New Year’s Day, 1954 found me bundling up the few belongings the Army allowed me to have into my reasonably nice looking 1948 “Kaiser.”  “Kaiser” being one of the several new car company start-ups that bloomed and died in the years following “The War.”  I was officially a tuba player in the Fifth Army Band, but had been assigned TDY, at my request, to the U.S. Navy School of Music in Anacostia, D.C. for six months of training in that school.  I was a footloose and fancy-free young soldier with no ties to any particular locale and was looking forward to living six months in our nation’s capitol.

 A 1948 Kaiser

Only one incident marred the pleasant trip from Chicago to D.C.  That came on a winding two-lane road in West Virginia.  (Interstates had not yet even a dream.)  I came upon a slow-moving delivery truck – the type that UPS drivers now use.  Now West Virginia’s highways back then offered very few places where a faster moving car could pass a slower one.   Finally seeing a bit of a clear road ahead I sounded my horn (expected in those days when passing) and made my move.  Well, it seemed the delivery truck was headed to some remote location somewhere down a small road that “tee’d” off the highway to my left.  Obviously blissfully unaware that I was passing, the driver pulled over into my car, forcing me into the ditch and doing some ugly damage to the front end of the pristine “Kaiser” I was so proud of.  In due time, a Deputy Sheriff arrived.  Walking from his cruiser he idly surveyed the scene; then walked up to the delivery truck driver and languidly asked: “What seems to be the trouble, Luke?”  At that point I was pretty sure that I was going to be “the trouble.”  My intuition was right.  Luke drove off down the lane; I was told to follow the Deputy back to the county seat where I was introduced to some sort of “magistrate” that “just happened to be there.”  He informed that since I was an out-of-state driver I could either wait in their jail cell until court convened OR I could pay my fine and be on my way.  Obviously not a “soldier-friendly” county.  With a good part of my “travel allowance” left in the hands of that “magistrate,” where it presumably made its way into the county coffers, I was back on the road. 

But that incident isn’t the point of this recollection.  The bitter point came six months later.

I settled into the “Army section” of a Navy barracks on the Anacostia Naval Station and found myself in the company of several dozen other Army bandsmen from Army posts all over the country.  It became a very agreeable, happy situation.  We weren’t so much a thorn in the Navy’s side as a benign mole to be ignored.  After our day of classes in Music Theory, rehearsals, private lessons, individual practice and study we were on our own.  We had lots of time to enjoy whatever pleasures we could find in our Nation’s Capital.  Well, take a group of young soldiers and you will find high on their list, female companionship to whatever limit they wanted such relationships.  An interesting statistic in The Capital at that time was the fact that there was said to be six unattached females for every unattached male.  We were horticulturalists in a Garden of Eden.

I, however, was never the sort of guy who played the field.  No, what I always wanted was a solid relationship that could have the possibility of lifetime commitment.  In retrospect, being a soldier from Kansas on a six month assignment in Washington, D.C. didn’t make me a very good prospect for any young lady who wanted the same.  Despite that truth it didn’t take more than a month or so for me to start dating an attractive girl with the emerald-green name of “Pat O’Donnell.”  Although I met her at a church that operated a sort of USO facility she lived in Anacostia, not far from where I was based.  We “clicked” immediately and began dating regularly.  Although The Capital, being awash in military men from all the nearby bases, was not as “soldier-friendly” as Chicago, Pat and I found interesting things to do on the very limited money I had.  She was a Catholic, the first Catholic girl I had ever dated and my being raised in a church that held Catholicism as a rather unsavory religion made that a novelty to me.  In later years I came to believe that Pat O’Donnell was a God-given and necessary precursor to my falling in love with the beautiful Italian Catholic girl who has been my wife for 54 years.  At the time I didn’t see it that way; what I saw was an attractive, nice young lady with good moral character who enjoyed things I enjoyed and enjoyed being with me.  Although we never talked about a future together there was a strong mutual attraction.  We dated regularly up until one night in early June, 1954.  At the end of that date she told me that it was best that we didn’t see one another anymore.  We both knew I would be leaving at the end of that month.  I, of course, protested, but in my heart I knew she was right.  Whatever “romance” we had was a flower that was soon to be plucked; destined to wither and die. I went back to my barracks that night feeling very much alone –again. 

At the end of June I packed my car – I had traded my wounded Kaiser for an older, 1941 Chrysler Club Coupe - and headed west towards Kansas. I had been given a two-week “delay enroute” furlough.  As I drove down the beautifully scenic “Skyline Drive” in the Appalachians I stopped several times to enjoy the view – each time wishing I had someone there to share it with me.

                                                           A 1941 Chrysler Club Coupe

I arrived in my home town without incident and spent several dull days.  I was lonely.  Most of my acquaintances had left Caney for greener pastures.  So I wasn’t unhappy to head back to Ft. Sheridan IL to rejoin the Fifth Army Band.  I checked in the evening before I was to report for duty.

The following morning we had our usual mid-morning mail call.  Among the few letters I received was one with a Washington, D.C. postmark.  It was dated four days before I left and was addressed to me at the Naval Base in Anacostia. They forwarded it to my Ft.Sheridan address where it had languished in the Band’s mailroom while I was home on leave.  It was from Pat O’Donnell.  I lost that letter many years ago but I remember clearly the gist of what Pat had written and mailed a few days before I left Anacostia.

Its essence was: “I made a mistake.  I was hoping you would call me.  You haven’t so, I’m writing this hoping you get it before you leave.”  I do remember specifically that she wrote these exact words.  “Can’t a girl change her mind?  If you get this before you leave, please call me.  If I don’t see you again then I give you this Irish blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

The anguish I felt upon reading that letter can be known only by a person who once held something dear that was not his to keep. 

Three weeks later I met Anne DeNicolo; and the rest is as they say, “history.”  Pat O’Donnell’s “Irish Blessing” obviously WAS mine to keep.  I believe it was instrumental in leading me to the love of my life, my wife.

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     If there is anything worth learning from my experience as told above it is this:  Trust God in all things.  Although we seldom see it as we grope through the dark, God never closes a door behind us without opening one in front of us.