STEPPING INTO THE '70s ("New Life Begins")
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from the November / December 2016 WISP
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Stepping Forth, An American Girl Coming of Age in the ’60s was published in 2015, and covers my adolescent life. It incorporates not only the emotional challenges of a Midwestern, middle-class teen growing up in the suburbs, but touches on some of the history and politics of those years.
Recently I put together a booklet for my sons called Stepping into the ’70s: New Life Begins, which comprises the year 1976 — a significant year for me, because our firstborn son Ryan turned us from married students living on campus into parents.
When 1976 began, I had just graduated from Michigan State with a B.A. in English. My husband, Jeff, already had his degree in Biochemistry, but was trying to get into graduate school (Parks and Recreation). We lived in a one-bedroom apartment on campus, and both of us worked for the Big Boy restaurant. I was working five nights a week at Big Boy, and Jeff was working as a cook.
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I don’t know how I’m going to stand it. Already I’ve gotten upset because of very disagreeable customers. When I was working part-time, I put up with them a lot easier, but now I get so angry, I almost lose my temper. And all I can do is run into the bathroom and kick the walls.
— Tuesday, January 27, 1976
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I’d had a couple of interviews for an office job on campus, and felt encouraged, but wasn’t called. In early February, I came down with a bug of some sort. I suffered with sore throat and a stuffed head, but continued to work. I was unsure what I had because if it was a cold, it certainly wasn’t a normal one.
By the second week in February, I began to worry about my health. I was miserable. Whatever I had just wouldn’t go away. The cold had cleared up, yet I still felt sick and was not improving. We were concerned that I might have mono.
I am worn down. Especially in the mornings when I get up, I feel just lousy, really awful. This morning I thought I’d throw up. I was weak with hunger, but just the thought of eating repulsed me. I finally forced myself to sit up at 12:30 and had Jeff make me some toast.
— Wednesday, February 11, 1976
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Our friends, Dan and Margie Martin, finally had their baby on Feb. 7. They named him Nicholas Daniel. We were happy for them, but thought how different life must be with a new baby when you’ve gotten used to just the two of you.
The next day I felt worse than before. I was bedridden all day and not able to do much. Jeff had gone to the store to buy 7-Up and soup and grapefruit … “sick” food. I couldn’t imagine having a worse day.
On Feb. 17, I called for an appointment with the doctor. They could see me the next day. I had to go to work and hoped I didn’t feel sick to my stomach again when I got up in the morning.
Jeff took me to the grocery store. It had been five or six days since I had been outside. I was famished when we got home and my stomach was livid with the need for food. I hadn’t been able to eat or even think of food until I forced myself to have some tomato soup.
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If I could keep my stomach happy, I’d be okay, but it seems to empty out in the night and I wake up hungry, but quaking with nausea so that I don’t dare eat. There’s a possibility that I could be pregnant.
— Monday, February 16, 1976
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Jeff and I did not want to be pregnant at that time. He was not close enough to finishing school and we had no insurance. I felt that I was ready mentally and emotionally, more so than a year ago at least, but it would not be good for us financially.
Then on Thursday, I learned that our lives would soon be changing. When I phoned the doctor’s office, I was surprised to learn that I was pregnant.
So a new baby is on the way! It’s happening at last to us. I’m happy, but I don’t know why I should be. We can’t afford to have a child right now. Jeff has been depressed since I told him. I don’t think he’s taking this piece of news too well, but I know he will eventually emerge from his personal woes.
— Thursday, February 19, 1976
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Soon everyone at work knew I was pregnant. I didn’t know how long I could keep waitressing. Backaches and physical strain were taking their toll. I knew I shouldn’t be starting to show that soon, but my abdomen was getting larger and starting to bulge out.
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My jeans fit only on the last belt hole now. I’ll have to buy or make myself a pair of stretch pants, or whatever fat ladies wear!
— Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1976
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By mid-March I had vitamins and nausea pills to help relieve my adverse symptoms. It was Jeff’s last week of spring term classes. In nine more days we’d be in Wisconsin and I could hardly wait.
We had beautiful spring weather for our weekend trip home. Jeff and I spent an afternoon in Marquette County, doing research for his paper on John Muir. We went to John Muir County Park, then talked with an old man named Syl Adrian, who was probably the world’s most profound historian on John Muir.
