When I was in Journalism school I worked on the campus humor magazine "Showme". I was on the staff for the last two years it was published until it was banned due to poor taste. I still have the magazines and it is funny to think such harmless smut could have created such a commotion. But it was big stuff in the late fifties. Mort Walker who later drew Beetle Bailey was a contributor. One issue shows me modeling a skirt appliqued with a Snoopy dog drawn for us by Charles Schulze.

One night the editor had a paste up party at his apartment and one of his roommates was Dan. He said he was driving down to St. Louis that weekend and I could come along if I wanted. He was very polite and seemed sophisticated to me. He could drive the car while drinking a soft drink, smoking and switching the radio stations. I was dazzled.

He invited me out but my experience dating was limited and I didn't want to get in with such a cool character. This made me officially hard to get and worth going after.
He was on the GI Bill so periodically would have to take off a semester to work to pay his expenses. We ended up writing and going out around six months until I broke it off, He thought I was just being goofy and actually wrote me a love letter which he never sent.

Fast forward 10 years and I returned to the state two kids heavier and somewhat wiser. I was going through a box of letters to re-read the promises Black Cloud made me and there were all Dan's amusing letters. I called him and he was home on a Saturday night and without a wife or family. He fished out my letters from a dresser drawer and told me there was a letter to me there he wished he had mailed.

Within five months we were married. My mother said it was a miracle but I called it making my mistakes early and saving the best for last. And it lasted 20 years.