It All Started Here....

This week Al and I took a trip to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Our nephew, Eric Thompson, died very suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday and we travelled to attend a celebration of his life. In the midst of this tragedy, we had a chance to reflect on over 30 years of marriage. La Crosse is where we attended college, met, dated, got married, and lived for the first two years of our life together. This town holds a lot of memories, and we went on a mission to record some of them. You see, I didn't understand the importance of recording memories back then, so there are no photos of our early homes. This is our attempt to recreate what we missed 30 years ago...

Our first home was on Denton St. in La Crosse. In 1979 it was green, and in much better condition. Our entrance was the one on the right, and our apartment was upstairs. The window on the right was in a little alcove that we used as a office/library. It was a perfect place for two college students to store their books and study. We had a little antique desk that held my blue Smith-Corona typewriter. We took turns with the married couple downstairs mowing the lawn using a manual push mower. There was no air conditioning, and definitely no satellite television. It was about a 10 block walk to school. We lived here for one year, from June 1979 to June 1980. We paid $225 per month rent for this two bedroom apartment.

Our second home was on Market St., about 4 blocks from Viterbo College. In 1980, it was dark brown shaker siding, and had a sun porch on the back which has since been torn off. Al and I had a difficult time deciding which house was actually the one we lived in. The house has obviously been remodeled since we lived there 30 years ago. What gave it away was a small window on the left side of the house at the landing of the stairs. I remember Al's brother, Ray, and uncle, Lee, pushing our couch up the stairs on its side to get it into our upstairs apartment. We moved because we were able to reduce our rent to $215 per month. I remember cooking bacon-mushroom cheeseburgers for Al's coworkers on a gas stove that had to be 40 years old at the time. The married couple who lived downstairs were also our landlords, and they got upset with us for making noise by dropping our shoes into our closet.

We also took a quick trip up to Grandad Bluff, overlooking the city of La Crosse and the mighty Mississippi River. We have some good memories of this place, but since this is a family friendly blog, I will omit those details...

And some things never change...The Alpine Inn looks just the same as it did 30 years ago!