Single Part 1

   
It took twelve years of marriage, seven years of college at night, and a new career to provide a comfortable lifestyle for me and my family. But just one selfish wife, two lawyers and an obstinate court to take it all away.

After the separation I rented a one-bedroom apartment in Lindenwold, NJ. I wanted to get some of my furnishings from the house and informed the police of my plan. They were at the house when I arrived with a rental truck. Arlene was not home and one of the boys let me in. I took my electronics, dart board, and a couple of lithographs and I was in the process of taking the guest bedroom furniture when Arlene came home.

The house had deadbolt locks. She locked all the doors and ran to the neighbor's house for help. The police were helping me get a mattress out of a window when I saw the neighbors unloading the truck and putting my things on their property. The police stopped that little caper but not before the tables and lamps had been taken off the truck. At that point the police suggested I should leave with what I had.

I took what I had to the apartment and decided it was going to take more than an angry wife to put an end to my ambition. I bought a water-damaged mattress at a JCPenney clearance sale to complete the bed and a small dropleaf table with two chairs for the kitchen. My next stop was K-Mart. I bought the cheapest dishes, silverware, utensils, pots and pans that I could find. I bought towels, sheets, an iron, ironing board, toaster oven and coffee maker.

I was searching the newspaper for some second-hand furniture when an ad for a pool table caught my eye. Suddenly, I thought I really didn't  need a living room. I spent more time at work than I did at home. I could watch TV in the bedroom.  And, with pool table and dart board I could have fun right at home. I bought the pool table. The seller delivered it,  helped me assemble it and got it  properly leveled.

Next I set up my electronics, hung up my dart board, my big New Yorker print, my antique car artwork, and fashioned a makeshift bar. I bought a cheap roll-up shade for the sliding glass doors and papered the wall with an antique car wallpaper. I replaced the ceiling light with a globe lamp to properly light the pool table.

Meanwhile, the boys had disappeared with their mother. I later found out that they had moved to Massena, NY but I did not know how to get in touch with them. Apparently, they were forbidden to contact me. Once when they called me at work, Arlene punished them by making them pay for the long-distance phone call with what little money they earned delivering newspapers in the frigid cold of Massena.

With no family and everything I treasured gone, I decided to look for some new friends. When Arlene and I met I was a dance champion at Brody's night club in Plattsburgh, NY. But during the twelve years of married life there had been no dancing. I wanted to dance again. There was a popular nightclub in Marlton that featured live bands and dancing. I decided to check it out and, one night while sipping a scotch at the bar, I spied a gal who was a terrific dancer.

She was a cute gal with a Dorthy Hammel hairdo that bounced with her dance moves. I asked her to dance and found out that her name was Barbara and she lived in Pine Hill, just a few minutes drive from Lindenwold. I don't remeber when or how but I asked her for a date. It was a great date and we danced the night away.

The night I picked Barbara up for our first date I learned she lived with her daughter who was a school teacher and had to get up early for work each morning. On our next date, I brought two roses; one for Barbara and one for her daughter whom we had awakened when we came home after midnight from our first date. They were impressed.

Since Barbara and I both loved dancing so much, we went to see the movie Saturday Night Fever. It inspired us to start disco dancinig. Barbara Matthews was a great dancer. She could spin, dip and do lifts. We develped some great dance moves and began going to the Disco night clubs. Soon we became a very popular couple wherever we went to dance.

But our relationship soon became more than dancing. Barbara was from Vermont and an avid skier. She took me to Ski Mountain in Pine Jill where I learned to ski. After I learned, we went away for a weekend of skiing and for the first time in three years life felt normal and was fun again. That year we joined the South Jersey Ski Club and skied Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey.

Although Barbara lived in Pine Hill, she had raised her son and daughter in Marlton and still had friends there. She introduced me to Sherry, who was divorced from Judge Hackermann and who's daughter was Miss New Jersey. I also met Dick and Betty Goodwin who owned the Marlton Golf and Country Club (Dick's father built Marlton) and Dick and Jennie Shultz who had been Barbara's neighbors in Marlton for many years.

