I saw her in the spring of my freshman year. I can still see her now.

The day was Monday, May 18, 1953. The occasion was a fraternity-sorority picnic, an evening get-together of about thirty guys from Sigma Alpha Epsilon and an equal number of girls from Kappa Alpha Theta. We were all students at North Dakota State University. The university is located in Fargo.

We were down on the banks of the Red River. The fest was well underway. We had a good fire going. Hot dogs were being cooked by the dozens and beer was flowing from kegs. Most of us were staying away from too much beer. Cokes and Pepsis were plentiful. But more than a few of my fraternity brothers were well on their way to becoming "snockered," with chug-a-lug challenges yet to come.

She was standing near the fire, surrounded by a dozen guys, all vying for attention. I was not part of the crowd. I was twenty feet away, and until it was almost time to pack up and return to the campus, I came no closer.

She was a radiant image, five feet two inches tall, less than ten pounds plus a hundred, perfectly arranged. She was wearing what I have ever since called her Woody Woodpecker jacket, a simple blue denim jacket with the cartoon character, seemingly half her size, stitched on the back. I saw shimmering brown hair, lightly peppered with strands of gold. The color in her eyes I could not see. I was blinded by the sparkle.

There was something about her, something very different. I remember thinking she was not the prettiest girl I ever saw, or even the prettiest girl at the picnic. Still, I found myself drawn to watching her. I was tempted to approach her, but I could not. The best I could do, shortly before we all went home, was walk close to her and say, "Nice night, isn't it." She smiled, "Yes, it's a beautiful evening."

She had dark brown eyes, shining of intelligence.

On the way back to the campus, I asked my brother Norman about her. Her name was Carol Roehrich. She was a sophomore. She lived in the women's dormitory.

When I got home from the picnic, I did something distinctly uncharacteristic of myself. I went to the phone and dialed the women's dormitory. Someone answered, and I asked to speak with Carol Roehrich. I waited nervously until she was on the line.

"Hello, Carol. This is Cecil Reinke. I'm one of the guys who were down at the river, one of the SAE's."

"Yes."

"Well, I was wondering --"

"Yes."

"Well, I was wondering if you would go to a movie or something with me, say next Friday night."

"I'm sorry, I can't."

"Oh well, I'm sorry, I just --

I was thinking I should get off the line, escape with dignity, when she interrupted. "Will you excuse me for a moment. Just stay on the line. I'll be right back."

Moments later, she was back. Days later, I learned that she had gone to ask if any of the girls in the dormitory knew anything about me. Among those asked were friends of my brother Norman, who suggested that I was likely a fairly decent fellow.

"Okay. Listen, I can't go because I have choir practice that night."

"I'm sorry."

"But if you like, you can meet me after."

"Fine, wonderful, I'll be there."

I was there that Friday night. I stood quietly in the rehearsal room listening to the choir sing. All I saw was she. I felt the same fascination I had during the picnic. Lucky me, I thought, looking forward to shared time with this girl.

We didn't have a lot of time. Girls were required to be in the dormitory by eleven. I took her to a little drive-in restaurant off campus, a place were they served something called a flying disk burger, a small sandwich made with two slices of bread, toasted and crimped along the edge. We talked in the car. I learned that she was born in Langdon, North Dakota, but now lived in Edgeley, where her father owned a small department store. I also learned that even though she was a sophomore and I was a freshman, she was a year younger. I liked her. I really liked her! Time up, I drove her back to the dormitory, and we said good night.

I have one story concerning our daughter Kris and flying disk burgers. Years later, while we were living in Galveston, Texas, I saw in a store a utensil that could be used to make something resembling a flying disk burger. Two steel bowls, facing each other, on long steel stems, perfectly sized to cook a hamburger patty between two slices of bread. I bought it, brought it home, and immediately made for my wife my version of a flying disk burger. I was obviously excited. Carol was amused but appreciative. Our daughter Kris, then about twelve, was curious. She asked her mother, "What's going on with Father?" Carol told her that, on our very first date, she and I had stopped for a flying disk. Kris was satisfied. "I knew it had to be something," she concluded. "Dad doesn't usually get this excited about kitchen equipment."

We had one more date the next week. Then school was out for the summer.

That summer I had a job painting Standard Oil trucks, or more accurately, as the assistant to a man hired to paint the trucks. The job paid each of us, painter and assistant, an hourly wage plus expenses for room and board. What we did was fairly simple. We washed the trucks, drove them to an open field, sprayed them with red paint, and applied decals reading "Standard Oil" on each side. Quick in, quick out, done! Well done?

