CastleCorp

George has just learned that there are actual people, sitting at their computers, asking these questions.

Woah...that's amazing...do they not have jobs?

The moment I fell in love with Carmel [his wife, who he loved more than anything, and who died 4 years ago], and I can give anybody details about that, I will never forget it. Where do I begin? The day I met her, I was attending the first dinner of the year at the refectory at the seminary and I had a friend who was just a friend by chance, who let it be known that he was taking a girl to that first dinner, that she was a concert violinist and that they would be maybe a little late, but they would be there. His name Donald, and two minutes before dinnertime Donald and his car with Carmel in it pulled up to the refectory and my friend and I were waiting up on the second level of the building which is where the diningroom was. Together we watched them step out of their car and come up the steps to the diningroom and at the top of the stairs we ushered them quickly into the diningroom because the chaplain was about to say the blessing. When we sat down, by chance, Carmel sat next to me. Her friend Donald was on the other side. We had some pleasant conversation, and at the end of the meal, when we stood up to say goodbye to each other, all the other people at the table who were friends of mine had other places to go, leaving Carmel and me for a minute to decide what we wanted to do. Carmel spoke up and said that any of us who wanted to could come to her house in Chatham [NJ] and she would give us a violin concert. Carmel and I had a chance to chat and then when she finished playing the selections that she chose, and everybody took that as a signal that it was time to go, Carmel and I, who had talked before the group left had let each other know that we had wanted to see "Lost Horizon", a movie that was on TV, and with everyone leaving, and with I wanting to stay with Carmel, I said I would stay and keep her company. And so we watched this wonderful movie, and when the movie ended, I had no idea what to do next. It was time to leave, but I didn't want to leave, I wanted to stay with her. So I said, I would see her later and I went back to my room.

10 days my partner in my dormitory answered the phone and came and got me, and said "George, somebody wants you on the phone", and it was Carmel. And Carmel's problem was when she came to that dinner we attended, she had played the violin for the Brother's college lounge to entertain them, and then when she closed up her violin case, she discovered later on that she had taken the lute of the instrument, put it on the ledge of the piano, and she had forgotten it. And now she was looking for. So she called and asked me if I could do anything to help. And so of course I said I would go over and see if it's there. I went to the lounge and lo and behold, right there on the edge of the piano was the lute. I returned to the telephone, told her I had found it and would bring it over. I got in the car, drove to her house, and delivered the lute, and we have been together ever since. It began slowly as we got to know each other, and began to find each other being so important to each other. It is something I can never forget. We were married almost 70 years. We were together about 71 years.

George is tearing up now, so I will add some more details:

George and Carmel were madly, madly in love. More so than anyone I have encountered yet. Every day they would write each other letters, and George still has boxes and boxes. He kept every single one. Towards the end of her life, Carmel's sister told the family a long kept secret, which is that Carmel's parents had kept her age a secret, and had faked her birth certificate so she was officially 5 years younger, which allowed her to be more of a child prodigy. She got away with this because she was rather short. George cared for her so much, as she deteriorated, suffering from Lewy Body Disease, which is a form of dementia. She passed away about 4 years ago, but George still talks about her and remembers her as she was. Every email and letter he sends is signed with their nicknames "Midge and Gidge", which is Carmel and George respectively.

Edit: Mandatory thanks for the gold! Not a gold virgin anymore...I tried explaining what gold means to George, but he didn't really get it...so I just gave him a piece of candy and told him it was from the Reddit community, and he was happy.

Edit: I think it is fair to say this is probably the most important comment in the AMA for most people. However, there is a sad side to it. All of the letters and Carmel's violin were taken without George's knowledge and sold at auction. Please help us find them. Read the top of the main post for more info.

Also, here is a picture of Carmel. I will try and find more of them together.

George is toddling off to take a nap right now, but he is really enjoying answering your questions, and we will be back in about an hour to answer more, so keep asking!

I just told him about how many people had upvoted this (or "liked" as I put it, and here is the conversation, which I found very funny:

Me: So granddad, all these people are commenting, and 117 people have liked it.

Wow...woah...that is a lot of people! That's amazing...I can't believe that many people would want to hear about me...wow... That is a lot of open minded people! Do some people not like it?

Me: Well, 16 people disliked, but that isn't very many.

Well, forget about them, huh? They'll come around... I am amazed at the porportion there...so many people!

Me: Are you off to take a nap now?

Yep, and the best place I know to do that is on my bed! Bye!

Edit: Aaaaand we're back!

That's a good question. I was in Hiroshima, at ground zero one month after the atomic bomb was dropped. The fact that I could walk around there without any danger was amazing to me. I was expecting that I would get some illness immediately. I just walked around, picked up a couple souvenirs, one of which I pocketed and took home.

Me: What about the typhoon you were in?

Which one?

Me: Fair enough (he was in the typhoon that the Caine Mutiny was based on)

First of all, everyone had to go below decks to get out of the storm. At the same time the ship is throbbing and bouncing around on the waves. I went up to the bridge to check it out when there were lulls in the storm.

I was not only in Hiroshima, but we also went across the bay to where Nagasaki was hit too, and we saw pretty much the same results. The damage was very sobering. When I got to go to shore I found a Methodist minister who lived in Tokyo, and became good friends with him and his wife, who was just as concerned about us as we were concerned about her.

One was a glass bottle and the other was a dish of some sort. They had both been in a refrigerator. I thought about the unusual combination of things, that these two things had been in a refrigerator, and the refrigerator was closed, and that the explosion had broken the refrigerator open, but not the glass, and whatever had been in the bottle and on the plate had just disappeared. Of course, there was a chance that there was nothing in there, but it doesn't make much sense to have an empty bottle in the fridge!.