It was 1976, an election year as well as the first year of my marriage. We were to live in an apartment complex. The apartments had two bedrooms, an overly large living room, a closet disguised as a kitchen and just enough space for a table for four adults. In other words, pretty much the opposite of what I would choose. I visited on a weekend three weeks before the wedding and suggested we look in a neighborhood established during the early years of the 20th century. “But my mother picked this out for us,” he said. “A place for the elderly,” I answered.

