I asked Mom to marry me 66 years ago today. Commissioning ceremony was on the 17th at Riverside Church. She had been in New York for that and a big dance on the main deck of the USS Prairie State. We also had danced to Jimmy Dorsey's band at the Cafe Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania. I had orders to report to the destroyer base in San Diego. In Mansfield, before I headed west and she went back to DePauw, I asked her to marry me. She said yes and I went with my father to buy the rings. We were married at the first opportunity that presented itself after that when I had my first leave off the Aulick and she had graduated.