Cupid's Arrow In The Heart

USS Quillback SS 424

USS Quillback Insignia Patch

At the end of his tour aboard the USS Atule SS 403 he was transferred to the USS Quillback SS 424). And he served aboard her from February 10, 1956 until June 09, 1959. It was during his time aboard the USS Quillback SS 424 that we met and got married in 1957.

By the time we met he already had over nine years the Navy, and he was a 1^st. Class Engineman, and had been attached to the USS Quillback SS 424 for a while at that point.

He came home on ten days leave and stopped by the place where I was working at in Lake Wales, and we met for the first time. After his leave was up he went back to Key West.  I switched jobs and worked another place for awhile, but I saw him each time he came home on leave or weekends after that.

Not long afterwards I left Lake Wales and went to live in San Antonio, Texas for about six months.

My sister and her husband were stationed there in the Air Force at Lackland Air Force Base, and had a six month old baby. She had to have surgery, and long story short I went out to live with them, and  take care of the baby during her hospital time and while she was recovering.

Arrow Through Both Hearts

When I came back to Lake Wales I got my old job back, and who walks in on my first night back? You guessed it, and he was just coming home on another ten days leave. He asked me out on a date that night and three weeks later we were married, at this time we had known each other for more than a year, but had never dated!

He had just returned from a trip to ‘Gitmo’. He had the trunk of his car full of all kinds of rum. He had layered it with blankets to cushion it. Each sailor was allowed to purchase an allotted number of bottles of rum to bring back with them. 

Not all of the guys on the Boat partook of alcohol, and he would talk the one’s who didn't into buying their allotment for him and he gave them their money back. 

He hauled it around with him everywhere locked in the trunk till it was all gone; he dared not leave it on the Boat or in the barracks while he was on leave. A couple of nights before his leave was up, we went partying with a couple of friends that we had both known for quite some time.

The guy owned and operated a small service station, and we wound up at his station before the night ended. We were all four about three sheets in the wind. 

Stacked Soda  Crates

Old Coca Cola Ice Box

Chuck was sitting on a stack of old wooden Coca Cola crates next to me and I was sitting on top of the drink box that sodas were iced down in.

He began the conversation with, “You know my leave is almost up, and I have to go back to Key West.” I answered, “Yeah, I know, and I sure am gonna to miss you.”  As he was talking he was beginning to lean in the opposite direction.

He said, “And there is something I want to talk to you about before I go.”  I asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?” He had leaned a little more to the left, and began to slowly topple over, as he was falling he yelled out, “I want to ask you if you’ll marry me?”

And wham; he hit the floor and those crates scattered all over the place with him in the midst of them. I cracked up laughing, all of us did, it was so funny at the time I thought so then and I still do, but I leaned over and told him, “If you’ll come back tomorrow when you’re sober and ask me that question, I’ll give you an answer!”

He dropped me off at home about 6:00 a m, and it was too late to go to sleep I’d never wake up early enough, I had to open the place I worked on Sunday mornings at 10:00 a m, so I just showered and changed into work clothes and went on in to work a little early, but I was a long way from being bright eyed and bushy tailed.