In 1965, I was interning at Wilford Hall, a one thousand bed USAF hospital on Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. In April, I returned to Washington state on a four day pass for my brother’s wedding, a month before his graduation from dental school. Bob and Sharon were married in Arlington where they had first started dating while still in high school.

After the ceremony, I spent the night at the home of one of the groomsmen who lived at Three Tree Point, a small waterfront community on Puget Sound south of Seattle. Lou Blaesi and I had played football together at Pacific Lutheran. My senior year in college my brother Bob and I had roomed with Lou and two other friends in a house on Wheeler street directly across from the campus. Historically significant, it had once been the home of the school’s first president, Bjug Harstad. The price was right, only $45/month which we split five ways. The downside was that the old place was so small three of the guys had to sleep in the attic which they accessed by a rope hung from a roof beam. We called ourselves “The Aardvarks”. There were four of us in the wedding party.

Early Saturday morning I called McCord AFB in Tacoma to check on the status of return flights to Texas. The dispatcher told me I was in luck.  A plane was departing soon for Kelly AFB which was only a few miles from Lackland. Space was available. If I could be there in an hour they would hold a seat for me. Fortunately, in retrospect, there was no way to get packed and drive to Tacoma in time for the flight. Since military personnel in uniform could fly stand-by on commercial airlines for half fare, I decided to stay an extra day and fly back on Sunday which would leave enough time to report for duty Monday morning.

Blaesi’s sister was in her last year at Pacific Lutheran University. When Lou heard that I was staying over, he offered to phone her to see if she could arrange a blind date. The senior co-ed she contacted had just broken a date and was available. Her name was Karen Lund. She had been homecoming queen the previous fall. Although I had no idea at the time, Lou’s call changed my life. Almost two years later, after a delayed long- distance courtship across four continents, the girl I met that night would become my wife. In contrast to my brother’s nine year relationship, Karen and I had little time in each others presence. It would be seventeen months before we saw each other again and after that we had less than 10 days together before our wedding three months later.

Saturday the first of May was celebrated on campus with an annual May Festival program. It featured folk dances and waltzes performed by students who had rehearsed throughout the school year and were accompanied by the college symphony orchestra. The festivities provided a good start to our evening. 

Six years earlier I had been one of the dancers. Vivid memories remained of the nervousness I felt when the spotlight focused on me and my dance partner as we stepped onto the gym floor for a solo waltz in front of two thousand spectators. The year before we danced, a lovely senior girl had performed the same Viennese Waltz with her father. It was a tender moment that was difficult, if not impossible to follow. Fortunately my partner was elegant and graceful. While she was born to dance, I was a farm boy, who was more at home on the football field or basketball court. I would have been more comfortable with a game on the line and only seconds to play. 

Our dance director, Rhoda Young, was a women’s physical education instructor. At the time, I wondered what prompted her to choose me for the solo. Then I recalled how earlier in the spring she had developed an unexplained interest in track and field. On several occasions she came out as a spectator to observe our meets. Interestingly, she stayed only long enough to watch the high hurdles which was one of my events. Eventually it dawned on me she thought there might be some correlation between athletic performance and choreographed dance steps. My family disagreed. When I broke the news to my mother, she was  aghast and terrified at the thought of her son on the dance floor in front of “all those people”. Remembering me as an awkward teenager, she said in disbelief,  “Goodness, you will be as graceful as your grandfather’s bull.” My brother was more encouraging. When I told him I was nervous, he said “Don’t worry, no one will be watching you. All eyes will be on the girl.” He was right.

side from the May Festival program, social dancing was not allowed on campus when I was a student. Our college president was a rigid fundamentalist. When I was an underclassman, a popular men’s quartet known as The Four Freshmen performed on campus. After hearing their harmonic jazz vocals, Dr. Eastvold declared at chapel the following Monday that “the devil himself has been on our stage”. In reaction to his comment the quartet’s music blared across campus from open dormitory windows for weeks on end. It was not until after the president passed away that restrictions on dancing were lifted.

I had privileges at officer’s clubs so after the festival, we joined Lou and his date for dinner and dancing at McCord AFB.  Fortunately, I did not step on Karen’s toes.

We returned to her dorm and lingered outside as the clock ticked down on her 1:00 a.m. curfew.  After a wonderful time together, our evening ended with a hug, not a kiss. While she told her roommate she hoped she’d see me again, I held my feelings in check. 

You see, Karen was a French major and was leaving after graduation for a  year of study at the Sorbonne in Paris. In five months, I was scheduled to start a three year assignment as a Flight Surgeon with a U-2 reconnaissance squadron south of Melbourne, Australia. Soon we would find ourselves half a world apart and I saw no way to pursue a romantic relationship. All that was left at the time were memories of a beautiful evening and thoughts of what might have been. In the months that followed there were no phone calls or letters until the war in Viet Nam changed everything.