Al, The Fighting Marine-part 2

   With the eight thirty Mass over at nine thirty, I walked over to the Rectory beside the Catholic Immaculate Conception Church in Old Town, San Diego. Tall Al, for Alvin,  stood in front of me and waited to grab two donuts and then coffee. He looked to be in his early nineties. (Found out later, 92)
     After the service, the church served up donuts, orange juice and coffee.   I tapped Al Weaver on the shoulder. "Nice to see you again." He replied, "The same" and we sat at Table 1 on the north-front of the Rectory Hall.  This tall man with hands to match sat next to me. Well, not really... I moved over. For the next one hour he spoke about his life-made more enjoyable by the two donuts.

   "I woke up in a Guam hospital. My back felt like smashed pretzels. A Japanese mortar attack had killed our team in Okinawa while we worked a tractor shovel to level a field. We had wished to make a field where planes could take off and bomb the main island of Japan. We had been getting ready to attack Japan.  An image that stood in front of me looked familiar...Was it Jane, my flame in grade school?  The smoke lifted. It was Jane!
  'Might your name be Jane?" She took a double look at me.
   "You just can't be Al, can you?"
   The cob webs evaporated while we exchanged greetings and she bandages. Then another miracle happened. My brother Mike hugged me. He was one of my three brothers who had enlisted after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I didn't quite know how he found me!
    After a few months, I was lifted on a plane headed for  Hawaii. The plane's captain sprang the good news.  "The war is over. The Japanese have just surrendered!"
     The plane landed. I was well enough to find out two of my vertebra had been damaged. For sure I would become a paraplegic. Yet after a few months I walked out of the hospital with full mobility and no pain. And would you believe my Pastor was there all the way from Blanca, Colorado.
      I returned to San Diego and left the Marines. From there in 1945, I left on a bus with two sailors. We sat on a bench in the rear of the bus. Santa Fe was our destination. In front of me sat a gal. Her head looked up the entire trip. She sat next to an old lady, about 45 years old.
   The bus made a  stop. She left holding her purse. I walked up to the old lady who sat next to her. A man had left aisle seat next to us. The lady moved to the empty seat. The gal returned from the laboratory and gave me a look that I will remember till I die. I must have looked like a gift sent from heaven.
   We spoke the rest of the trip. I told her when she got to Denver to look me up. I game me her phone number. I then proceeded to my Mom's house. I was tinkering on a car when my Mom screamed. "Come quick, Allen, there is a lady on the phone!"
    At that point in the Rectory of the Immaculate Conception Church in Old Town. A lady interrupted us. I seems that a kid from some high school needed us to sample some cookies and cakes. It must have been a baking class. Al sampled a cookie while I enjoyed the story about the love off his life.
   "George, as soon as I lay eyes on her, I knew she was the one. Anytime we were together,  I became a child playing with a new toy. Where were we?"
   You were at home in Denver after the war. You had told Ilene to call you when she arrived in Denver. .
   "Oh yes, It was Ilene on the phone. She was in Denver. Wearing dungarees and a sweat shirt, I picked her up at a Denver Hotel. With her permission, I drove home and showered and changed my attire. My Mom and her kicked it off just swell. We married thirty one days later."
   Now Al, hold up. Get back to your house in Denver.
   "Well we saw each other for four straight evenings. My Dad played the organ with much more zip and punch. My parents were excited."
   Al, when did you first kiss? 
   "On the fourth date. And did she kiss me back! Now she lived in Ocean Beach, next to San Diego. I visited her there for a few weeks and we decided to get into my car and go to Denver again.
   "When I got to highway 40 I needed to make a decision. I trembled with anxiety. I decided we should go to Rodesto New Mexico. I only had enough money for one motel. I then asked her if she would marry me.
We went to a JP for the ceremony.
   "Don't you have witnesses? Don't worry." Two old folks in their fifties stood in. I will never forget our first night in the motel. All my inexperience and trepidation disappeared. The shoe fit!
   "I was out of money so I got a job fixing cars. A few days later, a bus arrived with a four year old. To my chagrin, it was her son. Her Mom had put him on a bus all the way from Ocean City. It bothered me she had been married, but what bothered me more was why her Mom put her on the bus."
    "Your know George, she has been dead for more than fifteen years now. I still sometimes see her next to me in bed. I am still made about falling asleep just before she died in our living room. She had been ill for ten years but did not wish to remain in the Scripp's Hospital."
   "We had two sons. One died in Mexico from a burglary and the other died from a stroke. But George I keep moving along, just moving along.

   Lets back up a bit. When you settled in San Diego, where did you work?
   I first worked for a Studebaker Company. It was on India Street close to Washington. The dealership closed their doors in 1962. I then got a job with a Automatic Transmissions. We opened up three other stores and were the biggest in San Diego.
   I worked there for sixteen years but told my boss I wished to quit. He gave me his shop in National City. I worked there for ten years before I retired.
     This story was related to me after another Sunday at the Catholic Immaculate Conception Church in Old Town San Diego.in its Rectory. The first Father Serra church was built on almost this exact spot. Over 400 patrons sat with me again where I nurture my soul with the power of  His word. (Alvin died a year later, he same day his wife died.)