I got offered a job in the bank my father had been on the board of directors of writing branch applications until I could get my family moved down and find a job I liked better.

If I liked banking, I was welcome to stay.

I could look for a job for Brenda from inside the bank. The bank often had the dope on the building, and hiring plans of employers before the information was public knowledge.

This seemed like an opportunity, to me. Brenda agreed.

When I stopped drinking, Brenda went back to work, and the kids started school, she made friends, at her work and mine, and had more freedom to get around, out of the house. Her morale improved.

Being on a dig for three months, accepted by a crew of younger men, away from my nagging and the demands of Owen and Balder did her morale good, too.

She lost weight. She was tanned and fit. She looked good.

Brenda got a job at Mitel, in the tool crib.

She worked her way up to technical instructor.

She traveled, teaching classes out of town.

My grandparents sold us a house behind their house, The Cottage, on an agreement for deed, for no money down and a payment of $150 a month.

It was a hovel on the edge of historic colored town. It needed painting, the roof leaked, the screens were down, and there was a hole in the porch the possums came through.

I walked to work. Brenda rode a ten-speed bike, through colored town, out to I-95, and car-pooled to the plant in Boca Raton. Until a German shepherd attacked her and knocked her off her bike and bit her leg. Then she bought a pre-wrecked Mustang from a co-worker for $200 and drove, after I put a rebuilt starter in it. It had to be towed up into the yard.

The Cocoa Van got stolen and we didn't replace it until the dog bit her.

The Mustang had been driven into an 18-wheeler and was dented in on the driver's side. The driver's side of the car was black, from 18-wheeler sidewalls. The door wouldn't open and close. Brenda had to get in on the passenger side and crawl over the gear shift hump.

Your mama drives a pre-wrecked $200 car and has to crawl over the gear-shift hump.

You live in a hovel on the edge of historic colored town.

Our possessions were a good litmus test for friends.

Our friends didn't care, and people who cared were not our friends.

It was good training for the boys, too.

They didn't care. Or if they did, they didn't tell me and Brenda.

Possessions were not important. What kind of a person you were was important. And a person who looked down on you because of what possessions your parents had was not much of a person. Not a person to worry about.

Brenda's co-workers looked down on her for driving a $200 car. They all had large car payments. To buy the SUV to get to the house in the suburbs away from historic colored town with a large mortgage payment. Brenda and I looked down on them.

Brenda dressed professionally. The students in her class didn't see her car, or her house. When she taught out of town, she stayed in a hotel and drove a rental car. She was on expense account. She ate out. She ate well out. She had taste. She ate cassoulet and caviar.

With both of us holding straight-person jobs, having a paid-for car and a low house payment, we paid off all our outstanding debts, including my student loans, and started saving money. I bought our clothes at the Salvation Army and the Goodwill store. Brenda bought her work clothes at Lands End and L. L. Bean.

We were rich.

What do you need money for when you don't drink?

Brenda was a good teacher. She had a sense of humor and knew the subject. She was poised. The younger trainers dug her. They looked up to her. An old married lady who could go out and drink beer and eat pizza with them on Fridays while her husband watched the kids. She had a good marriage. She had great children. She loved her job. She had a good life.