Living in Luxury
11/01/12 04:39
We began our married life in a stately sandstone manor. You entered by climbing a few steps to the grand front door and once inside, you went up a few more steps into the great room with its dark wooden beams and massive fireplace. There were ten bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor. The daylight basement had another large gathering room as well as many smaller rooms for storage and other purposes.
Upkeep was a bit of a challenge, with a dozen toilets to clean and long, carpeted hallways to vacuum. There were plenty of balustrades and a large mantle to gather dust and windows upon windows to wash. Still, the luxury of space was impressive for a newlywed couple in their early twenties.
It was all quite grand even though our portion of the space was a tiny three-room apartment tucked into one corner of the building. We had a kitchen, a bathroom and an everything else room. We slept on a hide-a-bed sofa that had to be folded in order to open the door to our apartment.
But we did have the responsibility of cleaning the rest of the building and caring for the boiler which was at best quirky and at worst downright frustrating. It was a steam system and air would get trapped in the pipes so that I had to go through the entire building room by room bleeding air out of each radiator. I had to be careful, because the steam was hot enough to burn my hands. There were some tricky balancing acts involved in reaching light bulbs when they burned out. The windows leaked cold air and there were all of those toilets to clean.
The building had been constructed as a college dormitory but its current use was as the Montana Interchurch Center. It housed the conference offices of the United Church of Christ, the United Methodists and a newly formed congregation of the Presbyterian Church as well as the offices of the Montana Council of Churches. The dorm rooms upstairs were used to house traveling church members who were in town for meetings, so we also had bedding to change and laundry to do.
But there were times when the building was empty at night and we would make a fire in the fireplace and invite a few friends over for an evening of visiting. Besides we were young and in love and a hide-a-bed was just fine. We were both full-time students and there were plenty of papers to type and classes to attend. Living right on campus meant that we only had to use the car to get groceries and for the 50-mile trip to the church where I served as supply pastor each Sunday. Some weeks there was a second trip and occasionally a third trip for a funeral or church meeting.
Trading janitorial services for rent made the place affordable.
We celebrated our second anniversary at our summer place, high up the Boulder Valley. We had a log cabin with a balcony and access to a huge dining hall, a chapel and a lodge with fireplaces and guest cabins to accommodate at least 150. Of course in exchange for all this luxury, we had to do all of the maintenance, including caring for a shower house, cut and split firewood, purchase and haul groceries and cook for the groups – often three meals a day for groups of more than 100 persons. And we had to stay on top of negotiations with the forest service and live in a place that was, at the time, still 23 miles of dirt road from the nearest telephone and 44 miles from the hospital emergency room. We are NOT talking about 50 mile an hour roads, either. An hour and a half was a quick one-way-trip to town. On the other hand, we were furnished with a vehicle that matched the place: a 1951 Ford F-100 2-wheel-drive pickup with a flat-head V8 that had been overhauled by a minister (no kidding) and burned oil like he might not have actually put new rings into it. As a result it was a bit short on power, so when we were hauling firewood the granny gear was in order.
When you are living in Chicago, a summer job as caretaker of a church camp in the wilds of Montana is a treat. And the bear scratches on the car gave us stories to tell in Chicago.
So we started our marriage with many luxuries, not that we have suffered since.
After five years of marriage, and nine different homes, we were ready to settle down a bit. Our first call out of seminary was to a parish in southwestern North Dakota where we were given use of a Parsonage as part of our compensation. It was a beautiful three-bedroom home with a partially furnished basement and a one-car garage. We moved in, which wasn’t much of a problem because the only furniture we owned at the time was a desk. Some of the members of the church stopped by to welcome us and assumed that our things hadn’t arrived yet. They came back a few weeks later and found out the truth. We had gotten a bed and a washer and a dryer and a kitchen table with four chairs by that time. I made concrete block and board shelves in the living room for our stereo and books.
The place had brand-new carpet. What luxury. Of course we had to buy a vacuum cleaner out of our first paycheck. I made a deal with the church when I realized I would also need a lawn mower. The church bought the mower and I mowed the church lawn for the next seven years. I also shoveled the church walks for the duration.
The years have gone by and somewhere along the line we acquired furniture. There are others whose homes are bigger and whose furniture is more expensive, but from my point of view we’ve always lived with great luxury. Since that first day in the tiny apartment in the big old sandstone house we’ve had enough love to fill up our home and extra to share.