Jeff found out the Thursday before that he got an assistantship. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, so we were glad. An assistantship meant that Jeff would be a teaching assistant for one of his professors in his department, and he would get a monthly income of $200, which would help us out tremendously.
We had some beautiful early spring days in Michigan. That week Jeff and I took a walk over at Scott Woods, and I saw juncos, a red-bellied woodpecker and a pair of white-breasted nuthatches.
I was splitting my jeans. I needed maternity pants already, but couldn’t afford them. While in Wisconsin, Mom had made me a smock top and a maternity dress, and she gave me two large tops that Laurie and Alice got for Christmas but didn’t like. My belly was growing. It seemed to thicken more by the day.
In April I started working as cashier at the restaurant. Jeff got a call from Hank Zimmerman of the DNR. He was offered a state park job for the summer at Port Crescent State Park, which is at the tip of the thumb on Lake Huron. We planned to drive up there soon, to see what it was like and see where we could take up residence for the summer.
It was very unlikely that we would be offered a good deal like we had experienced the last year at Yankee Springs. But we were both happy Jeff got a summer job. We’d heard that because of cuts, the state wasn’t going to hire as many seasonal rangers that year.
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I’m beginning to feel like a heavy old cow. It’s getting harder to move around. I’m really showing now. The baby moves and I feel him (or her) from time to time. Nothing too violent, so far.
— Sunday, May 2, 1976
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After we returned from Port Crescent on Sunday, I felt depressed.
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It looks like my hopes for another fantastic summer have collapsed. Thursday Jeff and I drove to Port Austin with great expectations. I knew it couldn’t compare to the beauty of Yankee Springs, but I didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was.
Port Crescent has now been renamed Port “Let-Down” State Park. I decided I’d rather spend my summer living alone here in East Lansing, working as long as I’m able, rather than up there with nothing to do. Jeff is disappointed too and will take any other offers for the summer, if any come along.
— Sunday, May 16, 1976
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After Finals Week, Jeff moved into a farmhouse outside Port Austin that was inhabited by a bunch of country hippies.They had given him an attic room that we’d had to clean up before he could put his sleeping bag on the hardwood floor.
The dust was unreal. I hated staying there when I visited him. I certainly didn’t want to live in that farmhouse with all the dust and grime. Every time I went to visit my husband, I had to clean the downstairs (only) bathroom just so I could stand it. But for thirty bucks a month rent, we could have done worse.
In addition to my cashier hours at Big Boy, I took in typing jobs for college students, charging a measly 20¢ a page. It was a hot, muggy summer (without air conditioning) and the apartment in East Lansing was uncomfortable.
Looking back, I don’t see how we survived financially that summer. We were usually broke, especially after I quit my job in July.
I flew home to Monona to spend two weeks with my family. Relatives and neighbors threw two baby showers for me, which resulted in a lot of baby stuff plus $21 in cash, which turned out to be very helpful.
Jeff and I wrote each other letters. He was so broke that I sent him $10 from the gift money I had received. I felt kind of guilty being away, from both Jeff and our cat.
Then, in mid-July my parents and sister Alice (then 16), left for Michigan by way of the Upper Peninsula and drove over the Mackinac Bridge, then east to the Thumb.
My family and I camped with Jeff at Port Crescent a couple of nights before they drove me home. It had been extremely hot in Wisconsin, and I was glad to get home. They spent a night with me, then left.
Heartburn was another thing I’d started to experience.
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Today the baby got real active during supper. I received a few good punches in my bladder that were painful! I was afraid they might be labor pains. The baby is getting so big. He/she bulges out with his/her head and butt and it’s fun to see him/her cause my belly to vibrate or throb and jerk. He/she is obviously in a sleeping period now. He/she was quite active all day today, but that’s good. I like to feel him/her move.
— Monday, August 2, 1976
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It was hard being away from Jeff that summer. I had to attend the Breathing and Relaxation classes at Sparrow Hospital by myself, and had to deal with getting us transferred into a two-bedroom apartment in married housing. There’d been a mix-up at the office, so when I walked in very pregnant at eight months, the administrator just looked at me and gave us an apartment in University Village right away.
