It was the eve of America’s entry into World War II. I was a West Texas college freshman. He was the 6’4” right end receiver of the football team with curly black hair and a brooding face. My roommates said he hated women, didn’t date and would never notice me. I examined his class schedule and began running from my own classes each day to pass by him as he emerged from his. This went on day after day.

Finally, he began to nod and I’d flick my hand in a wave and rush by. We never paused or spoke.

On February 14, two months after I had begun
“Operation Pigskin,” he stumbled out of class in his old cowboy boots and as we passed in the hall, handed me a piece of paper. We didn’t speak. We kept moving. Later, when I examined the paper, I saw it had a clumsy heart drawn on it that read: “How about being my Valentine?” As they like to say down in Texas, it was “Hand-did!”


Three years later, after Pearl Harbor and when he returned as an Air Force captain after 25 bombing missions over Europe, we were married.