Sherry was Barbara's "best friend" and began to join us when we went out dancing. Sherry was attractive, sophisticated and flirtatious and bounced from boyfriend to boyfriend. Lenora, a friend of Barbara's from Bromley, also began to join us when we went dancing. There were always suiters after Sherry and Lenora but my trio of ladies became affectionately known as Charlie's Angels among our night club friends.

The Goodwins and Schultzs were members of Barbara's Bridge Club. Eventually I began to join them as a sub but soon became a regular player. I was an excellent Pinnocle player so learning bridge came easy and her friends were patient and helpful. When it was my turn to host bridge, it was at Barbara's house. When the Goodwins hosted bridge, it was sometimes held at the Marlton Country Club.

During the week Barbara made dinner. We would set up her card table in the living room and watch the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers or play Backgammon. We always started dinner with our gin martinis and we liked to experiment with different garnishes from pickled tomatos to squid. After dinner I began staying overnight with Barbara and driving home to Lindenwold to get ready for work in the morning.

On Friday nights we headed for happy hour at Cenneli's. Cennelii's was a beautiful nightclub and gourmet Italian restaurant with a huge bar, roomy dance floor, and a seven-piece band. However, our favorite Italian restaurant was Momma Ventura's. Momma's dance floor was small and more intimate and at Momma's Barbara and I became well know among the regulars as Fred and Ginger.

Although Barbara was 13 years older than me, her small stature and youthful features did not reveal her age. She was actually "carded twice" during the years we dated; once entering a night club where we were not known and again on a ski trip with the ski club when we entered the bar at the lodge after skiing.

One winter the ski club planned to ski Whiteface Mountain at Lake Placid, NY. Massena was not far from Lake Placid so I contacted the boys to see if they would like to meet me there for a weekend of skiing. They seemed excited and agreed to the ski trip. Because the club would arrive late on Friday night, I arranged for the boys to stay at a family-run hotel. The owners assured me that my 15 and 16-year-old sons would be accomodated and be safe.

Arlene was livid that they had to miss school on Friday while traveling to Lake Placid and that they would be alone until I arrived late Friday night. She made Bob and Joe bring ALL of their belongings with them to Lake Placid, insisting that they must return with me. The ski club's bus was full so I had to make sure the boys could return to Massena safely. She tried to create a disastor out of what was a great weekend of skiing, dinning and spending valuable time with my two great sons.

Arlene was nasty, not just to me but she was nasty to her sons and her brother. One evening while working late at my office, I received a phone call from a lady who identified herself as "Bob's parole officer!" I was in shock and her explanation went something like this. One night Bob was late for dinner after delivering his newspapers. He  argued with his mother and left the house to go to his Uncle Keith's house. When Arlene found out that Bob was at her brother's house, she called the police telling them her brother "kidnapped" Bob and she wanted him arrested.

Her explanation wasn't clear as to why Bob was on parole but I decided to drive to Massena to find out what was going on. Barbara came with me for support but I didn't tell anyone she was with me. Arlene insisted I meet the boys in town. It was the middle of winter so our meeting was brie. The boys seemed fine but unwilling to talk about home so I did not pursue the "parole officer" bit with Bob.

When I planned the trip, I also arranged to meet with Keith. His side of the story was that Bob had argued with his mother, that Bob had been with him and that Arlene had tried to have him arrested. When I asked Keith about the eight rooms of furniture, he said he was told that I had taken all the furnishings from the house. I told him I took nothing.

Bob recently recounted the story saying that the entire parole officer story was fabricated. What he remembered was that Arlene wanted Keith arrested after he slammed a beer bottle down on the server during an argument leaving an imprint of the bottle in its soft pine top. The incident had sparked big trouble between Arlene and her brother so we surmised the call may have been from Keith's wife who was trying to get me involved in the chaos and commotion Arlene was causing in Massena with her brother. Apparently Keith had lied to me about the furniture she had.

It should have been no surprise, but the ink was barely dry on the divorce papers when Bob called early one morning, from the Massena Greyhound bus station, to tell me that he and Joe were leaving Massena for New York City and headed for New Jersey to live with me. They had only the money their grandfather gave them, no food, and no instructions on how to get to New Jersey. I told them to take the commuter bus from New York City to Mt. Laurel, New Jersey and I would meet them at the bus station.

