Livin' On A Prayer

So here I am on my own for the first time in my life, a beautiful girl as my roommate, ready to start a college education I’m not entirely sure I want, all in an apartment we can barely afford.  There’s no way this could go wrong.

This apartment remains one of my favorite places I have ever lived.  Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long.  Within 3 months we were broke, I got a part time job at Radio Shack.  We switched to a smaller, cheaper apartment in the same complex.  Jill got a slight raise at work, so things were improving at least for a little while.

Jill lost her job due to downsizing and then couldn’t find another one, then I lost my job for the same reason.  To make matters worse rent was due and we didn’t have the money.  We had no choice. In October I dropped out of school and we moved to Jonesborough TN to live with my mother until we could get back on our feet.

Five months later in March, Jill’s mother, June, fell terminally ill; so Jill went back to Minnesota to be with her family. June passed away on March, 14 2001.  No one ever really knew why June died, but the leading suspect is cirrhosis of the liver.  Please read up on this subject, especially if you or someone you know is a heavy drinker, or has an addiction to prescription pain killers.  Jill and I were separated for a month while she was helping with June’s memorial and wrapping up business up north.

That following July we decided to move to Minnesota to be closer to Jill’s family, since neither of us were able to find reliable work in Jonesborough. We moved in with Jill’s step father, Cy and his new girlfriend Margie.  Jill found a job right away at Spencer Gifts in the local mall as an assistant manager.  This job did not last long though, because better things were in our future.

We were both able to find employment at ProCall Inc. making business to business telemarketing calls.  This business no longer exists, for what reasons we are not sure.  Because of this job we were able to move out of Cy’s and into our own place, which was only a couple blocks from work, very convenient for two people with low vision.

The whole world knows what happened on September 11, 2001 and it affected our industry heavily.  By December we both had been laid off due to downsizing in the company.  A few months later Jill was able to be hired at Cub Foods, this job she held onto for nearly a year.  That year was relatively uneventful for us, fortunately.

Things were going to get turned upside down once again.  In February of 2003 Jill broke her foot while shopping at a Target store.

I’m sure you’ve seen those big cement pillars in front of a lot of stores.  Those pillars are placed to stop snow plows in the winter time.  At this particular Target store one of these pillars was loose.  Jill was leaning on one waiting for a cab when it fell on her foot crushing her big toe. This was an extremely painful experience for her, and it led to her eventual departure from Cub Foods.  So there we were once again, in a situation where the rent was due and we had no money.  But an unexpected hope was brewing in our future.

1. A Small History Lesson	2. Congratulations It’s A Freak
3. The First Five Years	4. It All Goes Up In Flames
5. School Daze	6. Say What?
7. A New Hope	8. Becoming A Sophisticated Redneck
9. A New Beginning – Literally	10. Back Into the Fray
11. They Like Me, They Really Like Me	12. 10011001
13. Let the Music Heal Your Soul	14. Taking My Sister to the Prom
15. My First Love, My First Broken Heart	16. From Zero to Hero
17. Livin’ On a Prayer	18. Moving On
19. Going Full Circle	20. The Rockford Files
21. Faith of the Heart	22. Partner, Friend, Lover, Wife
23. Turns Out She Was Right	24. A One-Legged Bear
25. Another Victim of the Game	26. Payin’ Bills with my Skills
27. A New Revell-ation	28. A New Page, A New Day
29. R We There Yet?