08-03 Just Married

We were just home from our honeymoon, and Mary hit the books. Three days later she wrote her RN exams and passed. I just love the photo from the day of her graduation ceremony. Needless to say, I was so proud of her that day. And I felt the same way about all of her classmates, who worked just as hard as Mary. They all loved what they were doing.
The black strip on her cap meant she was now an RN, with the black stripe representing Florence Nightingale. Today you can’t tell the nurses from the cleaning staff. I guess nurses today just don’t like the effort involved keeping those white uniforms white.
The first shock we faced moving into our new apartment that faced Bleeker Street, one east of Sherbourne, was that we were living in the midst of Toronto's Red Light district. Crazy trying to study with a couple of gals in a huge house across the way giving me the "high" sign. Loved watching the limos waiting outside all day long.
The first week Mary went to work on the night shift, she arrived at the apartment in a serious huff. Apparently one of these gals at the corner of Wellesley and Sherbourne had told Mary to “Beat it, this is my corner”.
I walked down to College Street to take a streetcar to the engineering buildings and between marriage, studying and water polo, I cannot remember a time when I was so busy. Dad gave me a small salary for helping in the store on Saturday mornings, so along with Mary's nursing salary of $210 per month, we covered our bills.
Every Saturday night we walked from our apartment down to Bassels Restaurant on Yonge Street and had one of their famous rice puddings. It was a real bowlful for only 25 cents.
Mary wanted to have my childhood chum, Paul Richards, over for a meal and she baked her first cherry pie, but the heat did not get through to the cherries which were raw. “Very nice, Mary”, he said. Well, either Paul did not have any taste buds or he was very kind. What a great memory from our first year of marriage.