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| David & Nola (August 8, 1964) |
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| Bobbie Ira Knight and Nola (AARP Convention in Anaheim, October 2006) |
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| David Nola, Kelly, William, Katie and Thomas (December 1976) |
The summer before my junior year in college my life changed forever. Bobbie Ira, my “big sister” at USF, got married in June; I attended her wedding and a reception that followed at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. At the time I was engaged to my high school boy friend; of course, I was not looking for male companionship at the gala event.
While I stood in the ballroom of the Olympic Club, however, I happened to glance up the stairs and saw an older man staring intently at me. Initially, I wondered why this old fellow was at the reception; I assumed he must be forty, which seemed very old then. Based on his behavior, he appeared to have been drinking. Seeing me return his glance, however, he stumbled down the stairway and drunkenly weaved his way across the ballroom floor towards me. Upon arrival, he put his arms around me and kissed me. The wedding photographer happened to be standing next to us and snapped a picture of the kiss. The strange man then turned without a word, weaved off and left the ballroom.
I caught a glimpse of him once more before I left. Outside the Olympic Club, he was running around a taxicab, chased by several fellows trying to get him into it. I remember thinking to myself: “What manner of drunk would act like this?”
After the wedding, I put the event behind me and headed home for summer vacation. My fiancé had returned from his Army tour of duty in Korea and I was looking forward to a wonderful summer. Within the first month, however, we broke our engagement. He announced that he had taken up drinking seriously while in Korea and also that he somehow (He didn’t say how!) acquired an infestation of crabs. Because I had many alcoholic relatives, it was easy for me to say goodbye to him. I had no intention of marrying a man who found drinking more rewarding than a long-term relationship.
The rest of the summer was uneventful and I returned to USF in September 1963 to start my junior year. As soon as I got to the city, I headed straight to Bobbie’s apartment, where she and her husband Joe had set up housekeeping. I had written her during the summer about my broken engagement. When I arrived at her door, she greeted me with the wedding picture of the mysterious man kissing me. I asked her if she knew this drunken fellow.
She laughed out loud and said she certainly did. His name was David Haggerty and he was her husband’s best friend. When I said I thought he was much older, she laughingly said he was also a student and only a year ahead of me at USF. Bobbie said that David had moved out of the dorm during the summer and she had helped him hunt for an apartment. Surprisingly, she had found him an excellent one just a block from campus, ironically in the same building where my brother Michael (also a USF student) lived. In fact, the apartment was situated on the floor immediately above Michael’s apartment; she had also introduced him to Michael.
Having just ended a relationship to avoid someone with a potential drinking problem, I was very apprehensive about meeting this man who was obviously so inebriated at our first meeting. When I expressed these concerns to Bobbie, she assured me that David was in no way a big drinker. At the time of Bobbie’s wedding, he too had just ended a relationship with a woman he cared deeply for and had used the free-flowing champagne at the event to drown his sorrows.
After my visit with Bobbie, I was heading over to see my brother, and she suggested I call her when I got there. I had faith in Bobbie’s judgment, so I called her as she had requested when I got to Michael’s apartment. Shortly thereafter, Michael got a call from his new neighbor David, who said he heard Michael talking with someone downstairs and wondered who his company was. Michael told him his sister, Nola, was visiting and wondered if he would like to talk to me. Dolly Levy the Matchmaker had nothing on Bobbie and Michael!
That first phone conversation between us lasted three hours. I am eternally grateful to my big sister for introducing me to the most wonderful person in my entire life. Ending relationships with other people the summer before had been very painful for both of us, but it turned out to be the luckiest thing that every happened in our lives. We married the following August.
On our fortieth wedding anniversary I told him that I thought he was forty when I met him and that, after forty years together, he still looked forty to me. The most wonderful part of our relationship is that each of us still believes we are the luckiest person to have found our perfect mate.
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