One Enchanted Evening

Like most young children, I asked my mother more than once to tell me where she had met Daddy.  She always told me they met in a bowling alley, and it wasn’t until I was in college that she finally admitted that wasn’t quite true.  Actually, he picked her up in a bar.

In was 1942, and the place was Charlie’s Tavern in Cicero, the near-west suburb of Chicago made famous by Al Capone.  Lending a little credence to the story, there were actually two bowling lanes in a back room at Charlie’s, but they weren’t bowling on the night in question.

My mother had left her small hometown in downstate Illinois to get a job at a defense plant in Chicago.  She was 20 years old and divorced, and when that news got around the workplace, she got hit on by a lot of men who believed divorced women were easy.

She did agree to go out with one of her co-workers, and they ended up at Charlie’s Tavern.  My father was there that night too, and, according to his own statement, when he saw her from across the room, it was love at first sight.

My father knew the man she was with and knew too that the guy was married.  He took him aside and threatened to tell his wife if he didn’t make up an excuse and leave.  The guy introduced the two of them, vouched for my dad’s character, and left.  My father then offered to drive her home.

When he saw her to her door, this conversation ensued:

"Do you like to go to the movies?" asked he.
"Oh, yes, I love to go to the movies," replied she.
"I like to go to the movies too, but I don't have anybody to go with."
"I would go to the movies with you."
"You would?"

Smooth, Dad.  Really smooth.