Love Story: She fell in love with his ROTC uniform

Bill Piro of Commack talks about how he met his wife, Angel.

This is our 1950s "love story,” a stroll down Memory Lane beginning in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. It starts out in a drugstore, which also sold ice cream and soda at a "soda fountain." One Sunday afternoon in 1954, I was sitting at the counter at the drugstore with my friend Wissel and in walks a cute 5-foot girl. She had come in to buy ice cream for her family.

I asked my friend if he knew her, and he said yes. Her name was Angela Colasanto, also known as Angel, and she was a freshman at St. Francis Xavier High School in Brooklyn. I was a sophomore at Xavier High School in Manhattan.

I asked Wissel to introduce me to her, and he did. Angel and I started talking, and that’s when I found out that she had noticed a boy in the neighborhood who wore a military uniform and had liked him from afar. As it turned out, I was that lucky ROTC boy. She said she had always dreamed of going to a military ball.

We became friends and saw each other often. I invited her to the Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan because I would be marching with my school. After the parade, I gave her my pin, meaning we were going steady. The date was Oct. 12, 1954, a day we still celebrate. In November, I invited her to the Xavier military ball at the Hotel Sheraton Astor in Manhattan — her dream had become a reality. We continued dating, later attending the Xavier senior prom together in 1956.

After I was graduated in 1956, I went to Holy Cross College in Massachusetts; the next year, Angel graduated and enrolled in Mount St. Agnes College in Baltimore and then transferred to study nursing at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

We were not allowed to be engaged until Angel graduated, so on graduation day 1961, I proposed to her in St. Thomas of Villanova Church, on the campus, and she said yes.

At that time, I was attending Columbia Dental School in Manhattan. Having a long vacation during Christmas break, we decided to marry on Dec. 15, 1962, at Queen of All Saints Church in Brooklyn. The reception was at the Hotel Delmonico in Manhattan. Our wedding song was “An Affair to Remember" ("Our Love Affair”) from the 1957 movie.

We went off to sunny Puerto Rico to honeymoon at the Dorado Beach Hotel, which cost $35 per night — including meals. 

We set up house around the corner from my in-laws in Brooklyn. Thanks to them we ate every night. Angel worked as a nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Brooklyn and taught pediatric nursing at Long Island College Hospital. 

Our son was born in April 1964, and I graduated that May. We then moved to Dix Hills where I opened a home office on Angel's birthday in 1965. We had three more children, two girls and another boy. The children fill our lives with their girlfriends, boyfriends, weddings and seven beautiful grandchildren.

When COVID-19 hit, Angel and I decided that after 55-plus years of dentistry, it was time for me to retire. 

We like to golf, travel and spend time with our family and friends. Angel and I were at a Mets game recently when a young couple asked us the secret to our marriage. My answer: "respect."

Can you believe our love story is all because of the magical uniform I was wearing? (And, by the way, she's still cute.)

— With Lynn Petry