Barbara and I arranged to pick them up in Mt. Laurel and take them out to dinner. Their next stop was my tiny Lindenwold apartment. I had one bedroom, no living room no furniture and a small drop-leaf table in the kitchen. There was no place for three people to sleep in my apartment. It may not have been the best decision, but while we lived at Lindenwwold, the boys slept at the apartment and I continued to stay over-night with Barbara.

By now Bob and Joe should have figured out that their mother stole not only my life but their lives as well. She stole all of our money including their college funds. She stole my pension, the house and all of its furnishings. She stole everything we owned. My lifestyle over the past three years had grown from one of survival to one I had struggled to rebuild and no one was taking my comfort away again.

 
Barbara was a Real Estate agent and the sales manager at Bromley Estates in Pine Hill, NJ where she lived. She knew of a condominium that was for rent. So, after several months of living in my tiny apartment, we moved to a nice two-bedroom, two bath home in Bromley Estates. I bought living room furniture and twin beds for the boys who shared one of the bedrooms. The condo had an eat-in kitchen so I set up the pool table in the dining room.

Bromley was good for the boys. There was an olympic-size swimming pool and two tennis courts. They had girlfriends and made many friends who lived at Bromley. I was not a fan of Bob's late-night Dungeons and Dragons games but the pool table was a big hit and many of their friends spent a lot of time at our house.

Pine Hill was mostly small houses that, in earlier days, had been summer homes for wealthy Philadelphians who were seeking a cooler location from the city during the summer. Today, Pine Hill is best known for its exclusive Pine Valley Golf Club. Pine Valley is often ranked the number one course in Golf Magazine's 100 Top Courses in the U.S. and the World. It is a private club and non-members can play only if accompanied by a member. The wait for a membership can seem endless.

Pine Hill was once known for Ski Mountain where I learned to ski. Ski Mountain was actually more of a "hill" than a mountain but it was a great place to learn or to practice. Today, Ski Mountain has become the Trump National Golf Course of Philadelphia. Pine Hill is next to Clemonton, NJ, once the location of Clementon Lake Amusement Park where the boys and their friends spent many summer days. Today, Clemonton Lake is a splash park.

For me, Pine Hill became a different story. Barbara liked making dinner for the four of us but the boys were not keen on our relationship and resisted. Bob liked to cook and would sometimes make dinner. Then, just before Thanksgiving in 1982, JCPenney announced to me that they were no longer going to sell major appliances, TVs and gas engine products and that they would be closing all product service centers and automotive service centers on April 1, 1983.

I was to announce the closures to my 60 employees in January and begin helping them write resumes and find new jobs. GE would take over appliance repairs, RCA would take over home electronic repairs and independent contractors would provide service for tractors and lawnmowers. I would be responsible for liquidating all the assets of the Camden product service center and then I was out of a job.

Christmas came and went and the January announcement was devastating. By April, though, my technical supervisors found jobs with RCA and GE. My technicians and staff found jobs with GE and American Appliances. And I had an offer in service management from Montgomery Ward in South Carolina. However, Bob was a senior in high school and wanted to graduate with his friends. I promised him we would not move.

However, my path from boss to employee was rocky and unsuccessful. I applied for service manager at a major fuel oil company but the owner felt I had to know how to fix boilers in order to manage his service business. I applied for service manager at an large office machine retailer but the owner said I was over-qualified. I applied for manager at an ITT Technical Institute but came in in second place because my background did not include any formal classroom teaching.

I had several failures at "sales' and finally took my friends' advise and went to Real Estate school. I completed training at Fox & Lazo school and I was given a position as an agent at Fox & Lazo Realty in Haddonfield, NJ. I soon discovered that with all of my friends in Real Estate I had no "center of influence" and earned just $8,000 my first year.

Since the boys were living with me, I quit paying child support. However, that's not how court orders work and I legally became "a deadbeat dad." I learned that I had to get the order "reversed" before I could quit paying the support. So, I went to court. I didn't hire a lawyer because Judge Ferrelli would know the case, the boys live with me so end the child support. However, that's not how our legal system works either.

