Fred and Marie Derry

When I first saw this movie as a teenager I did not get the relationship between Fred and Marie. As I got older and learned more about people, I came to understand 'war time romances.' But I was still young and idealistic and could not get Marie.

In those days I knew that my mother had been married once before she met and married my father. I learned only as an adult that my father had also been married. My mother's first marriage had lasted from 1944 or 45 to 1947 when she divorced her husband. She had been raised Catholic and the divorce did not go well with her parents. She left her child with her parents and hitch-hiked west My father's first marriage took place about 1941 and resulted in two daughters, the last coming while he was deployed to England and France between 1943 and 1945. They were divorced in 1945 shortly after he returned home.

My father was an atheist his entire life, but firmly believed in keeping your promises. Still, he had found a way to send his entire paycheck home on allotment while he was overseas. He was a part time flyer when he first went over, used his flight pay as a bank roll, and soon earned enough in poker games to pay for his needs.

When he arrived home he stepped into his house or apartment, I don't know which, and discovered a man he did not know living with his wife. They had been using his allotments to augment their other income. There was a new law on the books, as I understand it as a result of situations like this. My father soon dumped the woman and left.

After I learned that story, the Fred and Marie situation became much more real and clear. That new law that was on the books allowed servicemen to dump their exes quickly with no financial liability. Bing, bang, boom, and it was instant no-fault divorce in the 1940's with the courts following federal orders to put the majority of the animus on the woman.

In 1947 my father was a professional poker player in a small town in Nevada when my mother ran out of money on her hitch hiking trip. She stopped off to get work as a cocktail waitress at the hotel/casino where my dad worked. It was the only one in town. And now you know the rest of the story.

The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.