How Claudia and I met.

 I have been thinking, as strange as that sounds, I do occasionally think. Anyway, I know I have been talking about how I feel and about my loss, and I realized that I haven't talked about what having Claudia in my life meant to me.

I'm not sure if I will be able to articulate adequately what having Claudia in my life meant to me. I sit here watching tv while I am trying to formulate what to say; in fact Claudia used to get on my case, because I would watch tv while reading a book or while working on the computer.

I can't remember if I have ever written the story of how Claudia and I met, so here goes.

Way back in 1969/1970 my first wife and I decided it would be best if we parted ways, as in get a divorce. So as events go, I moved out of the house and into a singles/adult apartment complex. I had rented what is called an efficiency apartment, which consists of one room that included a kitchen nook, and even a seperate bathroom. The couch was a convertable sofa, which is what I slept on. Yes this was a furnished apartment. Because my first wife and I had 4 children, this was a problem for both of us, as I had to keep paying the bills. Since we were living in California, this was a no fault divorce, meaning that Bobbie got the mine and I got the shaft.
Anyway, enough about that. After a few months of living in the adult/singles apartment complex I was invited to various parties. A couple of females sharing a two bedroom apartment threw a party to which I was invited. I was drinking a beer, and was headed across the room to meet up with a young lady who didn't have any clothes on, when I suddenly trip and fall on another young lady, who did have her clothes on. I swear I didn't see her mainly because she was only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, while I am 6 foot 1 inch tall. She was a lovely young lady and we got to know each other very well.

In fact, for some unknown reason, she decided that I was going to be her husband, and guess what, I became her husband for which I have been eternally grateful.

As I got to know her and found out that she was a Polio Victim and survivor, my love and respect for her only grew stronger.

When we got married, we didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I was paying support for 4 children, and Claudia had education loans she had to pay off. We started out renting an apartment together and even rented furniture to fill the apartment. Well! renting furniture turned out to be a really bad idea as it shortly became way to expensive, so we returned the furniture and acquired used furniture wherever we could acquire it. It is what we called our early married look.

It turns out, that we never did get into the mode of formally decorating our house or apartment, we just took things as they came and with Claudia's genius had a lovely life together.

We went house hunting after we had spent about a year being apartment managers. This is where you get to take care of yard and apartment maintenance, collect rent and complaints, while you supposedly receive your apartment either free of charge or for a very low rent. We found we weren't really suited to this job, as I was working a full time job at the same time, we were managing, so Claudia wound up having to deal with unhappy tenants.

We didn't have any money for a down payment, so we finally found a home that we could qualify for under an FHA loan but only after the furnace and electrical service was upgraded to modern standards. All of which meant that the Realtor struck a deal whereby we would put in the sweat equity of installing a new furnace and upgrading the electrical service from a 2 fuse electrical box to a 100 amp electrical circuit breaker. So with the help of some friends we did the work in place of a cash down payment.

The house was a little 850 sq. ft. 2 bedroom bungalow but it had a large half acre plot compete with an orange tree, lemon tree, 2 apple trees, and a fig tree, along with a very large asparagus patch and a large garden area.
To say we were in hog heaven is to put it mildly, we planted vegetables including corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and I can't quite remember all the rest, but Claudia my kids, and I canned and/or froze fruit and vegetables pretty much all year round. As the apples came ripe Claudia would make applesauce, or can sliced apples, and make apple streaudal, apple pie, apple turnovers, etc. We did not go hungry. She also baked fresh bread, cookies, cake, doughnuts, and much more.

The house did include a one car garage with a loft above it. This was a good thing because when my four girls came to stay with us they slept in the loft. I put bunk beds up there and while it was a little crowded, they seemed to prefer it, to the second bedroom.
We had the girls stay with us over the summer, so they had to help with gardening, canning, baking, and anything else we could get them to help with. Claudia was a wonder with the girls, even though it was extremely hard on her. My daughters were not easy to control and discipline.
Now, years later, I know that the my daughters appreciate all that they learned from Claudia, as they have told me so.


Oh! did I mentioned that Claudia graduated from College with a home Economics degree and a degree in child development.

About three or four years after we were married, Bobbie and the girls moved to Las Vegas with her new husband. So if I wanted to see the girls, I had to fly or drive down to Las Vegas from San Jose to see them.

So, once a month, we would pack up a few things and take them to work with us on Friday. As soon as 5pm rolled around we would climb in the car and start driving from San Jose south then east to Las Vegas. It was a 600 mile drive, so we took turns driving.We always carried a very large thermos of coffee with us which was all gone by the time we hit Fresno, California. There was an all night restaurant in Fresno that we always stopped in to fill up both the us and the car and empty the waste, so to speak. We also had the thermos refilled with fresh coffee for the drive across the desert. The drive usually took us about 8 to 9 hours, and that included stopping for gas and food. We would get into Las Vegas around 2:00am and collapse in bed for 4 or 5 hours and then spend all day Saturday with my girls. We did not spend time in casinos gambling. We would however, take the kids to a restaurant and to Circus, Circus or to a family show on Saturday evening. We would stay over until about noon on Sunday's then head for San Jose, reversing the drive and stops. We would arrive home around midnight on Sunday so that we could get enough sleep to be able to get up and go to work on Monday morning. by the way, Claudia was an excellent driver and a fast one, and I never had a problem letting her drive. For most of the period in which we drove to Las Vegas, we drove her car, a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500, which was a police interceptor in a previous life, and none of the police special equipment and running gear had been removed. It would do 130 miles an hour without straining. Oh yes! I should mention that the car had been modified for Claudia to drive with a left foot accelerator, as her right leg could not work the accelerator or brake. So of course I had to drive it with my left foot also. ( for those that have trouble picturing this, the gas pedal was on the left side of the brake, while the brake was still in it's original position.)

I cannot begin to tell you how much it meant to me, that Claudia would share this long and tedious trip with me to Las Vegas and back.

Every morning Claudia would get out of bed before I did and fix me my breakfast, and a lunch to take with me to work. She did this for the first 30 years of our marriage, at which point the Post Polio Syndrome started weakening her so badly that she just couldn't do it any more.I should mention, that I much preferred taking my lunch to work, as it was much cheaper and one hell of a lot tastier then going out to eat. Did I mention she baked her own bread, and cookies, and pie, and cake.

I had to work hard to keep my weight down, I can tell you.

Claudia was a bright light in my life, and I miss her very much.
Love Vic


"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"