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“Male or female?”

“Scott, an old girlfriend,” I answered honestly.

“You were planning to go there, while I’m here with you in Hawaii?” I could see the hurt and disappointment in Lois’s face.

“I’m not sure I can handle this,” she said quietly. “I think I’ll go back to Sun Valley to ski.” The remainder of our time in Hawaii was rather cool, and I don’t mean the air temperature. Lois was clearly upset, and I couldn’t get outside of myself far enough to understand why she was angry. We returned to California, and Lois set off to Idaho. “I’ll be back at the end of March,” she said, “but don’t bother to call.”

I had thought that Lois was the love of my life; instead, it seemed that our whirlwind relationship had come to a sudden and ignominious end.

13

The LOIS

FACTOR

A LONE AGAIN AT MY CALIFORNIA HOME, I TRIED TO GET back into the normal swing of life—life without Lois. I was not expecting the emptiness, or that gnawing in the pit of my stomach, and I was surprised at the pervasive sense of loneliness I felt without her. I couldn’t understand it. I had broken up with women before, and simply gone on to the next interesting person I met. I mentally reviewed all the usual lines: “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” “Too bad; her loss.” “Don’t let the door hit you as you leave.” I knew I could go to another party somewhere in Beverly Hills, flash my medals or tell a few stories about the moon, and leave the party with a beautiful woman on my arm. But I didn’t want to do that. More and more as the days passed between January and March, I wanted Lois. Strange as it may sound, I liked me better because of her; I liked the person I was when I was with her. She motivated me, and she jolted me out of my scientific studies and space dreams long enough to enjoy social gatherings filled with new and interesting people.

I smiled as I thought of her. How had that petite bundle of positive energy so boldly entered the inner recesses of my psyche and stolen away with my heart? And how had I been so foolish as to let her get away? I liked Lois; I didn’t want to lose her; Lois was unlike any other woman I had known. Lois was different. Lois was … special.

LOIS’S MOTHER, Effie Olena Killian, was a beautiful woman of Norwegian descent, whose family lived in Thatcher, Arizona. Her father, Douglas H. Driggs, hailed from Driggs, Idaho; his family had founded the town, set in the picturesque valley west of the Grand Tetons, that today hosts the popular ski resort Grand Targhee. In 1921 the family traded all of their holdings, including a bank, hotel, and wheat farm for over 300 acres of farmland planted with cotton near Phoenix, Arizona. As cotton prices plummeted, they lost their entire investment and had to start over. But that did not dissuade either of Lois’s parents, who were from hardworking, prominent pioneer Mormon families, and who followed their faith with every footstep.

Lois Adele Driggs was born November 2, 1929—just a couple of months before me—in Miami, Arizona, a small mining town. Along with two brothers and one sister, she grew up in the Phoenix area, where her father, an enterprising businessman, opened a bank during the Depression years. Douglas Driggs traveled the surrounding ranching and mining communities, using his trust-evoking and spirited enthusiasm to influence new customers to pay twenty-five dollars to open a savings account. His reputation for honesty met with success, and the bank became known as the Western Savings and Loan Association— eventually becoming the eleventh-largest state-chartered savings-and-loan company in America, with over $5 billion in assets. As the business prospered, the family rose in the social echelons of the Phoenix/Scottsdale area.

Lois’s childhood was like a Norman Rockwell painting; everything was perfect. She studied tap, toe, and acrobatic dancing, as well as the popular boogie-woogie and swing styles on the piano. She was an active drama student who participated in several plays in high school and college, and she readily made friends wherever