When Madeline and I married we moved into a trailer house (we called it a mobile home – but it was a trailer house, I’m pretty sure). It was in Sherwood Shores but I guess if we lived there today it is called Granite Shoals. Our place was pretty spacious, for a young couple just starting out.

Our next door neighbors were Sid and Fay. They were retired and lived there and we had a small pond in the backyard. Sid and Fay lived in a very small older trailer, but it was immaculate. Everything was pretty and neat.

After a few months Sid and Fay decided they would buy a new double wide and put it on an adjoining lot that they owned. They hit us up to move over into their little trailer once their new one was set up.

That’s what we did. It seemed like such a dreamy quaint little place and we were so happy. We enjoyed sitting close to each other, so living in cramp quarters worked fine.

One day a loose door latch got tightened and I thought I had a very handy wife, making repairs like that. I guess she thought the same, that this ol boy she married was going to keep the maintenance up real good around the house.

A few days later a loose shelf in the refrigerator got fixed. Madeline thanked me for taking care of it. I informed her that I hadn’t taken care of it.

It seemed that the landlords were making regular visits to the house when we were away. I tore out next door to see why they felt the need to make those visits without telling us. To this day I don’t know if they were in the right or not. It didn’t really matter, it just seemed like an intrusion.

Sid said he wouldn’t let anyone live in his trailer without looking in to make sure they weren’t tearing the place up and then one thing lead to another.

In minutes we had all our belongings stuffed into Madeline’s car and my pickup and we were no longer residents of Sherwood Shores.

I had just started my own contracting business and was doing work in Burnet, so we decided it was much better to rent a house or an apartment there and it would cut and hour drive time off. Life would be better and for a young couple that seemed like such a good thing.

We arrived at a little cheap motel as that’s all Burnet had in those days. That’s where we stayed for the next 4 months. Yes, the Arrowhead Motel became our home.

There wasn’t a place of any kind in the whole town to rent. Or in Marble Falls. The new power plant was being built on Lake LBJ, or I guess it was Granite Shoals Lake, back then. Horseshoe Bay was just getting underway and a few more things in the county had caused all rental property to be depleted.

Madeline became the Queen of Hamburger Helper and other things that could be fixed in an electric skillet. It was fun, boring yet fun. We knew every time the drive-in movie was going to change. We planned our weeks accordingly.

It was certainly a simpler time. One we look back on and laugh about. Our run in with Sid and Fay.