Episode One: Young Love

[Barber shop tag: Love Letter Straight From Your Heart]

Carolynn: Wait for Me: Love, War and the Corps by Carolynn Bauer Zorn

Hey, that’s me. Let me tell you my story, our story. It’s not based on a true story and it’s not just inspired by a true story, it is a true story. It’s about an unopened letter which kept my husband Dave and I apart for over thirty years. It’s our epic love story. I’m doing it on this Podcast as I read through our cards, letters and diary entries and share with you many of our audio tapes from 1994 and 1995. So they might be a little bit scratchy but I think they are important to the story. This story is filled with love, humor and tragedy and tells of our staggering family saga that began with our first kiss under some mistletoe one Christmas and which was later derailed by war and rekindled in our 50th year. I hope you will love hearing our story like so many others have over the years. Our story is not unique but it seems to touch every person I’ve told it to whether they were strangers on an airplane or in an elevator, they’ve said to me, you simply must publish this story. But the reason I am sharing our intimate and private conversations—our personal life story—is because my husband made me promise to do so. Some of the recordings are from 1994 cassette tapes as I mentioned, so while the quality may not be perfect I feel it is a perfect way to tell our story.

[Theme song Paradise, fades in and out]

Carolynn:  Here is Episode One, I call it Young Love.

[Sound of rain fades in]

Carolynn: It was raining. Of course! There is rain in every love story. Casa Blanca, Sleepless in Seattle, An affair to Remember, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and others.

[Rain fades out]

Carolynn: Maybe I should have taken that as a sign on the night of May 23rd, 1965 while standing in my studio apartment in the newly constructed Marina City complex, as I watched the Chicago River flow by, and I was waiting for Dave to be rounded up from his Marine Corps barracks in San Diego to take my phone call.  

In a letter to me later he describes the night: “Hey Zorno, there is a woman on the phone for you,” he said his sergeant yelled into his Quonset hut. He quickly put on his cover and his rain gear and splashed through the muddy trail to the phone. 

It was the night before he shipped out.

After I replaced the phone in its cradle, I spent a silent evening alone writing him a long letter as tears fled my eyes. The rain was the only thing we would remember about that phone call.

 Carolynn:  We met in 1964, my freshman year at Phoenix College where we were both in the choir. Dave was in his second year of college having graduated one year before I did.

[Sleigh bells]

Carolynn: During the Christmas season, a few of us were asked to perform at a local country club Christmas party.  After our performance we hung around for the free refreshments. As a former contestant in the Miss Phoenix pageant, I strutted my stuff while balancing a drink in my hand, acting as a confident, poised young lady—a part I didn’t really feel. I was actually extremely shy. Why I brazenly approached a fellow student who I had never spoken to before, I don’t know. I saw him standing under the mistletoe and proceeded toward him. Rising up on my tiptoes, I kissed him lightly on the lips.  Dave then kissed me back.  It was magic.

The Christmas season would sprout many poignant memories for the rest of my life; some blissful and some terribly sad.

[Barbershop clip: Until the end of time….]

Carolynn reads: Before long, we were going steady. I wore his class ring. I joined him at many of his performances during that spring and summer. He sang with a barbershop quartet, The Coppertones, to earn spending money.

[tape of Coppertones introducing themselves]

I hung out in his backyard pool and grew to love his family. We were sweethearts.

[clip Barbershop group,  Nostalgia:  Let me call you sweetheart]

Carolynn: And then, on a whim, he joined the Marine Corps with a buddy from his quartet. I pictured myself married to a Marine Corps officer. At the time it seemed romantic and exciting. The last night they performed at Legend City in Phoenix, someone recorded two of the quartet teasing them and giving them a sendoff.

[play tape of Marine Hymn and Dave’s sendoff]

Carolynn:  And off he went to MCRD – Marine Corps Recruit Depo in San Diego-- on the morning of 26  February 1964. I received a letter from Dave dated 14 June 1964 which said:  “I remember you standing next to my mother waving goodbye as the bus pulled away from the greyhound station in downtown Phoenix. Someone on the bus had a tape recorder and played “Louie, Louie” all the way. I’ve never listened to it without thinking of you.”

Carolynn:  Over the years I’ve often heard that song; I always hated it and didn’t really know why.

[pause]

Carolynn:   That spring and summer we saw each other as much as we could. But he was busy learning how to shoot-- finally earning the Sharpshooter Medal. All Marines are riflemen first and foremost. MCRD, built in 1921, the historic Spanish Style architecture with its creamy, mustard yellow arches and massive parade ground is recognizable by anyone familiar with the Marines.