This job was a real North Dakota geography lesson. We saw a significant number of the small towns in the state. One of the towns we came to was Edgeley, population 943. Edgeley, I knew very well, was where Carol Roehrich lived.

As Carol had told me, her father, Nicholas J. Roehrich, owned a department store on the main street. As an aside, Mr. Roehrich, like most German children of his age, and like my father, Christian Reinke, was at birth given only a first, no middle name. Somewhere in time, Nicholas Roehrich observed that most American men have both a first and middle name, plus of course their surname. He "remedied" the situation, assigning to himself the middle initial "J." I never heard him say what the "J" stood for, if name specific. My impression, always, was that he took an initial only. Notably, however, Carol's second oldest brother is named Nicholas James Roehrich, so likely, if the initial "J" stood for a specific name in Mr. Roehrich's mind, it stood for James.

Shortly after we arrived in Edgeley, I found a telephone and called Carol. "Will you be home this evening?" "Yes," she said. "May I come see you after work?" "Yes," she answered, inviting me to come to her home. She gave directions. Her home wasn't hard to find. As soon as my day's work was done, I cleaned up and rushed to see her.

At home with Carol were her parents, Nicholas and Grace Roehrich, and her little brother Ronnie. Her two older brothers, Bob and Jim, were away in the service, this being the time of the Korean War. Robert Dale Roehrich, her oldest brother, was in the Army, on the ground in Korea. Nicholas James Roehrich was in the Navy, on board a ship somewhere. I felt the same awkwardness as any young suitor meeting a girl's parents for the first time, although I knew they were trying to make me comfortable. I sensed a good, loving family atmosphere.

We visited for a little while. Then Carol invited me out for a drive in the family DeSoto. I remember little about the car, except that it had an automatic transmission. What I remember explicitly is watching Carol driving the car. It was the first time I had ever been in a car driven by a woman. We weren't out very long. It seemed wise to return early. Then it was goodbye, we'll see each other back at school.

There is one thing about this evening visit that I learned only years later, in fact, almost fifty years later. After Carol died, and after her father was gone, I visited with Carol's mother who was then in her nineties and living with Carol's brother Jim in Mesa, Arizona. We were sitting around their kitchen table talking. Mother Roehrich was remembering the first time she saw me, when I called Carol and visited with her family in Edgeley. "That night," she told me, "I turned to Nick and said, 'This is the one. That's the boy Carol is going to marry.'"

One of the most pleasant memories of my life is of a train trip from Clinton, Oklahoma, to Fargo, North Dakota. The year was 1952. The month was September.

I was traveling with my brother Norman. I had graduated from Clinton High School the previous spring and worked that summer driving a truck in the wheat harvest. My brother Norman was recently out of the Army. We were on our way to college, to attend North Dakota State University. The train was filled with college students, good guys and wonderful girls. We gathered in the dining car, talked, horsed around, played cards, and enjoyed each other's company. Our hearts were filled with the spirit of adventure.

For those too young to easily visualize the year 1952, a few notes may help.

Harry Truman was in his last months as President of the United States. Dwight David Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson were campaigning to succeed him.

World War II had ended seven years earlier, followed by "Cold War."

Six months earlier, on February 15, 1952, King George VI died. Elizabeth II acceded to the British throne and was proclaimed head of the British Commonwealth.

In November, 1952, Eisenhower was elected President of the United States.

That same November, John F. Kennedy was elected to the U. S. Senate.

One year earlier, on May 12, 1951, the United States tested a hydrogen bomb.

Two years earlier, on June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. On June 30, President Truman, in league with the United Nations, authorized the use of American forces to repel the invasion. This "Hot War" was called a "Police Action." As asserted by the President, "The United States is not at war." We were actively "not at war" in Korea for more than three years. When the shooting stopped, on July 28, 1953, almost 25,000 American military personnel had been killed. Over 100,000 Americans were injured.

While on this train to Fargo, Norman and I were not thinking about bombs, or elections, or coronations, or war. We were having fun. We were headed for college.

I say we were on our way to attend North Dakota State University. Actually, on the day we made this trip and for all the days of our attendance, the school was named the North Dakota Agricultural College. We respectfully referred to the college as "N. D. A. C.," or "the A. C.," or just plain "Old Ma." Years later the name was changed to "North Dakota State University." If I said we were headed for the North Dakota Agricultural College only a few old timers would know what school I was talking about. For this reason, I take license and refer to our school by its current name, North Dakota State University, or as is more commonly said, North Dakota State.

Why were we going to North Dakota State?

