There Was No Music

By Michael Peters

"There Was No Music" is a recollection of a naval aviator and founding member of a unique combat aviation unit, the HA(L)-3 "Seawolves", the most decorated navy squadron of the Vietnam conflict. The unit is currently the subject of a Smithsonian sponsored historical novel and a nationally televised PBS documentary. The author is cited in the novel and appears in the documentary. In a parallel narrative, the author reflects on the aftermath of the combat experience, a quixotic journey, dogged by post-traumatic stress related to the combat experience. Though the subject matter is often grim, the author's perception is cast in a darkly humorous context.
This work evolves in two concurrent parts, one detailing my Vietnam combat experience where, as a decorated naval aviator the author logged in excess of 800 hours of combat flight time and was: twice wounded; twice shot down; and continually engaged in combat actions culminating in a top-secret rescue operation. The parallel story considers the authors reentry into civilian life, a unique odyssey inter-twined with significant socio-political events of the post-World War II era: the Southern California beach scene; Watergate and President Nixon's resignation; Aspen, Colorado evolving as a haven for refugees of the 60's cultural revolution and a celebrity mecca; Gary Hart's disastrous presidential campaigns; and the launch of the International Space Station.
While in Vietnam the author flew heavily armed helicopters off refitted World War II transport ships that also served as a mother craft to the river patrol boat teams that plied the Mekong River. The patrol boats were seeking out munitions and supplies that were being delivered via nondescript watercraft to the insurgent Viet Cong guerilla squads that occupied the Mekong Delta. The helicopters provided air cover to counter the countless sniper attacks and set ambushes directed at the boats.
The mission was unique to the Vietnam conflict and the author was among the initial cadre of pilots, dubbed the Seawolves, who gave life to and validated the concept. These efforts anticipated and enabled the formation of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron three, HA(L)-3. These endeavors also attracted the attention of another fledging organization, the US Navy SEALS, that resulted in collaborative efforts that would continue throughout the Vietnam conflict.

In the parallel story, the author details his relationship with Stacey, a young woman he meets in a chance encounter following a reunion of his Seawolf Comrades . Her life, like his, has been unconventional and is the attraction that precipitates the connection. She has lost a husband, an RAF pilot, in a freak accident. She is the daughter of a retired US Congressman though the antithesis of a person steeped in political decorum. She has a passion for horses and a quirky outlook on life. She seems the perfect partner, the realization of a lifelong quest.
The evolving relationship is a vehicle for relating the post-Vietnam transition, a life tainted by the combat experience and confounded by the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The story unfolds in varied locations: Lake Tahoe; the beach towns of Southern California; the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado; the polo fields and fox hunting venues surrounding Middleburg, Virginia and Washington DC. Iconic characters: Nixon associate Charles Colson; gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson; singer John Denver; among others, appear in the narrative.
The title, "There Was no Music" derives from the author's reaction to his first combat experience:

"The pilot had already swung the aircraft around starting another slow arcing turn to line up behind the targets. Three diminutive figures clad in the standard wardrobe of what appeared to be, and would always be referred to as, "black pajamas", were beginning to move. They were heading for a dike line, the crisscross of barriers that kept the rice paddies flooded. I simply reacted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098304515

Book preview

THERE WAS NO MUSIC

Michael J. Peters

ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-09830-450-8

ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-09830-450-8

© 2020. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is dedicated to Rocky and his Rats

and

Tom Gilliam

Comrades in arms and heroes all

Top: Ken Lund and George Rocky Rowell in Vietnam (1967)

Bottom: The Rats at Dirty Al’s Lake Tahoe condo following the 2008 Seawolf Reunion in Reno, Nevada

Contents

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

PART I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

PART II

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

PART III

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

PART IV

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Many individuals encouraged me to pursue this effort and I am grateful to all who did so.

I am deeply indebted to Phil Ehrenkranz. My inclination to favor cliché and bad grammar and his utter distain for the usage of same was an ongoing topic in our many meetings at the Rust Library in Leesburg, Virginia. Fortunately, I deferred to his judgements and in doing so, the following pages are vastly improved from the original.

My wife stands above all in the realization of this effort. She was the constant, the one person whose support and endless patience allowed me to continue through what was oft times a struggle and an overwhelming endeavor.

