Taking Care Of Business

I had never been to Loveland, Ohio before and I figured that if I were going to take over the Becker Discount Drug store I had better take a drive to the country. that's exactly where Loveland was, in the country. There were no expressways in those days. We did have one though, it was called the Millcreek Expressway and it went from downtown Cincinnati to The General Electric Jet Engine plant and it stopped dead there. It was built during World War II so thousands of workers could get to the plant without too much back road driving. I had to take this road till it ended and then take Kemper road east, a 2 lane highway, about 10 miles to Loveland, Ohio. At the corner of Montgomery Road and Kemper road there was a dairy farm on the corner with many cows roaming the field. I found the store without trouble and went in and introduced myself to the store manager, Ray Edwards. Ray was a lot like me having grown up in a poor neighborhood where no one had much money. I made arrangements to start the next Monday and started to look for a place to live. The last two places we had lived in Kentucky were single family homes and I was looking for something similar to that. It was a little difficult for me as Marlene an our two girls were still in Owensboro while I looked. I looked at a lot of houses but really wasn't impressed with them. Then I heard about a subdivision that had new houses and was having trouble selling them. I was able to Rent one of the new houses rather than buying one, and our new home was going to be on Heidleberg Dr. in Loveland, Ohio. It was only about a 10 minute drive to the store. I hoped Marlene would like it as she hadn't seen it yet. It was a typical ranch house with a living room dining room combinition, small kitchen and 3 small bedrooms, no basement. All the houses in that subdivison had one car garages as well as this one.
I went back to Owensboro and Marlene and I started packing. We were really excited about moving back to Cincinnati as both of our families were there. We were also excited about my new salary, I really thought I was in the big time earning $10,000 a year. Remember this was when we were paying the girls in the store 75c an hour and there was no union. We moved to Loveland in the spring of 1964. One of the first things on the agenda was to get another car, our old 1957 Plymouth Convertable was on it's last legs.


I stopped in the dealership, which is no longer there and saw a really classy brand new Chevy Super Sport model loaded with chrome. We had never owned a brand new car before and I decided now was the time to take the plunge. It was a beautiful dark maroon color and had black upholstery. It had a lot of chrome inside as well as outside. how could I refuse. I paid $2500 for it and drove home leaving my old faithful 1957 Plymouth sitting there on the lot. It looked so forlorn with it's big hole in the drivers side seat filled with a couch cushion and it's rather ragged vinyl top which had seen better days. It was almost like losing a friend. It probably ended up at a junk yard.