Our first home was a small, rented yellow brick duplex on a well-kept, tree-lined street. It was located about fifteen minutes from Memphis State where we were both students. It had newly refinished wood floors, a small living room, dining room, kitchen, 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. There were plenty of windows which let in lots of light throughout.
What it didn’t have was a lot of furniture or the decorating expertise I’ve gathered all these years later. Don’t we always wish we’d known “then” what we know “now”.
Somehow, we’d inherited a used, ugly sofa sleeper that weighed a ton, and Bill made a large square table which held our tiny black & white television set. That was it for furniture in the living room. We laughed for years about that television, for it basically operated on a shoestring…literally. The TV would turn on and operated fine for a while…then the picture would start turning dark. Bill isolated the fuse or whatever in the back of the TV and attached a shoestring to it. When the picture started to turn dark, we’d pull the shoestring and wah-lah! The picture came back on! Years later, there would be televisions in several rooms of the house, but none that brought laughter like that one did. For $35, we’d purchased a used, hardrock maple round table and four captain chairs for the dining room…all in surprisingly excellent condition. Thankfully, I’d brought my new bedroom furniture from home.