INTRODUCTION

The alarm goes off at 4:30 AM. My wife hits the snooze button, rolls over, and somehow manages to mesh perfectly into the contours of my body. Usually, I am lulled back to sleep, but at times, I am content to lie in the darkness, listening to her softly breathing into my chest. The moment always elicits an extraordinary feeling of contentment. I have no vocabulary to adequately describe the subtly intoxicating feeling that overcomes me during those momentary interludes.

She stirs gently at the next alarm and slowly eases out of bed. At 5:00 AM, she is out the door and headed for the gym. She prefers the early morning crowd. She contends it is a more purposeful group, less inclined to socialize or disrupt her workout. Though gentle and amiable under most circumstances, she is, when she deems it necessary, a focused and serious lady.

Jack and I are somewhat less so. I check the weather. If it appears tolerable, a state subject to varying criteria, I slip into the appropriate layers of clothing. Jack doesn’t move from his chosen bed site until he hears the leash come out of the closet. Jack is our Golden Retriever, formally named Jackson Browne, a name we use randomly and most often when there are issues. He hears it rarely these days. Both of us have mellowed considerably with age and boundaries are well established.

Morven Park is but a two-block walk. Deer, raccoon, fox, and skunk are commonly sighted in the neighborhood; on one occasion I came upon a black bear. Rather than precipitate a noisy encounter disrupting the early morning tranquility, Jack remains tethered to my person. Though an old dog, he is still capable of reacting to his primal instincts even if the act is less exuberant than in his prime.

When we reach the perimeter of the park, I set Jack free and he quickly disappears into the darkness. He is never very far away, making frequent reappearances as I casually make my own way through the tranquil space. Occasionally, silhouettes of running deer will burst out on the horizon, another indication of Jack’s presence. I suspect he lives for those moments. During those brief encounters, he realizes the potential of his genetic being, reacting instinctively as generations of his predecessors have been bred to do, even though there is a price to pay. He is riven with arthritis and will spend the balance of the morning recovering in blessed slumber.

These walks are a special time for both of us. They afford me a rare perspective, an opportunity to observe and contemplate in solitude: the changing of the seasons, the unique topography of the land, the vibrant ecosystem that makes it come alive, the immense vault of the heavens above, and in some small way, the nature of the Creator who caused it to be so.

I enter the park through a wide meadow that gradually rises to a small hillock flanked on either side by a tree line. In the fall and winter, I walk in darkness save for the light of the of the moon. Town lights are dimly visible in the distance, but once through the wood they disappear as the path descends into secluded spaces of the park. The northeastern perimeter of the park lies in front of me. I catch the first glimpse of the coming day on the horizon, a band of soft blue, pink and orange tints that, in the fall, gradually diminishes to a sliver of grayish silver as the winter solstice approaches.

When the trees shed their leaves, the landscape becomes bleak. The days seem more often overcast and the environs somewhat ominous. The omnipresent deer are identifiable as vague shadows against the horizon, or by the muffled shriek they give off when they bolt in advance of our approach. It is a most disconcerting sound, akin to the cry of the fiend in a vintage horror movie. Occasionally, it is punctuated by the high-pitched squeal of a fox. It is malicious irony that the sounds of these gentle creatures have quite probably given rise to the gruesome fantasies that have terrorized susceptible people throughout the ages.

The black sky of winter scape offers unique and captivating revelations. Stars seem more vivid in the winter sky. The dippers, big and little, hang effortlessly in the inky blackness and the North Star points the way as it has done for eons. Constellations conjure up legends that reflect the vivid imaginations of ancients who pondered the vast cosmos swirling above them and tried to relate it to their own being. The leafless trees cast skeletal images on the horizon that are both ghoulish and poignant, lost souls struggling to catch a glimpse of a lost reality.

Winter fades in the wake of spring. The process reverses. The grayish-silver sliver gradually expands into a luxuriant band of glowing colors. Darkness gives way to a haze of soft morning light that is a reflection and an anticipation of the sun still hovering below the horizon. The park is a mélange of sights and sounds: birds cavorting in the sky relentlessly fill the air with chirruping and pipping sounds, and critters scurry about in an endless search for food. The awe-inspiring process of rebirth is in evidence everywhere. Buds appear on the trees and new-born deer emerge to graze innocently, accompanied by their ever-watchful mothers.

