Some Enchanted Evening

Did you ever see the movie "South Pacific"? Remember when Nellie Forbush and Emile De Bcque were at a party and they looked across the room and saw each other? The song "Some Enchanted Evening" starts to play and suddenly they each only saw each other. The picture around them turned fuzzy and Emile sings the song.

"Some enchanted evening, you will see a stranger, you will see a stranger, across a crowded room, and some how you know, you know even then, that some how you'll see her again and again."

I remeber back to when as a youth wearing a white hat and dress blues I had left the ship to attend church "on the beach" and as I sat in the pew I felt my shoe was not tight. I looked down and saw that my shoelace had come undone. I bent over to tie it and after I had so I glance across the aisle and there was a girl, leaning over in her pew looking at me. All of a sudden, everything else around her fuzzied out and she was all there was to see. I didn't hear the preacher, only a soft background noise.

As soon as the service ended I started toward her and she smiled at me as I came near her. We started talking and I learned her name, told her mine and I knew I would see her again and again. Turns out her brother was the minister at that church. ( I am a PK, preacher's kid) so we laughed about that.

For about 2 years we went together, off and on. Everytime I went to sea I had to woe her back. I guess I was in love with her and thought she might me in love with me. She wasn't. When my enlistment ended, we said our good-byes, and I have not seen her since. I moved to Wisconsin and never heard from her again.

But now in my advance age, I think of her from time to time. I smile and think back but am glad we didn't marry as it never would have worked. But for a young sailor, it was a good memory.