I Take in Strays

My story starts in California in 1966. My husband was in the Navy and we were being transferred to Barber's Point Hawaii.  Traveling with our two month old daughter we drove across country from Meridian Mississippi to San Francisco California and checked into a nice motel. We assumed that the Navy had made flight arrangements for the remainder of the trip and were shocked to learn that we were expected to take 30 days leave before proceeding to our next duty station. 

Accepting that our limited traveling budget would not last 30 days without some drastic changes, we immediately checked out of the $16/night upscale motel and located considerably less desirable accommodations for $8/night.  With that accomplished we found a reasonable Chinese restaurant, placed our baby daughter on the table in her infant seat and ordered dinner.

The restaurant was not very crowded since it was really too late for lunch and too early for dinner.  The only other diners that I remember were another young couple and a baby about the same age as ours.  When the other couple finished dinner they stopped at our table to "compare babies".  We visited a few minutes and prepared to leave.  Before we were able to leave the parking lot, the young man got out of his vehicle and knocked on my car window. He asked if we had a place to stay and was told of our motel arrangements.  We mentioned plans to do laundry but agreed to visit them for at least part of the evening.

While eating chips and sharing soft drinks we learned that the young man whose name was Mike was in the air force and that he and his wife Suzy were from El Paso.  By the end of the evening Mike and Suzy convinced us to stay with them until we could continue our trip to Hawaii.  We bought groceries for both families the next day and spent a wonderful week with Mike and Suzy.  We slept on a tiny sofa and the two babies shared a full size crib. 

We proceeded to our duty station the following week with a new appreciation for people at their best and a promise to pass along the special gift we had been given.