Retirement gives people a chance to look up on old friends. Recently, one of my husband’s Navy classmates found forty of us to unite in an email group. Roger and I were delighted to hear about couples we had not heard from in decades. The submarine Navy made an exceptional bond and the lost years seemed to melt away as we reconnected.
Last December, several shared the adventure of that fateful time 49 years ago as men graduated from OCS (Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI), got married, and headed west with their new brides to San Diego.
Accepted into the submarine service, they were ready to start an extensive training program with very limited personal resources and leave time. Three couples had similar experiences that cemented their new marriages.
With their worldly goods crammed into their Pinto, the Deitchmanns experienced stomach poisoning and whiteout conditions, used a charcoal pan borrowed from a trucker to start up their car, and got the last motel room available during a snow storm.
The Doughtys skidded into a truck in New Mexico—Donna had never driven in snow before. Yet, their fondest memory was the night before when they drank Cold Duck and ate popcorn watching Paul Newman in “Hud” in a mountain cabin in Gallup.
The Stephens got stuck in Reno when the snow closed the pass into Tahoe. (Shades of the Donner party). They also had a near miss with a semi on a Montana mountain pass, had to buy chains for the tires before they were allowed to go over another pass, finally getting through in a motorcade of cars. Whew!
I am glad to report that 49 years later they (and we) are still happily married and we are eager to see them again.