Judge Ferrelli, who I expected to see on the bench, had gone on vacation to Italy and Judge Gaddos took the case. I explained that my sons now lived with me and I wanted the child support order reversed. He banged his gavel and told me about the responsibilities of bringing "babies into this world." Once again, I tried to explain that my sons were in high school, not babies, and they lived with me. He refused to listen and held me in contempt of court!

I had a friend who said he golfed with Judge Gaddos. He and his lawyer golfed every weekend with Gaddos so I should hire his lawyer. I hired the lawyer and paid his $500 ($1,595 today) retainer. We appeared before Judge Gaddos on the scheduled court date and Gaddos and my "lawyer" proceeded to put on an academy-award-winning performance of lawyer vs judge.

Judge Gaddos' decision was that I must continue to pay child support because "I looked prosperous." I asked my lawyer what I got for my $500. He said the child support would go into an escrow account and "You're leaving the courthouse with me instead of the sheriff!". To this day I have no idea what happened to all of that "escrow money" I paid but hopefully it went to Joe toward his community college tuition.

I continued to see Barbara although the changes in my life had put a strain on our relationship. I started a torrid love affair with a Real Estate client named Margie. After finding her a nice row house in Fairview near Camden, she moved from a highrise condo near the waterfront and I began seeing her whenever I was not working or on Real Estate business. She was a very sexy redhead and I was so hooked on her that I even tolerated her snotty two-year-old son.

With Real Estate barely meeting my expenses, I switched to selling mortgages. I thought I could get all of my Real Estate friends to use Crestmont Federal Savings & Loan for their clients' mortgages. However, Crestmont was not popular among them and I soon found out Crestmont simply turned down too many of the agents' clients for me to be successful.

Meanwhile, my former employees were after me to become the service manager at American Appliances. I had avoided this opportunity because American Appliances had a very bad reputation in customer service. However, the desire to once again have a decent, steady income won me over. When Bob graduated high school, I gave him a job shuttling merchandise between the American Appliance stores and product service.

My dicorce was finally settled. The house sold at auction for $92,000. I got $1,700 and gave to the boys. Bob bought a vintage car and Joe bought a red motorcycle. The balance paid for their auto insurance. Joe graduated the year after Bob and, after ignoring the boys for two years, their mother showed up at Joe's graduation like nothing had ever happened. Bob moved in with his girlfriend and her parents. Joe moved back with his mother for the community college tuition benefits.

At some point I bought a Commodore 64 computer with a hard drive and a printer and began programming in DOS. I wrote a program for mortgage sales, one for motels and hotels and one for a law firm and sold two out of the three. Now that the nest was empty, I was contemplating a career in programming.

 
My prosperous days in management had come to an unexpected end and here I was at age 42 and starting over. With little chance of getting back into management, I got a Real Estate license and found a job at the Haddonfield office of Fox & Lazo Realty on Tanner St in downtown Haddonfield.

In January of 1984 I was on floor duty at Fox & Lazo when a lady walked in lookung to buy a Haddonfield home. Joyce Grey was recently divorced. She and her ex-husband both grew up in Haddonfield and their parents still lived in town. She wanted to live in Haddonfield so the grandparents could take care of her 8 and 10-year-old daughters while she worked.

Haddonfield is a pricey area and we spent a couple of weeks looking at properties in and around town but there was nothing available in her price range. I did find a lovely two-bedroom apartment for rent that was located above a local restaurant. It was right on Tanner St. and almost within walking distance of where she worked. She loved the apartment and signed the lease.

After Joyce was settled into her apartment, she began to visit me at the office and would bring me lunch or baked goods. Joyce was petite and attractive so I got a lot of attention from my associates over her attention to me. To reciprocate her kindness, I began taking her out to lunch. It wasn't long before we took her daughters with us for lunch when they not in school.

Soon Joyce and I began to date on a regular basis. We enjoyed dining out and dancing together. Her daughters liked me a lot and we began to feel like a family when we were together. One evening, Joyce invited me to dinner at her apartment and after dinner her daughters asked if I could stay the night. I was slightly embarrassed but to my surprise, and glee, Joyce answered that it would be nice if I stayed.

