... and, in the case of Bud and me, impossible. Bud had moved back in with his grandparents when we split up, but discovered that living on his own was preferable, so he and Eddie (you remember Eddie from the clock company) got an apartment together in Perry Hall, MD near Bud's grandparents. When Tim and I went our separate ways, he got an apartment in Cockeysville, MD,which was not near anything except three million other apartments. I'd never seen such a conglomeration of apartment complexes jammed together in one spot. Cockeysville was truly Yuppie Town, USA. I moved to a complex in the Fullerton area with easy access to the interstates. The job I had taken at the brick factory was on the south side of the city in an industrial section call Brooklyn Park. The entire area went from lower middle class blue collar to indigent and ghetto or worse. Every day I drove through the Harbor Tunnel (the only one that existed in 1980) to get to work and to get home. It was a nightmare even on the rare days when there were no accidents in the tunnel. However, I still preferred living on the north side of town. I had worked too long and too hard to get away from the poverty and squalor I had known as a child, and I was not gonna take any steps backward just for the convenience of being close to my job.
I dated some after Bud and I split, but my heart wasn't really in it. I just didn't "click" with anyone. It hardly seemed worth the effort, and I hate that part of dating when you have to get to know each other. It's so phony and uncomfortable. Based on the packages of condoms I found in the glove compartment of Bud's precious Malibu, I'd say he did a little dating too. I guess it didn't work out so well for him either, because though we no longer lived together, we never actually quit seeing each other. Shortly after we split, we attended the World Series together. Hey, we already had the tickets and I was excited to be going to my first (and as it turns out only so far) World Series. Just because we had split up, I didn't see any reason why we couldn't act like civilized people and go to the games together. At least up until I got walking pneumonia, and Bud had to go to the final game without me. We also had some friends who were getting married and had asked us to stand up for them. Well, just because we weren't together any more didn't mean we could bailout on our friends. So we attended the wedding together. Then, of course, there was the time the doctor said I had mono. Then he said I didn't have mono. Then he said I did. I don't know whether I ever had mono or not, but I do know I was horribly ill. So who do ya call? The Budster! He came to my apartment and picked up my prescriptions and took them to the pharmacy and went to the grocery store and got me milk and beer and bread and soup and stuff that I might eat if I got desperate (I still wasn't much for feeding myself). Then we sorta started dating again. I'd spend the weekend at his place, or he'd spend the weekend at mine. I guess we were together again, just in separate places.
Then a really odd thing happened. Somehow, that charming man Wayne Carr lost control of the clock company. I didn't work there any longer and Tim wasn't my roommate any longer and Frank had fallen in love with a terrific young woman and was getting married, so I was way out of the loop as far as happenings at the clock company went. But, Wayne was out and Frank and Tim were still in. One of the first things they did was call Bud and ask if he wanted to come back to work for the clock company. This made Bud one of the happiest men on the planet, and he immediately quit his job at the insulated glass company and went back to Daneker Clock Company as a supervisor. As I said, I was out of the loop, so I'm not really sure about the timeline of these events. I know Bud went back to the clock company, but I don't know when. I know Frank got married in early May, but I was unable to go to the wedding as that was the same time the doctor couldn't figure out whether I had mono or not and I was too sick to go anywhere. Tim was Best Man at Frank's wedding. We all loved his new wife, Susan. He picked a winner his second time around, though I honestly believe she picked him.
Bud and I were pretty much seeing each other exclusively again, though we kept separate apartments. The brick factory was hit by some hard times and was experiencing major layoffs. It was obvious with the union work force getting smaller, the need for supervisors would decrease as well. I was low man on the totem pole. But, as it turned out, I had an ace up my sleeve I didn't even know about. The General Manager had somehow discovered I had administrative experience and they needed someone to manage the union SUB (supplemental unemployment benefits) pay for the laid-off workers. It seemed none of the women in the office could make head nor tails of the system. He asked if I thought I could figure it out. Ta da! I transferred from the factory to the office in less time than it took to blink. The SUB pay system was incredibly involved and completely convoluted because it was based on regular unemployment benefits as well as time employed and position and myriad other minor technicalities. However, I tamed the beast in relatively short order and created a niche for myself. If you think working with blue collar union people is difficult, try dealing with them when it's about money! Sometimes I was not the most popular person on the company campus, but I was the most fair. Even if it took me hours to explain why a certain person only got a certain amount, I never gave up until I saw the little light bulb come on inside his or her head.
Bud and I joined a bowling league together with some of the people from the office at the brick factory. One night when we were driving home after bowling, I looked up and saw a sign for the Harbor Tunnel. I'd seen that sign hundreds of times since I drove that route almost every day. But this time it sent a funny little chill down my spine. I shivered and Bud asked what was wrong. I told him I didn't know, but I'd just got the strangest feeling soon we would be looking at these road signs differently. He asked what I meant and I said I wasn't sure, but I thought it meant we weren't gonna be living there much longer.
The Daneker Clock Company had run its course. All our hard work had only delayed the inevitable and it was dying a slow and painful death. No one wanted to give it up, but there was nothing left to be done to save it. Now when Bud went to work, it was to help put the poor old dog to rest. But Frank and Tim had another idea. They still wanted to make high end, superior quality grandfather clocks. They went in search of someone with money, willing to invest in a new venture. The old clock company couldn't be saved, but starting a new one from scratch just might work. They found some interested investors and presented the plan. Lo and behold, they bought into the idea and Sovereign, Ltd. was born. Frank and Tim went to North Carolina in search of a place to make clocks. High Point, NC was the center of the furniture industry and as the company would need skilled furniture craftsmen, the Triad is where they searched. They found an abandoned factory in Greensboro, NC that had recently been used by the Ridgeway Clock Company and made arrangements to take possession. Several of the production supervisors and most of the administrative staff decided to make the move to North Carolina. Only a few important people stayed behind, so the company was off to a good start from the beginning. In October of 1980, Bud moved to North Carolina. I remained in Maryland and did not, at first, have any plans to move, though I resented his going further south (though not closer to the beach) and leaving me behind.
Almost every weekend when he could get away, Bud made the six to seven hour drive back to Baltimore. He wanted to see me, of course, but he also wanted to keep in very close touch with his grandparents. It was a good thing the state of Virginia did not have a reciprocal agreement with North Carolina at that time, because Bud got so many speeding tickets in Virginia. He would never have been able to move there because they would have either thrown him in jail or refused to issue him a drivers' license. However, those tickets were never reported to North Carolina so he never got any points on his license. Things sure are different now. Each time he came back to Maryland he told me how great North Carolina was and how much he missed me. He wanted to talk me into moving without it appearing as if he was talking me into moving. Men! But, the job I had carved out for myself in the office at Harbison-Walker was slowly disappearing as the layoffs lasted longer and longer and the SUB pay started to run out. It was obvious I wasn't going to find another magical safety net under me when the bottom fell out this time. So, I told the folks at Harbison-Walker I was leaving at the end of the year, and I let Bud think I had decided on my own that I wanted to see what was going on in North Carolina.
We planned my move for December 27, 1980 -- Bud's 24th birthday.
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