Then, Jeff came down with a horrible flu. I had to drive to Port Austin to bring him home to see a doctor and get some medication. At the same time, we needed to move and he was just too sick. Somehow we managed, but I paid a price for it as I lay in bed that night, suffering with cramps and a pounding heart, all worried about the baby.
September brought a change in the weather. From a hot 88 degrees on Tuesday, Aug. 31, it dropped more than 30 degrees and was cold and drizzly on the first.
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The baby is just about all I can think of now. I wonder when he will come. Will it be when I’m here all alone, or will it be when my mother’s here? Will the baby wait until Jeff is home from the field trip? Will he be late? What if I have to be pregnant for another whole month? Or longer? That would be awful!
— Monday, Sept. 6, 1976
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Jeff returned to East Lansing late on the 6th, but had to leave early Wednesday morning on a field trip to visit national parks in the West. My mother took a Greyhound bus on the 16th and stayed with me for two weeks. My due date was Sept. 23. We expected the baby to come any day ... but the baby did not cooperate!
Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service sent a special delivery letter to me, saying I was eligible to be hired as a zip code sorter. Jeff and I had applied with the USPS in August and had taken the test, but only I had scored high enough for a job! Naturally, they didn’t call back after I told them I was expecting to give birth any day.
My due date came and went. Mom was anxious for the baby to come, so she could return to Wisconsin and work at the polls. Jeff returned from his field trip and expected the baby to arrive, but the doctor said the baby’s head had not descended yet.
I was having false labor, my mother was neurotic, and my husband was feeling let down after he’d had such a terrific time on his field trip out West. I felt like a failure because Baby Ulrich would not come! Finally, Mom returned home on the bus, Sept. 29. I prepared myself to wait another two weeks, which at the time seemed impossible.
Sometimes I’m afraid this baby will never get born. It’s scary going on from day to day, not making any progress. At least the baby seems to be strong and active. Each day he stays inside of me is supposed to be better for him.
But I can’t help feeling impatient. I don’t hate the baby for being stubborn. I know it’s not his/her fault. But I’m anxious to care for the baby, to hold him/her in my arms for the first time, and to see the look on Jeff’s face when he first holds his firstborn. How wonderful an experience it’s going to be … and how wonderful that it can happen to us.
— Friday, October 1, 1976
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On Monday, Oct. 4, I was pretty much in a bad mood. Not only had I slept badly the night before, but some bills had come in the mail that we didn’t expect, and that left me feeling depressed.
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It’s 1:40 now and I haven’t started labor, so now I’m rather pissed at myself. The Braxton-Hicks contractions have occurred, but that’s not new. I’ve had those damn things for weeks, it seems. I WANT PAIN! REAL INTENSE PAIN! I want to have this baby today, tonight, or tomorrow! I’m tired of this waiting. I need to get out of here and be in a good mood again.
— Monday, October 4, 1974
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Be careful what you wish for ... three days later I got my wish. Ryan Ronald Ulrich was born the evening of Oct . 7, 1976, weighing 7 lbs. 7 oz. (The number “7” is lucky for him as he married the love of his life on 7-7-7—July 7, 2007!).
Mom flew back to Michigan and was a tremendous help to us that next week. The first baby is pretty scary, but I have to admit, Ryan turned out to be an easy baby, as did so our other two sons.
Motherhood suited me, and our lives changed for the better when the children came. Even though we were really impoverished that year of 1976, things eventually got better for us.
Jeff graduated the following spring with his master’s, and we moved to our hometown in Wisconsin, where I began my newspaper career at Madison Newspapers. Then Jeff got a summer job at Mammoth Cave National Park, and while we were in Kentucky, Ryan took his first steps at the age of 10 months.
Life continued to improve for us until we found our way to Colorado in June 1978. As we stepped into the ’70s, there were many adventures ahead, trials and tribulations that blended with the joys and triumphs. I have absolutely no regrets.
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Forty years later, Ryan and his wife Patricia are parents to Vorian Ulrich (age 8). They live and work in Grand
Junction, Colo.
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You can order Ann Ulrich Miller's memoirs, Stepping Forth, An American Girl Coming of Age in the '60s, from
Amazon.com