That night was the beginning of a wonderful, happy relationship. Joyce began to celebrate every Friday the 13th as an "anniversary" because the day she found the apartment on Tanner Street I had taken her to T.G.I. Friday for happy hour to celebrate and it was on Friday the 13th.

Joyce's parents liked me and we celebrated the holidays at their house. After about two years of dating, we began talking about marriage but not going so far as to make a formal announcement. Then, when a great twin house showed up for sale on Ellis Street in Haddonfield, we bought the house. This was the first time since my divorce that I ever considered actually living with someone.

Joyce and her ex-husband had an unusually amicable divorce. They split everything down the middle and divorced without going broke by hiring lawyers. He arrived at our house every other Saturday from his home in Poughkeepsie, NY to spend the weekend with his daughters. He never failed to give Joyce a check on every visit and he and I always had an amicable conversation over coffee while Joyce helped the girls pack for their weekend.

Occasionally, Joyce and I drove the girls to Poughkeepsie for the weekend instead of him driving to Haddonfield. It was a chance for her to visit old friends and for us to have a get-away weekend. Sometimes we doubled dated on Saturday night with her ex-husband and his girlfriend.

Real Estate was not financially successful for me and I had switched to selling mortgages. It was still necessary for me to supplement my meager income by writing PC software. I managed to sell a program to Fox & Lazo Mortgage Company and one to the law firm where Joyce worked. I was actively searching for a job as a programmer but before I succeeded tragedy and heartbreak reared their ugly heads.

It was the Ides of March 1988 and I was watching the girls while Joyce was working overtime. I began to realize that Joyce was working more and more overtime when I learned that the "overtime" was actually a wealthy local businessman who was courting Joyce. When I found out about her affair, I learned from neighbors that the affair had been the "talk of the town."

I was devestated and completely surprised. Joyce saw my heartbreak and tried to explain that she had to think of her future and that of her daughters. Her new suitor was married but he owned a bakery/luncheonette in town, one of those big Haddonfield Victorian houses and his own airplane. On the other hand, I struggled financially and drove a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron with 143,000 miles on it.

Never in my entire life had I been so despondent. I had to move out of the house. Joyce paid me back for my half of the house but I missed her and the girls a lot. Those two girls had become like daughters to me. I began to write a daily journal to handle my frustration. The only thing that kept me from hitting rock bottom was a new job offer as a computer programmer.

 
After my breakup with Joyce in April of 1988, I moved to a 2nd floor furnished apartment in Blackwood, NJ close to my new job at Business Operating Systems & Software (BOSS).

The apartment was really quite nice for a two-room efficiency. The bedroom was nicely decorated with a cherry poster bed and matching dresser. The living room had a small sofa and overstuffed chair, end tables and lamps. I decorated it nicely with the furnishings I brought from Haddonfield.

The kitchen and living room were one large area but the sink and stove were behind folding doors, closet style. This was a nice feature for an efficiency. In the kitchen area a small table sat next to a window that looked out over a lovely back yard with some large trees. Squirrels would sometimes sit on the sill outside the window.

Joyce and I settled amicably and she paid me back all the money I had invested into buying the house. I missed her and the kids terribly but my new job as a computer programmer helped to eleiminate the sorrow. I commiserated with a co-worker Sandy Marmon. Sandy and I both started working at BOSS on the same day. She was recently divorced, with Judge Gaddos ruling on her case, and we were assigned to the same project at BOSS. Working together we became very close friends.

Sandy had graduated Cum Laud with a degree in computer science. She left BOSS to program in Cobalt at Cigna. Four years later, Sandy and I found ourselves working in downtown Philadelphia. Cigna had transferred her to their offices in Liberty Place at 16th and Chestnut Street and I was working at Lightship Corp on Chestmut Street. We rekindled our friendship often going to lunch together over the next 15 years until I retired.

Sandy was 12 years my junior so she never wanted a romantic relationship but we "dated." We went out to dinner, the movies or to shoot pool. Sometimes I came to her house on Saturdays, helped her with her two young sons and with mowing her big yard. Her daughter also lived at home but she was older and self sufficient.

