When I first asked Greg how old he was, he told me 12. And he was going to stay that way. (He was 18) but he and I finally, after 7 years in earning our 4 year college degrees, were entering the world of teaching. All grown up but possibly in denial.
Our last year in college, we both were attending night classes, and student teaching full time at North Medford, Oregon High School. And so our hours at work for our minimum wage, fast food jobs were seriously cut back and we took out student loans to do that last year. Suddenly we were both hired to teach full time in the same district, by the coast in the redwoods. We figured we’d stay about five years and pay off the loans and see where we ended up.
But what a jump in income! From $4,500 dollars combined income for the year, we were hired at ten times that almost. $21,000 each plus an extra bonus of my teaching special education meant that each year for 5 years, 20% of my loans were forgiven and I never had to repay a cent.
So we went bird brained. Greg had wanted a blue and gold macaw ever since watch Dr. Doolittle as a child. I got him two cockatiels, but he still bought himself the macaw when we walked into a pet store with one and My brother Lance was along. I asked what its name was and the store owner said, “whatever its new owner names it” and Lance leaned forward and said, “hi Becky. Becky, Becky, Becky Bird.”
We had rented a two bedroom duplex and had only three aquariums for pets. But before long we had 12 large parrots screaming inside our living room. Fortunately our neighbor, Ruby never complained and was often gone overnight.
We both liked teaching, he was doing classroom music for kindergarten through 8th grade, and I was teaching severely handicapped, 3-7 year old students. Summer school was only 5 weeks and several times if I took my kids on a field trip he came along. Then we often drove over 3,000 miles both summer and Christmas break going back to Wyoming and looping the perimeter of the state to visit family in three corners.
My dad’s sister and her husband drove up from Anaheim, CA and my parents drove out from Wyoming. Through Utah, Idaho, and Oregon to us in CA. Both had about the same 1700 mile drive.
My Aunt Rachel walked in the door and looked at those birds and gasped, “you seriously need to have a baby. Talk about misplaced maternal instincts.”
