In the early years of our marriage, we lived in an apartment in Carteret.   It was very common for  us to spend our Saturday nights at Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Tony’s home in Port Reading.  It didn’t matter who was home, we just enjoyed each others company.

On one Saturday night, we had an unexpected difficulty.   Our apartment in Carteret was in a 2-story home.  We lived downstairs and another family lived upstairs.  There were 2 entrances.  No one ever used the front because it required the use of an old fashioned “skeleton” key.  So we, and our upstairs neighbors, used the rear entrance which had a outside door into a small porch, and an inside door  into our apartments.  We NEVER locked the outside door and didn’t carry that key.

On this Saturday night we came home from Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Tony’s home around 11pm and found the outside door locked.  We banged and made all kinds of noise to wake up our upstairs neighbors with no luck.  So what were we to do?  Where would we spend the night?  Well, we called Aunt Priscilla and said “Can we spend the night at your house?” and then explained the situation.  Of course they said yes!

So, we spend the night on the sofa in their living room with a note on the front door to their children (who were not home) that we were sleeping there and to be quiet.  Boy were they surprise.  In the morning we had a good laugh and were able to go home (the outside door had been unlocked).  We tell this story often because it represents how welcome we always are to their home.