In June I met Marcia at a nightclub. Marcia was 13 years my junior but we did begin a romantic relationship after dating for awhile. Marcia lived near Marlton and had a double-wide mobile home. She had two tiny dogs who were getting very old. After we had to put her little fur babies down, she adopted a beautiful greyhound from a greyhound rescue center. It was a magnificent dog and the only "big" dog I would ever consider owning.

Marcia and I dated for four years. She was Jewish and I experienced my first Passover Dinner with her and her family. The years dating Marcia were the first years of my life that I had my Christmas shopping done before Christmas. When we went shopping for Hanukkah gifts, I also bought my Christmas gifts. Shortly after I moved to Jericho Manor on June 29, 1992 she ended our relationship.

 
My life in Haddonfield was a distant memory now. I was working 9 to 5 as a computer programmer at Business Operating Systems and Software (BOSS) in Blackwood, NJ and no longer had to do side jobs to survive.

It was an entry level position with entry level pay but I enjoyed programming and developing new software. However, after more than three years I was still at a low salary, earning only 1/3 the salary of the boss's son, by comparison.

Although I started programming at an entry level position and entry level pay, I now had over three years experience. In those three years I had created advanced new inventory and GL software that became part of the proprietary software that BOSS was selling, I had also established four new clients and taken over two clients from employees who left the company. However, I was still earning only 1/3 the salary of the owner's son. The company denied giving me a raise but then hired a new employee giving him my newest client. I found better pay and left the company.

My new job was with Larmon Photo in Abington, PA. The president of Larmon Photo had created Computyme software that provided inventory control, receivables, payroll, point-of-sale, and much more to the photo industry. Larmon ran both PICK and PRIME operating systems. These two systems were very much alike but the PRIME system was used exclusively for the Abington Township Police Department who used Larmon Photo's computers.

Abington, PA was a one-hour commute from Blackwood, NJ. After 14 months of commuting, I moved to Pennsylvania. I had noticed an intriguing apartment complex of brick buildings in a wooded area that was practically within walking distance of Larmon Photo. It was known as Jericho Manor and, although the apartments were old, Jericho was a beautiful place. I rented an apartment and moved to Jericho on June 29, 1992.

Since my apartment in Blackwood was furnished, I had to buy new furniture for Jericho. I bought a new living room sofa and two chairs. The bedroom set I bought was cherry, similar to what I had in Blackwood. There was no closet in the bedroom so I bought an armoire that I assembled and I bought a used chest of drawers. I also bought a used dinning room set from a Jericho neighbor and recushioned the chairs.

Marcia helped me choose Jericho Manor but then became very obstinate for some unknown reason. More than once, when I called for a date, she told me that now that I lived in Pennsylvania I should find someone to date in Pennsylvania. I didn't understand what had happened to our relationship. Marriage had never been mentioned in our relationship but, in hindsight, Marcia was independent and not the type who would bring it up. She would have expected any mention of marriage to come from me.

With no one to date I found a friendly little bar in the neighboring town of Jenkintown and began going there to shoot pool. I made many friends there and that Christmas I celebrated the holiday by giving gifts to all the regulars I knew. I never felt so appreciated.

In the spring I heard about a night club in Blue Bell, PA known as the Blue Bell Inn. They had "singles night" every Tuesday with music and dancing. I found the Blue Bell Inn and the first Tuesday night I was there I struck up a conversation with a lady sitting next to me at the bar. I asked her to dance. She said she didn't dance but her friend Betty was a good dancer and she introduced me to Betty.

Betty and I hit it off immediately. She was a good dancer and we began dating and on a regular basis in a short time. Almost every Friday and Saturday night we went out to dinner. Everyone at the Blue Bell Inn knew us because we often ended up there to dance after dinner on Friday and Saturday nights.

I always stayed overnight with Betty on Friday and Saturday often spending Saturday working around her yard. She had a lovely home in Layfayette Hills and a beautiful cat named Muffy. Her daughter, grand daughter and son-in-law lived just minutes away so we saw them quite often and always celbrated holidays at their house.

