Once upon a time we were living near Camdenton, Missouri after I got out of the navy. During my last 6 months in service I took an armed forces course on TV repair and successfully completed it. It was my intention to start my own repair business when I left the navy. My last 3 months I could check in every morning for muster and then leave to go to a job at a TV shop on Coronado, California to gain more experience on TV repair.
There was a delay in plans once we got to Missouri, about 6 months. We had bought a property there and the property had several acres of land with a meager home and an old house made of rock and cement. It had once been a small home where the good old boys gathered to play poker once a week. The place had no bathroom, no water, no heating system. The old boys had a large fireplace also made of stone. One exceptionally cold winter night they stoked up the fireplace beyond reasonable capacity because the whiskey alone would not keep them warm. The fireplace was roaring to the point they were breaking sweat. The heat became so great that it lit the roof on fire. The roof was wooden boards and shingles and the blaze burned out a huge half circle around the fireplace which was never repaired. The wooden floors in the place slowly rotted away from all the rain and runoff water from what was left of the roof after the fire. There was only a small room on the side of the house and a room that was on the back.
I had been working at an auto parts store in town for several months when I finally got fed up with the place and left over an incident that occurred there. I decided it was time to start up my business. The old rock house was not big enough to live in, but plenty good enough to have my TV repair shop. I contacted a contractor to put flooring inside where the floors were gone, sheet rock on the walls and ceiling, repair the roof and run a water line and add a toilet. I was to assist him in every phase to save money. The plan seemed sound and the wheels were set in motion.
Our daughter was in school and Joyce went looking for a day job at the state employment office. There was nothing available in our small nearby town. The only thing the office had was a need for a TV repairman in a resort area about 12 miles away. I took that job and Joyce was left to work with the contractor. He was stunned, but she did a great job and he was pleased. One afternoon Joyce went down to the house to get some coffee and when she returned to the rock house the contractor was setting the toilet there. Joyce went inside the rock house and he said the toilet stool was just not setting right on the floor. Joyce said, "did you get the wax seal set correctly?" He looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. He left for lunch and came back with the seal and then things were right. As the work progressed, one day I was still working for the other TV shop there was a thunder snow came up (thunder snow is rain, snow and lightening at the same time and it comes with freezing temperatures) the contractor left and as he left he told Joyce that the sealing grout she had spread on the sheet rock needed to have heat enough on it to keep it from freezing.
I drove into the driveway after my work at the TV shop miles away and saw her hauling wood up to the rock house, through the rain and snow in a small radio flyer wagon we had. We were up all that night hauling wood to keep the rock house warm enough to keep it from freezing. Things just don't always work out according to plans.
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