Laura and Gary

Beginnings
This is the story of my beloved wife and my younger brother Gary.

When Laura and I married in September of 1976, my younger brother Gary was just days away from turning 17. Laura liked Gary from the first day that they met and always saw him as a little brother-not a brother in law.
Back then, I was working at the Parker Plant, a JP Stevens affiliate, and my job required me to work 12 hours a day for 5 or 6 days a week. I had the 8pm to 8am shift, which had me leaving for work at 7:30 pm and returning home at 8:30 am. Because we had two small children at home (this was in the fall of 1977), Ruth E. was 2 and a half and Michael was only 3 months old, my brother didn't like the idea of Laura being home alone with those two children - especially in the neighborhood where we lived.
We had rented a small 2 bedroom home on West Hillcrest Dr, just off North Main St in Greenville. When you make the left off Main onto West Hillcrest Dr, your first thought would be "wow-nice neighborhood!". After meandering down the street where we lived, the neighborhood became, shall we say, less desirable. Growing up in Greenville, I didn't have an issue with the hood. Hell-it's where I grew up, sort of. In the mid to late seventies, home invasion and crimes like these were very few and far between in our area. And, as a young, brash 19 year old kid, I never really gave it much thought. That is until one evening Laura, the kids and I were returning home from a visit with her parents. As I was walking in the front door, some dude was walking out the back door with our guitars. I gave chase and yelled at the guy. He dropped the guitars and ran like hell. While nothing else was taken and he had dropped the guitars, the police didn't even want to take my report. After that, brother Gary was a constant presence in the home.
I would call Laura on my lunch break from the pay phone in the break room at work. "What ya doing?", I would ask. "Just trying to watch TV with Gary", she would answer. Or she would say it was Gary and Dwayne, or Gary, Dwayne and Larry D. My house was party central back then - a safe place to drink (or whatever) and not drive. It was always, always after the kids went to bed. Then the games would begin. Rummy, poker, blackjack - all played at the dining room table. We even took a Game of Life, used the play money that was included with the game and would place bets on the spinning wheel (almost like roulette).
The TV that we owned was an antique-a gift from an uncle. A black and white tv which would work for 5 to 7 minutes before you had to shut it off for 5 to 7 minutes - then turn it back on. One night that I called, Gary and Laura were trying to watch the movie King Kong, the old 1930s version. Laura let it be known to me that the TV situation would soon have to change. She couldn't deal with the constant on and off thing! I would eventually buy her a new color console, but that was a year away.
Gary and Laura also teamed up to give me grief about almost everything. From the TV to the car that we were driving, from the fact that I didn't own a mower and my grass in the yard was ass-high to constantly running out of heating oil during the winter - Laura and Gary gave me crap! I was working 60 to 72 hours a week then and didn't take the time to do some of the household duties to which I had been assigned. Gary, although he was still only 17 years old, would make sure that the wife and kids had heat. Laura would call the oil man and buy 25 to 50 gallons (whatever we could afford that week) and Gary would crawl under the house and light the furnace. I couldn't tell you how many times my brother did things like this for my family.
After giving my job 60 to 72 hours per week and believing that I had job security with them, the layoffs began. Seems that they lost the contract that was assuring us the great hours and, since I was one of the last to be hired in that department, I was the first to be layed off. This was mid 1978.

The Greenwood Move
1978 was a tough year for a young married guy with two kids to find employment. I searched the newspaper, went to employment services and asked everyone that I knew for leads. No one was hiring. Most were laying off workers-some long term workers were even being let go. It was a scary time.
I took a temp job with a guy that my brother knew who was a handyman for a doctor who had a farm above River Falls. Our job was to run a barbed wire fence for almost 5 miles around the property. Hardest job that I have ever had! After digging the post holes (thank goodness for a tractor with an auger), we had to throw  the posts from the back of a moving pickup truck to where they were to be placed, then go back and set them in the holes and make them secure and plumb. After that, we would start pulling the barbed wire and staple it in place on the posts. We averaged about a half mile per day. After this, we had to load the pickup truck with hay and throw it into the pasture for the cattle. By then the sun had set and I would almost fall asleep on the ride back home. When I arrived home, Gary was usually there, either trying to watch 5 minutes of tv with Laura or the gang was there playing spin the wheel roulette.
Wasn't long before my temp job ended and I was again faced with finding employment. Laura, meanwhile, had gone to Greenwood to visit her parents. She decided to stay with them until I could find meaningful work. One day after a fruitless day of searching for a job, Laura's mom came to visit me. This was a shocker since she had never visited alone. We sat on my front screened porch and she convinced me that I would be able to find a job if I would only move to Greenwood. A week later, Laura and I were loading a UHaul truck with all of our belongings for the move to Greenwood. It was the last time that Gary and the gang would have to keep Laura company while I was at work.

Gary Gets Married
Just a few months after our dad passed away in 1981, Gary and Susan were married in a big church wedding.
Laura and I attended-I as an usher.
We would only see Gary every once in awhile when his business would bring him to the Greenwood area or at family gatherings. It didn't matter the length of time between visits. Laura and Gary still managed to give me crap about something whenever we were together.

And The Years Roll By
It was March, 2002.
By now, Laura and I had been married for over 25 years.
Ruth Elizabeth passed away and Laura and I were distraught. I have written about this time and the importance of our family during it.
I have also written about the house and our building project, which Gary spearheaded.
I won't go into all the detail here. This is about the close relationship between Gary and Laura.
If he called needing or wanting anything, Laura was the first to say yes. If we were all together, Laura and Gary would constantly team up against me (in a playful way, of course). We would all go camping, Gary and Laura would give me grief about my lack of fire-building skills, or over my contracting skills, which I was attempting to put to use during the home build.
When Laura and I were having marital difficulties, I would talk with brother Gary about Laura and my issues...he would always reply with "I don't have anything bad to say about Laura - she's always had my back". He was right. She always did.
When Laura passed away, my entire family was in shock. It was so sudden, so unexpected. Most were unaware that she was even sick. It came about on Thanksgiving day and she was gone the following Wednesday.
Gary told me later that he had lost a sister and a close friend. I'm not sure if he's even thought about this, but he's also lost an ally - in the ongoing battle of giving Larry hell.
Don't worry Gary - she still does give me hell. After being married for over 40 years, I know exactly what she would say in a given situation. And I'm sure that, when you give me hell about the way I build a fire, she's standing over your shoulder, putting her voice in my head, in total agreement with you. And she's wearing that little smile that I loved so well.