I was with Betty when I adopted my precious cat Brandy. It was October 1994 and someone found a tiny kitten by the roadside. I adopted the adorable little kitten and named her Brandy. She loved sitting in the window sill and watching the birds in the tree.

Betty always sent me home on Sunday night. But after seven years I wanted more than a Saturday to Sunday relationship. I wanted a night watching TV together, or going to a movie, or an occasional Tuesday night at the Blue Bell or, at least a phone call. But she declined. From Sunday night until the next Friday night it wss as if we were strangers.

Meanwhile, my job was in jeopardy. The photo industry was changing as digital appeared on the scene. I was low man on the totem pole and when I began to hear the word "layoff," I decided I should try to find a more secure job. My opportunity came with Lightship Corporation in center city Philadelphia.

Lightship was running PRIME software and in the business of buying past due receivables at pennies on a dollar and then collecting the total debt. I had a bright office on the 16th floor of an office building on Chestnut Street in downtown Philadelphia. But I did not find the security I was looking for. It may have been less than a year when I began to hear rumors that Lightship might go out of business.

Just in time an ad appeared in the newspaper. The Philadelphia Housing Authority was looking for a PICK programmer. By now I had five years of experience in PICK and PRIME and could write software that would do anything; payroll, general ledger, inventory, receivables or payables. I applied at the Housing Authority and got the job.

Working for the city of Philadelphia, though, I had to agree to live in the city. I managed to avoid moving for almost two years before they gave me a mandate to move or lose my job. I chose to move to Chestnut Hill. It was within the city but Chestnut Hill had prestiege.

 
In June of 1995 I moved to Chestnut Hill. It was a requirement by the Housing Authority to live in the city of Philadelphia. Chestnut Hill is an upscale community north of the city and known for its unique boutiques, inviting restaurants, historic homes, and the Woodmere Art Museum.

I found a roomy, comfortable, one bedroom, first-floor apartment in Chestnut Hill Village with a view of a grassy courtyard from the living room and dinning room windows. The living room was large enough for my sofa and chairs, an upright entertainment center and a small but a efficient but compact office.

The bedroom was large enough for my poster bedroom set and I decorated the dining room with bookcases, artwork, memorabilia, and a pewter "candle-burning" chandelier. The kitchen had a "pass-through" to the dinning room and was big enough for my drop-leaf table. The apartment had a handy walk-in storage closet in the hallway and a small dressing table and mirror outside the bathroom.

When I lived in Abington and began working for Lightship, I had a 10-minute drive to the train station. But Chestnut Hill had two SEPTA stations. One was a city block from my apartment. The other was in town and the end of the line but it was also within walking distance. For the 6 years between my time at Lightship and living in Chestnut Hill, I took the SEPTA train to center city Philadelphai and read the Philadelphi Inquirer.

For a while my son Joe came to live with me. He had changed jobs and was working for the EPA in Philadelphia. Joe had a long drive from Brigantine, NJ where he was living just outside of Atlantic City. He needed something closer to work until he could find a place of his own. They were great days for me. We took the train into Philadelphia together and it was a lot of fun having Joe as a roommate. Too soon, for me though, Joe found a nice apartment and moved away.

Chestnut Hill borders Wissahicken Valley Park and, if you know the route, you can drive through Wissahicken Park and Fairmount Park into center city Philadelphia. The scenes in Wissahicken Park and along Wissahickon Creek are popular subjects for artists and photographers.

Another popular subject in Wissahicken Park is the historic Valley Green Inn. The inn was built in 1850 by Edward Rinker and was originally called Edward Rinker’s Temperance Tavern. The Valley Green Inn is located on Valley Green Road, a gravelly path that skirts the gurgling creek.

While at Chestnut Hill Village, I bought another new Mitsubishi Gallant but someone stole all 4 wheels. Except for that, life was great at CHV. Brandy and I lived there for three years before I decided to buy a house in Philadelphia and moved to Fairmount.

 
Now that I had steady employment and a good salary, I wanted to have my own home. A friend suggested I invest in a triplex in the desirable Art Museum Area of Philadelphia. Officially the area is known as Fairmount. It is an old established neighborhood named for the hill upon which the majestic Art Museum stands. Most of the homes are row houses that were built in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

In October 1998 I bought a great triplex at the corner of 27th and Brown Streets in Fairmount. Fairmount is known for its nearby museums, chic restaurants and sidewalk cafes. It borders Fairmount Park where the Schuylkill River winds its way past the Art Museum, the Fairmount Waterworks and Boathouse Row.

With a corner building, all of the apartments had windows on three sides making them bright and cheery. Every apartment had an eat-in kitchens with dishwashers and garbage disposals. And, every apartment had overhead fans in the bedrooms and living rooms. I eventually installed a 6,000 BTU air conditioner in every bedroom and living room.

Tenants were responsible for their own gas and electricity but with hot water oil heat, the heat was included. The corner building also had a basement with windows, storage closets and a washer and dryer that was available to my tenants.

I took the first-floor apartment for myself because it was a one-bedroom apartment and it also needed a lot of work. The 10-foot living room ceiling was stained so I repainted it using popcorn paint. The windows and frames were in bad shape so I resurfaced the frames and repaired the windows. It was a lot of work but I ended up with a beautiful living room.

The best feature of the first-floor apartment was its huge eat-in kitchen. I hung a magnificent leaded glass chandelier and used my dining room table from Jericho Manor. Later I painted the kitchen in two shades of green and bought a glass and wrought iron table set. All of the apartments had beautiful glass-front wood cabinets in the kitchen but the first-floor had lots of work space with an attractive row of cabinets along the wall opposite the sink and stove.

The first-floor bedroom was small but I managed to get my bed, dresser, armoire, chest of drawers, and desk, into the room. There was also a built-in closet in the bedroom hallway. Later I eliminated the armoire and installed two mirrored closets along the south wall and put storage cabinets above them. I moved the desk into the living room and . The original bathroom was horrible, but my son Robert retiled the bathroom, replaced the floor, tub, sink, toilet, and the fixtures. The remodeled bathroom was beautiful.

Another nice feature of the first floor was its partially covered, cement patio off the kitchen and the patio had an exit out to 27th Street. The 2nd floor apartment had a balcony off the living room. It was a one-bedroom with a den or could be used as a two bedroom apartment.

The 3rd floor apartment was the nicest and the largest apartment. The entrance was across the hall from the 2nd floor entrance with the steps to the apartment inside the apartment. There were two separate bedrooms and the living room had a great view of the city from a large window at the back of the building.

There was a down side to having a corner building though; shoveling snow. There was not only the front walk to shovel but also the sidewalk running the length of the building along 27th Street. I had the best tenants ever. In the 17 years I owned the building, I had just two tenants occupy the third floor, three tenants occupy the second floor and one tenant who moved into the first-floor when I moved out.

In January of 2002 I bought my second Brown Street triplex. It was just one door down so the location was perfect. The price was good but the property needed a new roof, chimney repairs and new windows in every room.

All of the middle rowhouses have a narrow alley between them that is not visible from the street. It allows windows for every room. The apartments in this building were larger but the kitchen stoves were apartment size and they did not have dishwashers.

Gas and electric were the tenants' responsibility and this building also had hot water oil heat so the heat was included. However, the basements in the middle buildings are not useful. With just two tiny windows in the front, they are dark and tend to be damp. I let the tenants in this building use the laundry in my other building with access to the basement through the outside entrance on 27th Street.

The first floor apartment was one bedroom but had a much different layout than mine. The living room was in the front and the bedroom in the middle. The first-floor kitchen was behind the bedroom and the bathroom was behind the kitchen located next to a "mud room" that lead outside to the back yard. The back yard was grass with a large brick patio,

The second and third floor apartments were both two-bedrooms with beautiful hardwood floors. The second-floor had a large eat-in kitchen in the back with a full size refrigerator. However, the third-floor stairway was narrow and limited what size furniture could be taken up to the apartment. Althought the third floor had an eat-in kitchen, only an apartment size refrigerator would fit up the stairs.

I owned 2 Mitsubishi Diamantes and a Cadillac Seville while I lived in Philadelphia. The house between my two properties remained a single-family home where two brothers lived with their elderly mother. I sold the middle building in June 2009 and the corner building in 2015.