Fortunately, I had remained friends with Den and Beth Zito after the trip back east. Dennis had finally finished with their six-month training at The Basic School (BCS, or what they would rename, The Big Suck) in Quantico. They had referred to one another as Lieutenadates (no longer Candidates but still not feeling like full Marine 2nd Lieutenants yet). Until after they graduated from BCS.
Beth remained back east with her family when Dennis was assigned to advanced Marine training at 29 Palms, California, in the desert.
Several weeks before this picture was taken on Cypress Avenue in South Gate, Dennis had told me he was renting a trailer off base. I drove out one weekend evening to visit him. My memory is that I still owned my 1966 Ford Mustang GT because I remember parking beside his trailer and taking the top down, staring up at the night sky above the desert as I waited for him to return from an evening at the Officer's Club.
In the photograph above, taken in the summer of 1973, Den is kissing his new Fiat because, as you can see, the bumper is decidedly bent. He'd hit a coyote on the way to visit me in South Gate and was upset at having killed a coyote and damage his new car.
I don't know what we did that day after he arrived; and I don't even recall if he returned to the Marine base later that day, but he probably did. I believe he parked his Fiat in front of the neighbor's house next door because of the following photograph.
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