A Life in Four Colors Part Fifty-Four

There are few things more glorious than the early months of a loving marriage.

Susan and I had drawn up our budget under the assumption that I would only be able to work about 10 to 15 hours a week. I was determined to do better, and I lucked into the perfect situation just a couple of months after we got married.

The House of 10,000 Picture Frames had opened a franchise location in Rome, run by Mr. & Mrs. Peacock, who had set up the shop in an old Buy-Wise location in West Rome (they would later move it to a former roller-skating rink also in West Rome). I was one of four part-time employees working at the shop in August of 1971; I was the only part-time staffer who was still working for them in 1975, when I had to quit because I was beginning my student teaching and Berry College didn't allow student teachers to work at any other job.

Working at the frame shop turned out to be the best part-time job I could have hoped for. I was a quick learner and became quite adept at cutting mats, cutting glass, assembling custom frames, building shadowboxes, stretching needlework, running a dry-mount press, and doing all the other miscellaneous jobs that go along with framing. And since Susan and I lived in Cedartown, I was more than willing to run deliveries to Cedartown customers on my way home from work, which gave the shop an edge that no other Rome frame shop had. That was actually my idea; I saw that we had a few Cedartown customers, and I mentioned to the shop owners that it could be an extra service we could offer. Not only did it make existing customers happy, but it brought us new business as those customers told their friends.

Since custom framing isn't a "while you wait" service, the Peacocks were more than willing to let me work around my class schedule. As I had done during my summer enrichment program experience at Berry, I scheduled my classes in a morning block as much as possible. Susan had to leave the house at 7:15 every morning for her job in the payroll department at Arrow Shirts; since I was getting up to make breakfast for her anyway (something I did every morning of our marriage, except when I was sick or recovering from heart surgery), I would begin with a 7:50 class (for some reason, Berry's classes didn't start on the hour). Most days, my last class would end by 12:40 or so at the latest, and I could begin work at 1pm. Sometimes I had Monday-Wednesday-Friday courses at the end of my class block, which meant that I could get out before noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Peacocks were more than glad to let me come in early on those days.  The shop was also open a half-day on Saturdays, and I took those shifts whenever I could.

So rather than working 10 or 15 hours a week, I was working 20 to 25 hours a week (and during the holiday season, I worked 30 to 36 hours a week). That meant that our budget was less stressed than we had initially imagined... and that meant more money for comic books, paperbacks, hardcovers, record albums, and (best of all) regular trips to Cumberland Mall in Marietta.

By the fall of 1971, Susan and I had increased our budget to allow for $15 a week for savings; $10 a week for books, comics, and music; and $10 a week for our trips to Cumberland. Savings came first, then books.comics, and music, then Cumberland--but if we spent less on our entertainment budget, we would roll that into our Cumberland budget.

As far as we were concerned, Cumberland was a shopping mecca. Having grown up in Rome and Cedartown, we had very little exposure to the sort of chain stores that were prevalent at Cumberland. We also had rarely shopped at (or even visited) Rich's or Davison's, both of which had huge stores at Cumberland.  (Alas, both chains were eventually acquired by Macy's, which stripped them of most of the variety and character that defined each store.)

Getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself. I-75 was not completed at that time, so we made the entire drive on 411 to Cartersville, then on 41 to Cumberland. Highway 41 is rather hilly between Cartersville and Marietta, and we usually made the trip in our 1964 Volkswagen with its 40 horsepower engine (some claimed that the engine couldd generate as much as 44 horsepower, but I doubt it), which meant that we had to get up as much speed as possible on the downhill runs in order to top the next hill at something approaching 35 miles per hour. With that old VW, getting to Cumberland was an adventure in itself, but that soon became part of the fun.

Cumberland had everything we could hope for: bookstores, record stores, clothing stores (Susan loved buying clothes at Cumberland--I was happy buying my clothes wherever they were on sale), home decor stores, and so much more. We would get up early on a Saturday so that we could get to Cumberland as close to the 10:00 am opening as possible. Susan and I (and sometimes Sven Ahlstrom and/or Gary Steele, who would occasionally make the trip with us) would spend hours walking around Cumberland, just window shopping and daydreaming of a time when we could afford to buy everything we saw there. (I saw my "dream stereo system" at Rich's in 1971: a Marantz stereo amplifier and Bose 901 speakers on a tulip-base stand. It would be 2016 before I would actually acquire the now-vintage amplifier and speakers that I had admired at Rich's forty-five years earlier.)

Susan loved to shop for clothes; having grown up in a very poor household, she thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of buying quality clothing. She would usually buy at least one article of clothing on every Cumberland trip, but she would try on things that she knew we couldn't afford just because she loved to try them on and see how they looked.

Quite unlike the stereotypical bored husband waiting for the shopping excursion to end, I actually enjoyed accompanying Susan as she shopped for clothes. I loved being with her as she tried on things, seeing the enthusiastic joy on her face as she came out the dressing room to show me clothes was considering as well as clothes that she hoped to someday afford. I enjoyed helping her to pick out clothes, and I was always happy when she liked something that I had suggested. Whether it was clothes that Susan had selected or clothes that I had suggested, I liked to see Susan in those clothes; there is a sort of intimacy in shopping together for something as personal as clothes, and in seeing the woman you love in clothes that both flatter her and bring her happiness.

Thankfully, Susan took our budget very seriously, because it was impossible for me to tell her "no" when she found something that she really wanted. We never had a "your money and my money" marriage: every penny we had was our money.  Ultimately, our relationship wasn't built on either of us telling the other "no." We were equals, and we treated each other as equals. We would discuss costs and budgets, but we trusted one another to make wise choices--that's the way our married life worked, and it never changed.