By Maureen Duncan and Bruce Edwards, April 21, 2019 — Maureen: So it’s 1982 and Bruce called me up and said, “Oh c’mon I want to move back from Florida, I am going to move back to Jersey. You want to fly to Florida with me?” [I asked] How long were we supposed to be gone, 3 days? [He said] “We’ll fly down, I’ll pack up my apartment and then we’ll drive back.” So I asked Pa, “You don’t mind if I go help Bruce?” and he said, “No I don’t mind, go, you’re only gonna be gone 3 or 4 days.” How long were we gone, Bruce?
Bruce: I think it was over a month! She comes down, packs me out of my apartment and I had a U-Haul and a camaro, a ’71 camaro and so we packed the U-Haul up and went down to my cousin, Carol’s. We decided we were going to sleep over and wake up early the next day to leave. So that’s what we did. We went down and said our goodbyes and I don’t think we got two feet from Carol and Freddie’s house when my car blew up. So Freddie came to the rescue, took the car back and put it in the garage and we went back to the house. Well, Freddie gets out there and starts working on my car and he strips it right down to the pistons, meanwhile, he was working on this car every day and her and I were having a ball.
Maureen: Oh we were dancing to the Village People! We were having a good time! Meanwhile Carol, Bobby’s sister Carol, well she was up in Brooklyn so I was cooking for the kids.
Bruce: So we are there and Freddie’s fixing the car and Bobby’s calling up, “When are you coming home?” Well we just put another thing in the engine, so another few days. And you know, Freddie was so into cars so it was just play-time for him, he didn’t give a damn if we ever got home. So, I think after about a month or so, meanwhile Bob is home here in Jersey, he decorated the house with Welcome Home signs!
Maureen: You know how many times the signs came up and they went down? Kimberley said, “I don’t think she’s ever coming back!” My poor kids, Pa couldn’t cook. They were eating nothing but hamburgers and buttered noodles. So finally the car gets fixed. Okay! We were on our way home! Then the car broke down again and we stopped in North Carolina, South Carolina somewhere and we get a hotel, we had to stay overnight. That was another two days, but they fixed the car. We left there, we started out again. Meanwhile, I didn’t have a lot of money [and] he didn’t have a lot of money, [so] we were doing this on a shoestring. So we left there, I don’t know if it was Virginia, somewhere, we broke down again! We had to get in another tow truck, stay at another motel, and get the car fixed. So we took off again. Now, meanwhile I kept calling Pa saying, “The car broke down again.” He went, “Oh for chrissakes are you ever getting home?” Then we finally got to Maryland and we had no money!
Bruce: So now we were broke and we were driving and I look out the back window and I said, “Oh Maureen, I see smoke!” All smoke, and the car dies.
Maureen: And this was at night! So we got into this tow truck and I don’t say a word but I was thinking, “Oh I think this driver is gonna take us into the woods and kill us.” We were in the middle of nowhere, there’s no traffic. I thought, “Oh, I am never gonna get home because I’m gonna be dead!”
Bruce: So then he dropped us off at this motel, talk about a sleazy hotel, and we got there and the guys said, “Oh, I only have one room with a double bed.” I turned to look at her and said: “Oh Maureen, your husband is gonna kill me.”
Maureen: Meanwhile, he was saying that and he was laughing and there was this old couple in there and they were giving me looks! He was going “Oh, your husband is never gonna get over this one,” and I was going, “Oh will you shut up!” We get into the room and the bedspread was like an Indian print, the curtains were another thing, they had a puzzle on the wall, [and] in the bathroom there were three different color tiles. There was no phone in the room! There was no closet, they just had a bar up. I thought we were gonna get a disease in this place. So now we gotta sleep in the same bed! I called my husband [and] Bruce called his mother. And now the next morning, we were down to pennies. So he said, “I’ll go get us coffee,” and I said, “Okay Bruce.” He went to get coffee and we were sitting there, the two bozos we were, drinking our coffee and all of a sudden, [there was] a knock on the door. Knock knock knock. And then they say “POLICE!” and I think police! Oh my god! We open the door and it’s Aunt May! [Bruce’s mother] They came to rescue us! Aunt May said, “Oh poor Maureen, I had to get you home!”