[marching sound [RAIN]]

Carolynn: It was raining—of course-- the day Dave graduated from basic training, on 6 May 1964 so the ceremony was held indoors. Later his Mom and I saw the famous arches behind him on the parade ground as we took photos and congratulated him on his promotion to Private First Class. I was so proud of him. I read recently that while in uniform Marines are not supposed to display affection to their wives or girlfriends—you know, kiss and all that  stuff—in public. We did. Even with his mom standing behind the camera, we openly kissed like a couple of teenagers. Actually, we were teenagers--18 and 19 years old.

 [tinkle sound]

Carolynn: The Arizona daily newspaper printed the following:” Announcement is made of the engagement of Miss Carolynn Lefaine Bauer and Pfc. David Richard Zorn. No date has been set for the wedding.” Then information followed about our parents as usual.. Above the notice was a photo of me taken by the photographer I worked for at Petley Postcard Studio in Phoenix.

Carolynn: One of the only letters that have survived from our courtship then is dated 10 August 1964, at 9:30 pm—Dave says,

[tinkle sound]

“Honey, I received both of your letters today only to hear that you cried when I told you to wait 2 years. You don’t realize how lucky you are. Most people wait a longer time than that just to get engaged! And when you said you thought of breaking our engagement, I almost went insane! To think that this would ever cross your mind---I can’t believe it! If you ever mention this to me again, I don’t know what I’ll do. Now, don’t think that you can use this point to bribe me into doing something. We might both regret it.

Honey, please don’t worry about me going to Viet Nam. If I go overseas at all it will be January of 1966. If anybody goes in there it won’t be us I can tell you that for sure! Please believe me and don’t make me tell you any more than that. It’s about time for lights out so I’ll close. Take care of yourself. I love you!   Dave”

[tingle sound]

Carolynn:  Dave shipped out on May 24th on the USS Pickway to parts unknown. [tinkle sound]

In his book, Dinky Dau, he continues the story:

[tinkle sound]

 “A week after we left Hawaii, our stateside mail caught up with us. I got a letter from my college sweetheart, Carolynn. Our engagement had dissolved before I left Camp Pendleton when we couldn’t agree on when to get married. She said if I really loved her we should get married before I went overseas but I maintained that if she really loved me she would wait until I returned. Two stubborn kids and neither would give in. Sadly, it ended. Then I got this letter. I had already reconciled myself to not having a girl back home waiting and worrying. It was bad enough my family and a few friends might be concerned about me without having a wife, perhaps an expectant wife, to be concerned about. So, was this a final goodbye? A Dear John? Or was this one of those ‘Please forgive me, yes I’ll wait’ letter? Either way I didn’t want to know. I was focused now on what I had to do for my unit and fellow Marines, and I didn’t want any distractions. I had made up my mind and, right or wrong, I was not about to change it. Besides I might not even make it home.”

[tinkle sound]

 “After carrying the letter around with me for a few days unopened, I decided the best thing for me to do was to destroy it. This was another one of those defining moments that I knew was a turning point when it happened even though I couldn’t see beyond the crossroads to what lay ahead. Without further debate I acted. It was as if other forces over which I had no control were at work.”

“It was getting dark and it started to rain as I held the letter in my hand. I felt my arm move and in an instant the wind wrenched the letter from my hand and sent it fluttering wildly toward the churning waters below. I watched as it flew away from the ship only to be caught then by a second gust of wind and blown back on deck. What was this? Was I being given a second chance to reconsider my action? I ran to where the letter landed. The wetness of the deck had caused the inked address to begin running. I walked slowly to the rear of the ship letter in hand. Standing there holding the letter at arm’s length, my fingers relaxed—and the grip—and the grip let go—I let go-- and the letter drifted away, just as I had drifted away from Carolynn. Whatever happened next was also out of my hands, but now I felt prepared to accept that fate. I had traded one life for another.”  

Carolynn continues:   The other life, Viet Nam, changed him forever.

[Clip Paradise song and then fade out]

Carolynn:   I imagine you’re wondering what I actually wrote in that letter, my last letter to Dave which he so casually tossed into the sea. Dave never knew what was in that letter before he entered the theatre of war.  If you want to know you’ll have to tune in to the net episode, Wait for Me, Love, War and the Corps. This is Carolynn Zorn. Thank you so much for listening.

[Theme Paradise song fades in and out]

Carolynn: I would like to thank Dave’s brother Bill  for allowing me to use his recording, Over There In Paradise, and Dave’s late brother Pete’s recording of Circus, in these and future Podcasts. Rick Mitchell, Pat Lebs, and Jack Hanf   for their permission to use the recording of the Coppertones. I would also like to thank the University of North Alabama and their Master of Arts in Writing program. Their instructors gave up so much of their time and filled me with encouragement to pursue my education goals and they supported me in the making of this podcast. I am forever in their debt. What a wonderful experience it has been.

I hope you will listen to Episode two and follow our saga. I call it “Love Calls.”

[theme song Paradise fades in and fades out]