Neil Blum:  

I was on my way back to Chicago from Vietnam, where I had been a war correspondent attached to the First Marine Division at DaNang. I had lived for a while in Australia, spent a week in New Zealand, and now I was in the airport at Auckland. I had gone up on the walkaway above the waiting room. Looking over the crowd of travelers, a beautiful tall redhead appeared with orange curls, very elegant in her best traveling clothes. Mmmm. She was something like Deborah Kerr in AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER with Cary Grant, but with a long Viking face. I made my way downstairs and inserted myself into her path, saying, "Hello." I was a rough, common-looking character in blue jeans, and her nose was in the air. She sniffed,"Hello," back, but she didn't notice me at all. I was quite beneath her line of vision. We were on the same plane to Tahiti, but I didn't get to speak to her again. In Tahiti, I met up with a tennis pro who was on a world tour and we hung out. And then one night I ran into the redhead again, in a hotel lounge. She was with a Swiss fellow I had also met--and I was to learn later that he had warned her not to have anything to do with me, that I looked disreputable. But anyway I asked her to dance. There was beautiful music playing and the Polynesian waves were hitting the shore under a bright moon, palm trees waving in the breeze. She turned me down. So I asked again. She turned me down again. The third time I asked her, she danced with me. And after that she wanted to dance every dance with me. We danced under the stars; it was very romantic. And even though we didn't even kiss, when I walked her back to her room, I told her that we were going to be married some day. We exchanged addresses, but I'm sure she didn't take me seriously in the slightest. Kathleen was on her way back to Yorkshire via Montreal, and I was on my way back to Chicago via Mexico. She was British and French royalty, and was born in Steeple Lodge at Wentworth Castle, built by the Earl of Strafford and the first structure listed in the National Registry. She had attended England's first grammar school at Penistone, church at Bolsterstone, and she loved the Eweden Valley, where later I would scatter her ashes. I have a painting of "the Eweden" above the fireplace, commissioned from a friend of ours. I was a common boy from the rough streets of Chicago. It is common for travelers to exchange addresses and never hear from each other again, so maybe Kathleen was surprised to hear from me when I returned to Chicago. In those days you exchanged letters only once every two weeks. There was no e-mail, with its lightning courtships of several letters a day. But gradually her letters became more and more affectionate and full of love for me, and when I told her that my prospects were not very good, she didn't seem to care. And finally I sent her a one-way ticket to Chicago. She often related to me her surprise upon opening the letter to find a ticket. She ran to her mother, said with astonishment, "It's a ticket!" and asked what to do. My beloved mother-in-law said, "Go for it, love." But her Uncle Johnny bought her a return ticket just in case. She was one of those rare girls as beautiful inside as she was outside, and all the moreso for not knowing that she was. One time she came to me all a-twitter, and I asked, "What's up with you?" She said, "Some construction workers whistled at me!" "Sure. You're a dish." "Oh, I am not!" She didn't have a clue the effect she had on peop...Expand for more