Foreword: Last December I read “Dark and Stormy Night, with Apologies to Snoopy”, a history of the phrase with a breakdown of the verbiage, and how it was redundant to begin with. You can read it on our Website at the Member Post link on the home page. So excuse my redundancy.

It was a dark and stormy night in Beeville, Texas, home to a naval air flight training squadron during the early days of World War Two. Air Traffic Controller 2^nd Class Adel Schwartz was in the tower, and she was talking down Lieutenant Mort Feinberg in his T-2, a navy training plane. An experienced pilot, he was smart enough to know that he had to rely on her, since she was familiar with the winds that were gusting in from the gulf. Mort was so taken with her voice that the next day he asked around to find out who she was. While fraternizing was not allowed, he was determined to meet her.

Loitering between the WAVE quarters and the chow hall a few days later, he bravely asked others if they would point her out. Seeing the sturdy young women, he excitedly rushed up to her, on the pretense of wanting to thank her for guiding his plane to a safe landing during the storm. He asked her to meet him for a cup of coffee off base later.

They hit it off and enjoyed each other’s quirky humor. He graduated from that flight school, and shipped out to the war in the Pacific. But they stayed in touch. In their letters they fantasized about what they, if married—nah, when married—would name their first child. After the war they hooked up and got married.

And they named the first child Gusty. After all, when they first talked, it was a dark and stormy night.