We are virtually free in this place, Jack dependent only on the whims of his instincts and I by wherever my thoughts elect to go. He discovers what I can only imagine are indiscriminate bouquets of sights and scents. My thoughts are unfettered and random, meandering to whatever curiosity emerges, but, more often than not, I find myself reaching back into the past. I suspect it is an attempt to find perspective and rationale in a life seemingly lacking in purpose and plan, punctuated by events that some have deemed extraordinary.

It has been suggested that I was born with more curiosity than common sense, and like Alice, inadvertently drawn down rabbit holes where the bizarre often seemed the norm. Perhaps! To me it is simply a life lived, sometimes recklessly, driven by a curiosity with mischievous, but not malicious, tinges and little room for regret.

I must add that eliciting recollections is a challenging exercise. The fallibility of human memory increases with the passage of the seasons, and I cannot always be certain whether my memories are accurate or simply surreal images of events blurred and distorted by time. Either way, they at least are consistent.

In my childhood, I fancied myself a cowboy. It may be in my DNA. Ancestral records indicate a family presence in New Mexico as early as the year 1678 and place them among the founders of Albuquerque. My maternal grandfather grew up in Trujillo, New Mexico, born just fifteen years after the notorious Lincoln County Cattle Wars, and only a short distance from Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid had recently met an early demise. At the turn of the 20th century, it was still a land populated primarily by cattle and cowboys. I have a picture of my grandfather wearing worn chaps, and what appears to be, an authentic sombrero. He too died young. I never knew him, though my grandmother suggested I bore a strong resemblance to him. Her oldest daughter, Helen, also acknowledged he was a ladies’ man, an inference that seemed pointedly directed at me, though, to my mind, was undeserved.

I am told that, for a time, he took a job with the Pinkerton Agency riding the railroad as a guard. Eventually, he and his family would make their way to Chicago, where he found employment in a paint manufacturing plant. My grandmother would maintain the fumes killed him. He was thirty-three years old. My grandmother was carrying their fourth child when he died. She barely spoke English. Her daughter Helen became her point of interaction with the world. When her father died, Helen was twelve, the oldest of four siblings who included my uncle John, the newborn Anita, and my mother, Adelina. Helen recalls my infant mother as Grandfather’s favorite, a spoiled and self-centered child, traits, also by inference, attributed to me.

My own memories begin in Chicago, when I was perhaps, two or three years old. I recollect sitting on a step that is the entryway to the kitchen. I am scooping the remains of cake icing out of a large mixing bowl. My grandmother has singled me out for the treat. I am Mickey to everyone, but Meekee to her, the pronunciation a result of her heavy Spanish accent. At times, she also referred to me as El Demonio, the demon. It must have been a holiday. People were everywhere. I’m sure my mother, father and newborn sister were somewhere in the apartment.

I have another memory, a vague remembrance of my father loading luggage and a crib into the back of a car. It seemed dark, early morning, I think. The recollection stops: When it resumes, we, my father and I, are living with his parents in a brick walkup apartment. My mother and sister are nowhere to be found in these memories. I would come to know the neighborhood as Back of the Yards. It sat on the southern periphery of the Union Stockyards, the nexus of an industry that would earn Chicago the title of Hog Butcher for the World. At one point, more meat was processed in Chicago than any other place on the planet. It was a logical destination for my paternal grandfather, a Polish immigrant and a butcher by trade.

When I reconnected with my mother, she and my sister Natalie were living in South Bend, Indiana. Mother had a new husband, who I would know and always address as Bill. He seemed nice enough, if distant and a bit stern. My visits were sporadic, generally in the summer or during holidays. We do a lot of things together when I was there. Bill loved Bonnie Doone ice cream, which I had never heard of, though I would come to know the drive-in as a local landmark. On those visits, it became an after-dinner ritual, driving over to the ice cream parlor for a cone, sundae or banana split.

Sixty years later, Natalie would confess she hated my visits. During those brief interludes, she would recall, Mother was more of a mother and I was the focus of attention that she felt she had never come to realize.

It was true. Early on in the visits, Mother would begin a litany of apologies for what she considered her abandonment of me at an early age. She would shower me with affection and continue to express her remorse. In an ironically perverse turn of events, it served only to instill a feeling of guilt in me for being the source of my mother’s guilt. I tried to explain that to my sister. It did not appear to mitigate her resentment.

