On our wedding day October 10, 1966, everything was busy at 3212 81st Street in Queens, New York. Diane was getting ready. while I had to entertain myself at the home of the McGoverns four doors down the street. The Dowling apartment was in the first block off Northern Blvd.
Finally it was time. My best man was Henry Rappaport Hill and my ushers were Charlie Magill and Michael Dowling. Diane’s cousin Ken Taylor was supposed to be an usher, but he disappeared into the New York underworld a week before the wedding. Diane’s bridesmaids were her sister Maureen and two others.
The ceremony took place in St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church. The priest who married us was Father Allard, who had come to New York from Kentucky. Diane had worked in Extension, the Roman Catholic version of the Peace Corps, in Bowling Green for a year with Father Allard.
After the wedding we went to a park for pictures and to a restaurant for the reception and dance. Henry, my best man, said he had never been surrounded by so many beautiful, unavailable women. He and I had travelled through Europe together. Charlie had been my colleague at the Brandan Sun.
It was a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful church in the world’s most interesting city.
I was married only once. Diane enriched my life for 38 years.