant. We never lacked for fresh-cut flowers during Spring, summer, or Fall. The roses were the best, but there were other flowers, as well.

Me, with some of the backyard flowers

TSMP in one of those comfy sling chairs

Me in the other comfy sling chair along with Kuma, aka Koomer Za Zoomer

As I noted in the Froggy picture day before yesterday, TSMP and I were pretty poor at the time. We furnished that house with (about) $500.00, and our furnishings consisted of two sling chairs from the JC Penney garden center, a cheap dinette set, a glass and chrome coffee table (our sole “indulgence,” which remained with us until the very end), a mattress on the floor and some other odds and ends… including my stereo, which was replaced by a friend’s stereo…for about a year or so. We had no teevee; we had a dog, instead. Much more entertaining.

More décor

Our house had the air of an up-market hippie crash pad, due in no small part to the décor (such as it was), and the fact there were three of us living there. A good friend of mine, who was also stationed at North Bend AFS and who was going through hard times, moved in with us when we took possession of the house. My Buddy was the victim of bad choices and bad luck that led to him being (a) involuntarily discharged from the Air Force and (b) being involuntarily discharged from his relationship with his girlfriend, later his wife…at nearly the same time. So TSMP and I took him in while he got back on his feet. And there were various comings and goings of other characters as well, which I’m sure had the neighbors wondering, if not talking among themselves.

But…life was good in that house. Life was also pretty much normal. I left for work every morning around 0700, and got home around 1700…rinse, repeat, five days a week. I went to night school at the local community college. TSMP went through a number of shit-jobs following her graduation from that university in South Bend with the used-to-be-great football team…among them car salesperson and waitress in a Japanese restaurant, where she put her BA in Japanese to some use, anyway. She eventually landed a better job, becoming a personal assistant/admin to a self-employed real estate appraiser, which, in turn, opened up a whole new circle of friends for us. Her boss, Max, also owned an airplane which he wrote off as a business expense (aerial photos of properties, ya know), and that plane was the platform from which TSMP shot the photos of the air station, below.

761 Radar Squadron, North Bend AFS, OR (1)

761 RADRON (2)

North Bend was also where I purchased that red RD-400 (my favorite mo’sickle of all time), and where I spent many enjoyable hours “building” that bike in the small detached garage out back. I also rode the bike to work nearly everyday…when the weather agreed, and sometimes even when it didn’t. It rained a lot in that part of the world. The ride to and from work was most exciting and challenging… as the site access road climbed about 5,000 feet in the space of about five or six miles… and that road was a twisty-turny sport biker’s wet dream, Gentle Reader. And I got to ride it twice a day, every day, five days a week. Great good times, those were.

Ultimately, the best thing about that house was the Oregon State VA loan we had, which was the sole reason we could afford to buy a house in the first place, given our level of poverty in 1978. Oregon’s Department of Veterans Affairs had a state-funded mortgage program for Vietnam vets at that time, and the State was our mortgage banker. This was a wonderful program for Vietnam-era vets and one needn’t have served IN Vietnam, you only had to be in the service at the time to qualify for one of these state-funded mortgages. So, I qualified…and the loan carried a mere 3.5% interest rate and what’s more, those same mortgages were assumable by anyone… vet or not… at a rate of 5%. This being in early 1980, at which time… if you’re old enough to remember… we were in the end-game of Carter-era stagflation (well, it’s easy to blame Jimmuh but he wasn’t wholly at fault, just mostly. Assuming you disregard Tricky Dick.). Not a fun time to be buying or selling a house, to put it mildly. When we put our house on the market in the first week of May, 1980 the prime rate stood at 18.75%, with mortgages going around 3% over prime. So… you can see the appeal of a loan assumable at a mere 5%, can you not, Gentle Reader?

We had a firm offer at our asking price…full asking price… the day we put the house on the market. We laughed all the way to the bank, and quite literally, at that. We put the profit from the sale of the house in a jumbo CD, packed up our sling chairs and other stuff, and left for Ol' Blighty in the summer of 1980, where we spent the next three years living in London.

We weren’t so lucky with our next house, but that’s quite another story…one which ended when we took a rather substantially-sized check to closing when we sold. Not when we bought the house, but when we sold it. Bad juju, that was. But: another time.

18 comments:

  1. Great pictures and and story Buck.

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.S. I like the pic of TSMP in the chair and you on the porch.But all of them are great.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Be honest, you did some serious Doobage in those days!?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really enjoyed the story and pictures, Buck. Sure brings memories flooding back of the old 70's and 80's decor!
    I had a huge collection of unicorns,and Shaun had a favorite picture of one of the space shuttles. For years that pic hung on a wall right above them!! What a mix!
    The stereo's always catch my attention too. My Dad would build his own with kits he'd ordered and he was forever tweaking them to try and get better sound when we'd be listening to our favorite music. Use to drive us bonkers!
    I think I enjoy my dog more than TV now days too :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh Buck, thanks for the trip back to first houses. Felt like I was crashed out in the LR with you guys. It seemed so much like the first one I got hooked up with in '77 (but considerably nicer) on about the same budget. At the huge price of about $7K, it scared the utter crap out of us though. Oh my, to think about that price now.