My life in Chicago was decidedly different, some might say unconventional. It seemed to revolve around saloons. To some, the term bar connotes a place where people go merely to drink and momentarily escape the monotony of their daily existence. Saloons, I have observed, have character and characters, individuals who are colorful, quirky and almost always amusing and interesting. A saloon is a gathering place to engage and be entertained. Not to say that folks don’t go to a saloon to escape; it just seemed a more enjoyable place to do it.

Dad’s favorite haunt was Gene Corey’s Tavern, only two short blocks from our walk-up apartment. Gene, the owner, was my dad’s best man when he married my mother. Most of the patrons were people my dad had known since childhood. It had few frills but exuded bonhomie among the patrons, people who were closely intertwined either through family ties or longevity of relationship. It was a saloon, a place where I might tag along with my dad on his regular visits, or locate him when my grandmother required his presence for dinner. It was, to me, a place of safety, comfort and enjoyment.

It was also my first exposure to a war experience. World War II had just ended. Corey’s was a gathering place for returned veterans. They were conquering heroes, vanquishers of the Jap and the Kraut. No one spoke of the horrors of war. These stories were of battles won and incredible feats of bravery. They were pictured in black and white, with clearly defined good guys and bad guys. My early perspective of combat was shaped by the men who gathered in Corey’s Saloon, but their tales bore no resemblance to war as I would come to know it. In the saloon stories, there were no shades of gray such as I would encounter in a conflict still in a very distant future.

Eventually, my father would own a saloon. It was in Cicero, Illinois, directly across from the Western Electric Plant on Cicero Avenue. Western Electric was then a subsidiary of the American Telephone & Telephone Company, or AT&T as it was more commonly known. I was seven years old.

AT&T was the telephone company, Ma Bell before the baby Bells opted to leave the nest. Western Electric manufactured the telephones and supporting equipment for the mother hen and her far-flung family. It was also the primary source of the endless stream of patrons present at the bar and the substantial sums of money they pushed across it. It provided a very comfortable life, at least as I saw it. I don’t remember wanting for much of anything, though, at seven years of age you don’t want for very much.

Cicero seemed quite normal to me. So did the saloon. We lived in a large wooden frame house on a shady side street. My grandmother, my surrogate mother, had an apartment on the second floor. Grandfather had passed on, ironically like my maternal grandfather, a victim of his profession. He sustained a cut from a butcher knife which festered into gangrene and his ultimate demise.

With no grandfather and an often, absent father, Grandmother doted on me and spoiled me, I must admit, to an immeasurable degree. I suspect that throughout my life, I assumed my grandmother to be the norm. She did me no favor in that regard. Three ex-wives and a myriad of affairs attest to that, though from my point of view, life was absolutely as it should have been – most of the time. She had a dark side.

At some point, I believe in her teens, she had been the victim of a streetcar accident. It left her with a shortened leg and a limp. She tended toward portly, but not unattractively so. She had the kind face and mild demeanor of a stereotypical grandmother. I suspect she had been considered attractive as a young woman. I have a vague recollection of a story about a suitor of whom she was very fond, but her mother preferred my grandfather, an immigrant from her village in Poland. The marriage was arranged, a common practice in those times.

Her daily routine included a trip to the grocery store. She was a sight, the doting grandmother limping her way to the store catering to the needs of little Mickey. She had her own needs and one of them was the pint of whiskey that lay buried in her brown paper shopping bag. By evening the bottle was empty. She would see Joe, her dead husband, and would call out to him. It terrified me.

Eventually, she would launch into a profane and ugly tirade on the misdeeds of my mother, the woman who had deserted her beloved son and grandson, and the woman I should detest with equal fervor. It could go on as I lay in bed and into the early morning hours until, overcome by exhaustion, she surrendered to an oblivious stupor.

It was an ugly conundrum. To others, she was a saint, the crippled grandmother who cared and catered to her adored and abandoned grandson. To suggest otherwise would have appeared incredibly churlish and ultimately, a fruitless effort. When pressed, I would publicly concede her virtues, but privately came to loathe her. To this day, I cannot tolerate being badgered or incessantly prodded. I escape into a state of mental oblivion. Back then, I had other retreats.

