THE AMBASSADOR

 It is funny, but we seemed to have more resources available to us now. John’s new job was higher paying that his old one had been. My work at Penn had been well paying and we had managed to save some money. This was so different from our first two years in Philadelphia. We were used to being house poor. We had really stretched, read that, no discretionary income, to buy our house. We could not even buy a lawnmower for our new yard and were using a push mower we had from our city home to mow three quarters of an acre, not good. John’s brother finally came to our rescue with his old mower.

As I was saying, there was now a bit of discretionary income and life seemed to smooth out somewhat. I was able to redecorate the living room and dining room. We bought a color TV and a used second- hand car. Our old car had not been registered in Pennsylvania yet, because we had no money to pay the transfer taxes.  And its transmission was slipping. On one particularly low night, I was trying to visit friends and the car was parked nose in. I could not get the car into reverse and ended up having to be towed-our insurance paid for that-- and have the transmission replaced. I also got a whopping $196 dollar ticket for driving with an out of state registration. I was never so glad to see a car go. While it had been a very inexpensive used Ambassador, (kind of like a Mercedes, only different, was how John's friend who sold it to us liked to say), it had served us well for several years. It seemed to me a vehicle of so many long trips back and forth to Baltimore and Washington coupled with memories.

When we go rid of that car, a weight seemed to shift and we moved into another phase of living. We even got a used Volvo, which at the time was the suburban matron's go to vehicle if you wanted to look prosperous. We did but we were not.