We were both exhausted by the time we arrived at our new "Love Nest". A nice new neighbor named Bob came to help us unload the truck. Chuck called his half-brother Willie to come and help too. That was the first time I met him. His mom came along. I couldn't believe how much Willie looked and sounded like Chuck. I forgot to mention that I had met his older half-brother Chuck and his wife Sandy, in Indiana back in January.

Our trailer had 2 bedrooms, large living room, kitchen & bathroom. The washer was in the front bedroom, but there was no dryer hook-up. We made that room into a utility, sewing & webtv-room. I had to hang my clothes outside if it was warm enough or on a retractable clothes line in this room if it was cold.

We went to a morning bingo nearby, soon after we moved in and I won $500.00. I had never won that much money before. I was waiting to sign a slip for taxes, because in Ohio we had to sign if we won anything over $100.00. They never brought me a slip, so I assumed they forgot, until Chuck told me that we don't need to sign unless we win over $1,200.00 in Illinois.

After we finally finished unloading all of the boxes, we went to Chuck's mom to clean out his room. He had forgotten about telling me that he had a Harley motorcycle stored in there. I found out for myself that it never existed. He was in tears when I asked him about it. He told me that he thought he came clean on all of his lies. He forgot about that one. I asked him why he told me all them lies, but I already had figured it out. He was afraid of rejection, he had an ex-wife and a live-in girlfriend that had left him for another man. He thought they left him because he was a nobody. After he started gaining weight, he had an even lower self-esteem. He weighed 350 lbs, but that didn't matter to me. The only thing that worried me about his being overweight was his health.

I couldn't believe how much stuff was in his room. Over 1,000 LP albums, 2 stereos & big speakers, a 27 inches television, vcr, 100s of movies, 2 printers and all his clothes. I didn't think we'd have room in our trailer for all of that. We had to put his records collection in a closet, until we figured out where we could put them.

There were venetian blinds in most of our 17 windows, but no curtains. I decided I was going to make curtains for all 17 of them. Since material was so expensive, I used sheets to make them. In the web room, I used navy to match our chair cushions. In the front room, I used a dark pink to match the futon. The kitchen was not easy to match our maroon/navy chair cushions, but I found beige sheets that had lines of both colors in it. I bought enough sheets to make a tablecloth too and I put a heavy clear plastic over it. It was starting to look like a real home. OUR own home.

Chuck loves wolves and when I found some heavy blankets with wolves all over it, I decided to use them for the bedroom curtains. We bought an extra one to put on the bed. After a month or so, I was finally able to rest and spend more time with my honey. There were no more lies, everything was out in the open. We were so happy, I was afraid something might happen to him. I wasn't used to be loved back, I thought that it was too good to be true.

It was senseless to keep both Webtv accounts, so we transfered all of Chuck's files to my Web box. He'd been using his wolfpack0316 nickname most of the time, so we set up his files as Wolfpack-0316 on my users list. We took turns being on line or we would both go to CCs chat room, using two keyboards. We met a nice couple in that chatroom named Bob & Mary. They also met each other on the web. Mary was from Iowa and Bob lived in Illinois, about 30 miles from us. Mary had also moved in with her boyfriend. They became real good friends.

In the beginning of May, 2000 Chuck was told that the company he worked for was going to close the third shift and one of their forklift operator had to go. He'd been working there the longest so he didn't expect to be the one layed off. On May 17, he was called to the office right after work. They told him that he was fired for committing "Sexual Harassment" on one of the other forklift driver named Reuben. The real story was that Reuben tried to start a fight with Chuck. He asked him to go outside and see how mexicans can fight. There were 3-4 mexicans with him. Chuck didn't go outside, but he cussed him out and supposedly gave him a hand gesture that Reuben reported as sexual harassment. Fighting was another reason for dismissal and since Chuck didn't go out to fight, he used the sexual harassment charge to get him fired. More than 80% of the workers on the 3rd shift were mexicans. He was refused unemployment of course because he was fired. Unemployment assigned him a lawyer. He appealed their refusal and lost the telephone interview. Reuben was not even available for the interview. The lawyer didn't even defend him, he only said a few words. Chuck appealed again and he figured he'd be better off without a lawyer.

We really had a rough time, all summer long. We had to go to the kitchen of the poor and get some food. There was just a couple of days worth of junk food that Chuck & I weren't even suppose to eat. We're both diabetics. The boxes of macaroni & cheese had bugs in it. It was dated for 1989. Bob & Mary came over and gave us $100.00 to buy groceries. They told us not to worry about paying it back, it was a gift. Bless their hearts.

My daughter Tania and her boyfriend Dustin came to fix the brakes on our car. They brought two of my grandkids, Amber & her son Dustin to spend a few weeks with us. Towards the end of their 2 weeks, little Dustin and one of his friends were caught throwing rocks at cars & trucks on the highway just below the trailer court.

Tania had to come and get him and she had to pay half of the car windshield they broke. They paid for our gas to follow them back to Ohio, because she had a pick-up truck and couldn't seat 4 people in it. At the end of June, we received food stamps for June & July. Boy did we eat.

On July 1st, we decided to buy this trailer. The park manager gave us a deal that we couldn't refuse. It actually reduced our rent from $500.00 to $467.00/month. We're paying $367.00 for the lot and $100.00 on the trailer for 25 months. No interest and no taxes until it's paid in full.

Chuck tried to go to work at different places, including Wal-Mart but he could not do the work, because of his weight & arthritis.

In August, he received a letter from unemployment telling him he had to go to a Chicago court for a hearing about his appeal. Our car kept on stalling every time we stopped and wouldn't restart until it cooled down. We couldn't afford the plates ($78.00) & the insurance on the van, so we took mom's van to the hearing. Mom came with us. They wouldn't let mom & I in the courtroom. There were 5 judges and Henrickson's 3rd shift supervisor & the head of their human resource office, in the court room. Reuben never showed up. He couldn't speak english anyway, even though he supposedly wrote a report on Chuck's "sexual harassment".

First week of September, he received a letter from the unemployment hearing office that the telephone interview's decision was reversed. That whatever reason Henrickson fired him for was not sexual harassment. The decision was unanimous. That meant he won and was going to get all that back pay, as soon as the unemployment office issued his check.