The sailor was a writer; he loved the written word. In high school, he was editor of the school's literary magazine and the yearbook. Of the ten letters his aunt had gotten written for him, he answered only one. The sailor and the secretary corresponded for several weeks, and then along came Navy orders to form the next convoy in Houston. It was December 1942. The two arranged to meet at a restaurant in downtown Houston.

He would later claim it was love at first sight. She would say they fell in love holding hands over dinner with Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" in the background. Who was right didn't matter, for in love they were, and "White Christmas" would forever be their song.

In the year since he enlisted, almost half his boot camp company had died and several of her eager suitors had written the last letters of their lives. Yet while the largest war in history raged around them, the tall lanky refinery worker's son and the petite debutant fell in love. Common sense would dictate caution, but love tends to defy sense.

This defying of sense was especially disconcerting for their parents. Her mother was absolutely horrified; his father thought it crazy that kids should marry with a war on. The courtship went on for two years. Her mother had hoped that she would come to her senses and tire of her "sailor-boy." However, as the war entered 1944, it was becoming obvious that the couple intended to wed, and soon.

With his father's help, her mother whisked her off to east Texas and each of those two parents started to lie to their children that the courtship was over because of rejection by the other party. They were both devastated. After the war, the sailor graduated with a degree in English, started, then stopped, and then started graduate school. The secretary married another.

Parts 1, 2, 4, Epilogue