The short answer is that Norman wanted us to go to school in Fargo. The longer answer is that our father, Christian Reinke, our sister Edna, and our brother Walter were in North Dakota. Our sister Edna lived in Fargo. Our brother Walter lived in Cooperstown. Our father stayed sometimes with Edna, sometimes with Walter. The ultimate answer is that our family had a long association with the State of North Dakota. Our paternal great grandparents, Andreas and Louisa Reinke, immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1885 and homesteaded in North Dakota. They were accompanied by their son Daniel and his wife Juliana, our paternal grandparents, who homesteaded in North Dakota. Our maternal grandparents, Johann Gottfried and Eva Schulz, migrated from Russia in 1898 and settled in North Dakota. They brought to America their three year old daughter Fredericka, the small girl who would one day blossom into our mother. Our father was born in North Dakota. Our parents were married in North Dakota. Our two oldest brothers, John and Emil, and our four sisters, Lydia, Edna, Alice, and Ruth, were born in North Dakota. Not until 1924 did our family move to Oklahoma. Only our parent's four youngest children, Walter, Ruben, Norman and I, were born in Oklahoma.

Our mother died in Clinton, Oklahoma, when I was two years old, Norman four. Fredericka Schulz Reinke was born in Russia, Klaystitz, Bessarabia, on September 15, 1895. She died on August 8, 1935. She was thirty-nine years, ten months, and twenty-three days old.

I don't really remember my mother, although I know a lot about her. I know how very much she loved me.

My brother Walter told me how our father slumped home from the Western Oklahoma Baptist Hospital on the day she died, looking like he had lost his whole world.

I am often asked by friends in Oklahoma why I went to college in North Dakota. I like to tell them in jest, "Well, it's like this. I had been to North Dakota often, always in the summer, working on our family farm. Nobody ever told me it got cold in the winter."

Getting into college was a different experience in 1952 than it is today. Now, students apply for colleges at least a year in advance. They send applications to numerous colleges, complete with high school grade records and personal activity descriptions; then they run to mail boxes hoping to have been accepted, too often disappointed. Norman and I were depression babies, born in 1931 and 1933 respectively, years that produced few American children. For us, colleges were not crowded. We could have been heading for any university in America with confidence that we would be accepted. Our experience, in light of what is required today, seems unbelievable. When we got to Fargo, we found the campus of North Dakota State, walked into the Registrar's office and announced that we wanted to attend. Norman had earlier completed one year of college at Oklahoma City University before entering the Army, but he had with him no records. I told them I was a high school graduate, albeit without either my diploma or a copy of my high school transcript. These omissions of documentation didn't seem to bother the people in the Registrar's office. They simply gave us admission applications, had us fill them out, and sent us to another building on the campus to take a battery of tests. They would send for our records. We were in!

One of the things I was asked when we registered was what I wanted to study. Clinton High School had done very little by way of educating my class on available vocations. Other than teaching, I knew of only three professions, law, medicine and engineering. I chose law, and on my application entered pre-law as what I wanted. They say ignorance is bliss. For me, this proved to be true. Following three years of pre-law at North Dakota State, I was in law school at the University of North Dakota, located in Grand Forks. From day one I loved the law. To me, it is the most honorable profession on earth. Of course, I went to law school when professors were still emphasizing that the purpose of our profession is to protect widows, orphans, and children. I was taught that lawyers were to represent the positions of their clients, not views, opinions, and causes of their own.

During our first year at North Dakota State the school had no student union. Adjacent to the campus, however, was a small restaurant called the Hasty-Tasty. Norman was a coffee drinker. I had not yet learned to drink coffee, but I tried, seeking palatability in excesses of cream and sugar. Between classes we would gather with other students at the Hasty-Tasty for discussions, drinks, snacks, or an occasional run at the pinball machine. It was a cherished little haven. Norman was particularly good then, as he has been all his life, at getting to know people. So very shortly we knew a great many students on campus, and they knew us. Being from Oklahoma, we stood out. To the ears of newly made friends, we had what were decidedly "Sooner" accents.

North Dakota State had a substantial number of fraternities and sororities. Candidly, in today's world of larger universities, where fraternities and sororities abide exclusionists, were I a college president, I would want to bar them from campus. But North Dakota State was a small school, enrollment fewer than three thousand. Our fraternities and sororities were not creators of crushed egos. Anyone who wanted to join a fraternity or sorority was welcomed. Norman and I were approached by members of a number of fraternities. Norman could join none of them because while attending Oklahoma City University he had pledged and become a member of Lambda Chi Alpha. Had Lambda Chi had a presence at North Dakota State, I would have joined the fraternity of my brother, but it did not. Because I best liked what I saw in its members, I joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Norman, while not a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, might just as well have been. He was given full access to all facilities and expected to attend all fraternity functions. In fact, he did everything but attend our "secret" meetings.