The saloon was just three blocks away, and I often wandered over during the day. Not the usual environment for a seven-year old, but it was a haven for me. I loved it, and everyone there, it seemed, loved me. An old man with some sort of accent was always sitting out in front of the building. He would tell me stories and give me candy. I can’t now even begin to relate what the stories were about, but he paid attention to me and that made me feel important. So, I listened. There was, of course, the candy factor.

The front part of the saloon was dark and always murky, creating something of a mystical effect. That the cigarette smoke was responsible for the magical aura was an irony, years away from consideration. But not long after, I became a chain smoker consuming three packs a day. Fortunately, I kicked the habit at age thirteen.

Some light got into the building, but it came through glass brick walls and that added to the chimera, that surreal effect. There were usually three or four women sitting at the bar. More attention! They liked to sit me on their laps and run their hands through my curly hair. Adorable, sweet, or cutie were words I heard with considerable frequency. They bought me Cokes. I remember their skirts being slit up to the thigh, and it appeared they had stiletto knives strapped to their legs.

The girls would often dance on the little stage behind the bar. They would try to get me up there, but I would go shy and self-conscious, which also served to enhance my adorable quotient. Other girls sat behind little tables. They had cups with dice in them and I would get to roll them across the green felt surface. More fun! There was a hotel upstairs. I assumed the girls all lived up there. They went up there quite a bit. I was never invited; apparently, I was not adorable enough.

The back room of the saloon was another world. It was separated from the front by heavy, light-resistant curtains. Once through the curtains, one entered a world brightly lit and generally crowded. Chalkboards with lists on them lined the room. Everyone seemed very interested in the chalkboards. Not much fun here. It was noisy, nobody paid any attention to me, and I looked at chalkboards all day in school. No, not much fun.

There was another room behind the big lighted one. They stored cases of empty beer bottles back there for return to and reuse by the vendor, recycling before recycling was elevated to the status of trendy, and an environmentally conscious endeavor. To me it was just sorting bottles. Occasionally, that was my job. Actually, I was the assistant.

The head bottle sorter was a man named, of course, Bottles. He lived in the room and he smelled like it, which was not to his benefit. He slept on a dingy mattress which went almost unnoticed because it blended so well with the décor of the space. A heap of rumpled blankets occupied various spots on the bed. He was old and small of stature, a derelict weighed down by the ravages of alcohol and his shabby existence. He appeared, like the mattress, a composite of gray blending perfectly into his dismal environment, a man possessed of no persona nor one shred of dignity.

Unlike the man who sat outside the front door of the saloon, Bottles had little to say. He never had any candy either, but as his assistant, I got to share his lonely existence a few hours a day, that is, when he was awake. Bottles slept in a lot. Even today I can only recollect his being. I have no inkling of his persona.

By the time I entered high school, the saloon scene had lost most of its allure. I was an athlete, a good one, headed for college on a track scholarship. All my friends appeared to live in a Norman Rockwell world. Mine seemed more like something out of a novel written by Dickens, Runyon or Puzo. I no longer spent a whole lot of time talking up the old man who sat in front of the saloon, whose main purpose in life was to alert the folks in the back room that the local constabulary was making a usually predictable visit to disrupt the gaming activities. My taste in women had shifted from B-girls, strippers and hookers to more conventional cheerleader types. Bottles had passed on.

We moved west to a better suburb. Cicero had been home base to Chicago mob boss Al Capone. Al had held court at the Hawthorne Hotel, a short distance from my little side street home. I could walk out the back yard, proceed a half-block up the alleyway, and would be at the rear entrance of the hotel. Cicero’s reputation was, in my opinion, undeserved. Though Al was recently deceased, his organization continued to control the major crime activity in the Chicago area, and they preferred to keep their backyard free of street crime. To me it was a delightfully peaceful and enjoyable neighborhood.

I have lived in Hawaii, Carmel, La Jolla, Aspen, Malibu, the Hollywood Hills and Virginia horse country. In retrospect, that shady side street in Cicero seems, though not as exciting or exotic, a tranquil oasis and as comfortable a home as any I would ever know.

As for the cheerleader types, though wonderful women all, a part of me would be drawn to the likes of those bawdy, eccentric and wonderfully entertaining ladies I had encountered in my father’s saloon. They would be a factor that would continue to color my seemingly never-ending quest for a fantasy relationship, a comingled version of the adorable girl next door, the hooker with a heart of gold and the doting grandmother. But the fantasy, was never to be realized.

I inadvertently started a family with a wife I did adore. I met Donna in the balcony of the local movie theater, an innocent encounter of teenagers gathering on a Saturday night as was so typical of the era. My friend, Bill Bedrava, and I were preening in our lettermen’s jackets, clearly establishing our credentials as jocks. We had both played in the varsity football game earlier in the afternoon.

She was new to the area, having just transferred from another high school. Even in the dim light of the darkened theater balcony it would have been impossible not to notice her. In the brightly lit lobby, she was mesmerizing. Sparkling brown eyes, relentlessly smiling and intensely animated, the brown ponytail that hung from the back of her head was in continuous motion, bouncing about her shoulders. It was the clichéd love at first sight, which would become an oft repeated and discouragingly cyclical event.

Donna was, I quickly learned, a teenage fashion model. Her picture was a constant on the billboards that defined the Chicago landscape. She had come from Oak Park, an upscale suburb by our standards, which she was quick to point out. I found it appealing. It was the beginnings of my tendency toward upward mobility. We became an inseparable item during my senior year in high school. She was my prom date, and of course, a cheerleader.

Our relationship went into hiatus when I departed for college, the University of Wisconsin, the enormous distance of one hundred and fifty miles to the north. We rekindled our romance when we met at a party the following summer. She drove me back to school when I left to begin my sophomore year, and stayed the weekend. Two months later, she called to tell me she was expecting a child. I was not to worry. She intended to commit suicide.

We married a month later in a civil ceremony held on a wintry day in Winona, a little Minnesota town directly across the Wisconsin state line. It was 1960, and we had both just turned nineteen.

Donna went back to Chicago, and I finished my sophomore year in Madison. I returned to Chicago in time to witness the June birth of my daughter Kim, the only baby I ever considered unequivocally and absolutely adorable. In the fall, we all headed back to Wisconsin.

We set up our home in a second-story apartment overlooking Langdon Street, fraternity row, just two blocks from my own fraternity house. Madison, Wisconsin was the epitome of a storybook college town. It was considered a large school, then accommodating 18,000 students. Today, it plays host to more than 40,000 students.

Langdon Street was the nexus of the campus social world. State Street sat one block to the north. It ran from the domed state capitol building to the base of meticulously landscaped Bascom Hill that served as the sweeping lawn for the equally imposing Bascom Hall, the centerpiece of the university campus. In between, State Street was home. I suspect it still is to the bars that lent to the precipitous balance of academic excellence and excessive merrymaking. The university did and still does, I understand, rank among the highest of its educational peers in both scholastic achievement and social revelry.

It was an idyllic world, and in the midst of it, I carved out an existence filled with pleasantly comfortable routines. I generally woke when Kim did. I would feed and bathe her and get her settled into her playpen I would then attend to my studies, diverted occasionally by Kim’s demands for attention and my obsessive need to provide it. She elicited an endless stream of gurgles and giggles until it was time for me to go to class. I am sure she cried, but I remember only the giggles and gurgles.

Donna would begin to stir underneath the heavy comforter as I returned Kim to her crib. Cold weather comes early in Wisconsin. It was a dreamy and languid awakening, a lovely thing to watch. A quick kiss and a Kimmy update were usually all I had time for before I headed out the door for classes. We took walks down Langdon Street in the afternoon, accompanied by our Basset Hound puppy, appropriately named Jock.

We had few financial worries. I was on a full athletic scholarship and managed to bank most of the money I earned doing construction work in the summer. Donna quickly regained her figure, and picked up occasional modeling work in Chicago. Her parents were also helpful.

In December, we learned Kimmy would be joined by a sibling in the summer. I blamed it on the cold weather and the wonderfully warm comforter. Scott appeared in mid-June. His birth, however, coincided with the disappearance of my scholarship due to a series of persistent injuries. I was unable to return to school in the fall. Our comfortable existence was over.

The marriage quickly crumbled under the reality of hard times and crushed aspirations. Donna advised me she wanted a divorce. She had met someone, a doctor. We rationalized it to be for the best. I could, and did go back to school. It would be a better life for the children. That struck a chord from my own childhood. Bubbly and romantic was fine under the right circumstances. Now it was time to be practical. We signed the divorce papers in a bar on State Street in Madison just up the street from the hotel