    ReplyDelete
  6. YOUR house seemed considerably nicer ... just wanted to clarify that comment.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It looks like a great house with the garden and the big windows. We had similar furniture, although our sling back chairs came from the Green Stamp store. We had a hand-me-down couch with the back legs broke off. But we had a really nice stereo on shelves made of cinder-block and boards.

    What a handsome dog!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow - thanks for your memeories and for mine that the post conjured up! Those old house still reside in North Bend - though more and more CA money is tearing them down and building new monstrosities.

    And, not many real Oregonians left!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks, Ashley.

    Mushy sez: Be honest...

    Your answer.

    Dawn sez: The stereo's always catch my attention too. My Dad would build his own with kits he'd ordered and he was forever tweaking them to try and get better sound when we'd be listening to our favorite music. Use to drive us bonkers!
    I think I enjoy my dog more than TV now days too :)


    Glad I could help you remember, Dawn! And ALL GIs had kick-ass stereos, no? "Thank GOD for headphones!" were our watch-words while living in the barracks, much less so when we went out into our own places. Your father would have driven me nuts, too! ;-)

    Lin sez: It seemed so much like the first one I got hooked up with in '77 (but considerably nicer) on about the same budget. At the huge price of about $7K, it scared the utter crap out of us though. Oh my, to think about that price now.

    I forget what we paid for the Oregon house (I think it was in the $25K range), but it sure wasn't much, comparatively speaking. I know I paid more for my RV than I did for that house in Oregon. Don't ask me which one I'd rather be sitting in right now! Sling-chairs and all... (And I gotcha the first time around!)

    Lou sez: ...We had similar furniture...

    I think it's a GOOD thing most of us begin our adult lives like this. But...some don't. Some folks will max out out a couple of credit cards buying spiffy furniture, nice china, crystal, and a big-ass SUV (or two) when they begin... and then bitch about not being able to "afford" a house. Or they'll buy a house with money they don't have then play the victim when they're foreclosed upon. I sense a rant coming on, so I'll stop right here. (TSMP and I were married for about two years before we got our first credit card... shortly after I finished paying off TFMP's credit card debts. But... another story, and part of yet another rant!!)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Cynthia sez: And, not many real Oregonians left!!!

    I wondered how you'd take that, Cynthia! I had no mal-intent when I wrote that Oregonians were less than friendly to interlopers. It is what it is. I hate to hear those old homes in NB are being torn down... NB had some of the loveliest, well-kept neighborhoods one can imagine. TSMP and I were VERY fortunate to have known one of 'em.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Love the big roses!! Someday I'm going to grow roses like that...

    Just what did Consuelo tell you about me? Ran into her the other night at a school thing and we talked about you and your blogging. She said she had to warn you about me, that I was the bad influence. Don't believe her!! It's HER that is bad and evil!! And the traits are passed down to her 9 year old (who tried to plan a movie/slumber party last year, but forgot to mention it to her parents).

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jenny sez: Just what did Consuelo tell you about me? Ran into her the other night at a school thing and we talked about you and your blogging. She said she had to warn you about me, that I was the bad influence. Don't believe her!! It's HER that is bad and evil!! And the traits are passed down to her 9 year old (who tried to plan a movie/slumber party last year, but forgot to mention it to her parents).

    Umm-hmmm. Classic dilemma, this... WHO to believe? ;-)

    Consuelo told me about the slumber party (but not a lot about you, specifically, Jenny... other than y'all know one another and your daughters are friends)... and about the time her daughter "signed" a parental permission slip for a field trip... when she was in kindergarten! Now there's some real chutzpah for ya!! I'll bet that girl is a pistol...

    ReplyDelete
  13. I remember when her daughter did that in Kindergarten! LOL!! Not sure if Consuelo or her husband is paying for their raisin', but it sure will be for one of them! That third child sure is a spitfire!! (I can vouch for that, too).

    ReplyDelete
  14. Buck:

    Great photos. I really enjoyed them.

    By the way, my question was going to be the same as Mushy's, but I see you've already supplied all the answer you're willing to.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Jim sez: By the way, my question was going to be the same as Mushy's, but I see you've already supplied all the answer you're willing to.

    I'm not commenting either way on this subject due to the wonderfulness of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, aka "The Red Book" or UCMJ. Specifically, Section 802(a)(4) of same.

    You might think I'm being overly this or overly that but what I AM being is prudent. Because... ya just never know.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hey Buck,

    I definitely remember those radar sites. I was assigned to two of them even though I was a communications guy. One was absolutely great. The 757RADS, Blaine AFS WA was probably my best assignment stateside. The other one, 64TCF George APP, I couldn't leave fast enough...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Jess: More than a few guys retired out of Blaine and stayed in the area... it was THAT nice. I dunno how they're doing these days during the recession coz employment opportunities ain't exactly plentiful there, as you know. But... a beautiful part o' the world.

    By George APP do you mean George AFB, CA? I googled 64 TCF and came up empty.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The 64TCF (I think it was the 64th) is now deactivated. It really wasn't a radar site like the 757th but rather a very small mobile unit with weapon controllers, maintenance personnel etc. We came under TAC because of our deployment responsibilities and reported to Bergstrom. We were tucked away in an old aircraft hanger at end of the flight line on George AFB..

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask.