On July 1, 1993, Megan and I moved into the Southwood Drive home. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement. We were renting the new master bedroom and bathroom—just off the kitchen—in the home of a family friend, Joe Coehlo. I paid six months' rent up front so he could have the cash to landscape the yard.
Joe had shared custody of his two children, a boy (11) and a girl (6). I don’t have permission to use their names. The house was a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, and the layout allowed the living room, two bedrooms, and the main bath to be made private by closing a door between the living room and the kitchen. Joe’s son shared his bedroom with Joe, while his daughter had a room to herself.
Within a few days of moving in, we agreed to split groceries 50/50 and share whatever was in the fridge. Joe had been a single dad for five years, so having someone else around to help cook, clean shared spaces, and offer companionship—for him and the kids—seemed to be a good fit. Megan was seventeen months old at the time, and the house had a large backyard, which the kids loved. Landscaping was still underway, and digging in the dirt became one of their favorite shared activities.
Megan wanted to be outside almost all the time when we were home. Digging was something she could safely do and brought her a lot of joy. Joe installed a small handle lower on the sliding screen door so she could go in and out by herself. That small kindness was one of many that slowly shifted our relationship from “just friends” to something more. Less than a year later, on April 23, 1994, we were married.
When we moved in, we brought a bedroom set and our personal things. That’s all we had room for. The rest of the house was already furnished with antiques Joe had inherited from his grandmother, plus some more modern pieces from his parents. He invited me to decorate the shared spaces however I liked. Joe had collected framed art over the years but had never hung anything—he knew what he liked, just not where to put it.
We started small: framing some of his children’s artwork and hanging it in the dining area, where visitors could admire it. Then we added a red fist lithograph Joe had helped create for a protest march in the 1960s. Over time, we filled the walls with art from local Yolo County artists, along with pieces gifted by friends. Our little 1,400-square-foot house ended up with almost every wall covered in art. We loved it.
Joe had bought the house in the fall of 1992 and added an extension: a larger kitchen, an open dining area, laundry room, master bedroom with en suite bath, and a walk-in closet. The addition was finished in mid-June 1993—just in time for Megan and me to move into our “temporary” home.
Joe and I quickly settled into a housemate rhythm that made both our lives easier than anything we’d experienced before. We liked talking to each other. We liked each other, period. Joe enjoyed showing Megan how things worked—of all three kids, she was the one who really took to tools and fixing things.
And then there were the cats. Two, at first: Jeffrey (a female) and Boots (a big tom). Neither was especially affectionate—they preferred the outdoors—but they were the beginning of Megan’s lifelong love of animals. Over the years, we always had three cats in the house while the kids were young. One day I brought home a puppy that needed a home. The kids named him Simba. He was a German Shepherd mix who adored all three kids. At one point, Simba went to live with our neighbor Irma, where he bonded with her and her card-playing girlfriends. Eventually, Simba returned to us—just in time to befriend Rex.
Rex was a black rabbit we rescued from Megan’s after-school Child Development Center. He’d been donated to the program, but the constant commotion of children made him anxious, and he was losing his fur. So, by then, our home included three cats, a dog, and a rabbit. I’m pretty sure we had a couple of goldfish in the mix, too.
That feels like a good place to stop for today. Our years at the Southwood home will take a couple more posts to cover—we lived there for thirty years, with many adventures along the way (including a year in Cairo, Egypt) and a later move to Minnesota.
We’ll be out most of tomorrow, so I may skip a day of writing.
Stay tuned for Southwood Drive – Part II.
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