Life is good here in the lap of luxury.
Upkeep was a bit of a challenge, with a dozen toilets to clean and long, carpeted hallways to vacuum. There were plenty of balustrades and a large mantle to gather dust and windows upon windows to wash. Still, the luxury of space was impressive for a newlywed couple in their early twenties.
It was all quite grand even though our portion of the space was a tiny three-room apartment tucked into one corner of the building. We had a kitchen, a bathroom and an everything else room. We slept on a hide-a-bed sofa that had to be folded in order to open the door to our apartment.
But we did have the responsibility of cleaning the rest of the building and caring for the boiler which was at best quirky and at worst downright frustrating. It was a steam system and air would get trapped in the pipes so that I had to go through the entire building room by room bleeding air out of each radiator. I had to be careful, because the steam was hot enough to burn my hands. There were some tricky balancing acts involved in reaching light bulbs when they burned out. The windows leaked cold air and there were all of those toilets to clean.
The building had been constructed as a college dormitory but its current use was as the Montana Interchurch Center. It housed the conference offices of the United Church of Christ, the United Methodists and a newly formed congregation of the Presbyterian Church as well as the offices of the Montana Council of Churches. The dorm rooms upstairs were used to house traveling church members who were in town for meetings, so we also had bedding to change and laundry to do.
But there were times when the building was empty at night and we would make a fire in the fireplace and invite a few friends over for an evening of visiting. Besides we were young and in love and a hide-a-bed was just fine. We were both full-time students and there were plenty of papers to type and classes to attend. Living right on campus meant that we only had to use the car to get groceries and for the 50-mile trip to the church where I served as supply pastor each Sunday. Some weeks there was a second trip and occasionally a third trip for a funeral or church meeting.
Trading janitorial services for rent made the place affordable.
We celebrated our second anniversary at our summer place, high up the Boulder Valley. We had a log cabin with a balcony and access to a huge dining hall, a chapel and a lodge with fireplaces and guest cabins to accommodate at least 150. Of course in exchange for all this luxury, we had to do all of the maintenance, including caring for a shower house, cut and split firewood, purchase and haul groceries and cook for the groups – often three meals a day for groups of more than 100 persons. And we had to stay on top of negotiations with the forest service and live in a place that was, at the time, still 23 miles of dirt road from the nearest telephone and 44 miles from the hospital emergency room. We are NOT talking about 50 mile an hour roads, either. An hour and a half was a quick one-way-trip to town. On the other hand, we were furnished with a vehicle that matched the place: a 1951 Ford F-100 2-wheel-drive pickup with a flat-head V8 that had been overhauled by a minister (no kidding) and burned oil like he might not have actually put new rings into it. As a result it was a bit short on power, so when we were hauling firewood the granny gear was in order.
When you are living in Chicago, a summer job as caretaker of a church camp in the wilds of Montana is a treat. And the bear scratches on the car gave us stories to tell in Chicago.
So we started our marriage with many luxuries, not that we have suffered since.
After five years of marriage, and nine different homes, we were ready to settle down a bit. Our first call out of seminary was to a parish in southwestern North Dakota where we were given use of a Parsonage as part of our compensation. It was a beautiful three-bedroom home with a partially furnished basement and a one-car garage. We moved in, which wasn’t much of a problem because the only furniture we owned at the time was a desk. Some of the members of the church stopped by to welcome us and assumed that our things hadn’t arrived yet. They came back a few weeks later and found out the truth. We had gotten a bed and a washer and a dryer and a kitchen table with four chairs by that time. I made concrete block and board shelves in the living room for our stereo and books.
The place had brand-new carpet. What luxury. Of course we had to buy a vacuum cleaner out of our first paycheck. I made a deal with the church when I realized I would also need a lawn mower. The church bought the mower and I mowed the church lawn for the next seven years. I also shoveled the church walks for the duration.
The years have gone by and somewhere along the line we acquired furniture. There are others whose homes are bigger and whose furniture is more expensive, but from my point of view we’ve always lived with great luxury. Since that first day in the tiny apartment in the big old sandstone house we’ve had enough love to fill up our home and extra to share.
Life is good here in the lap of luxury.