The Backstory: Why Pug?

Margie sent this to me in email today, in response to Dean's question "How come Dad called you pug or pugs and did he call you that all your life together?" I hope you love it as much as I do. 

yes he did.  and i remembered why that name stuck.

 

remember when we first noticed each other in probably April 1940?  well my good friend evelyn, who was engaged to john,an sae, knew how i wanted to get to know grandpa better.  so when the sae spring event came up, somehow she knew that wes stone didn't have a date and as he knew me,  he asked me to come with him.

it was an all day affair at the norconian club in corona.  swimming, lunch, etc, and after dinner dancing to a small band playing "our" kind of music.  big band and all that good stuff.

 

an aside!!!   kass, my sorority sister, was there and when we were in the pool, all guys and gals, her

falsies came out of her swimming suit and floated on the surface of the water.  fortunately, no one knew where they came from but a few of us.  lots of laughs.  i think in that naive time, most of the boys didn't know what they were.

 

of course grandpa and i noticed each other all day, but really didn't talk at all.  but when the dancing started, somehow he asked me to dance.  i don't know if barbara had gone to the ladies room, or was dancing with someone else, or even where she was, but we did dance and the electricity was great.  only one dance, but the song was "polka dots and moonbeams"  (something like that) and the words at the end were

"pug nose dream".  that became our song.  the other song was "nearness of you" which on our first date at the cocoanut grove became special  too.  so when i was in chicago we played those songs and that is where pug or pugs came about.  also probably because i had sort of a pug nose.

 

at our wedding while the guests were arriving and waiting for me to come down the aisle, grandpa had the organist play those two songs.  every now and then when i hear either one, it hits me two ways.  a wonderful memory but then i tear up and have to turn the music off.  i guess that is why records were always special gifts to each other.  each song represented a special day in our lives together.