Recently, a baseball story I'd written on the greatest players I'd ever seen elicited a raft of e-mails and phone calls from strangers, most of whom became instant friends.

One of the calls was from Francis and Marge Burns of Napa, who I sensed by our conversation were two very decent and interesting people.

They invited me to their home for some further conversation along with coffee and cake and I took them up on their kind offer because I realized they had a story worth telling.

Fran and Marge came from a time when we "Great Depression Kids" learned quite a bit about sharing and giving, light-years apart from today's politically correct mindset of "What have you done for me lately?"

Fran Burns was born in Wellesley, Mass., just west of Boston and one day would serve in the USAF in a place called Korea. After the war, Fran's eyes turned west and on Memorial Day in 1956, he joined his brother, a former Navy career man and a sister, both of whom had found their Shangi-Las in a town called Napa.

With the GI Bill in his pocket, he was able to buy a house in south Napa for $10 down -- I repeat, $10 down. The house at the time went for $12,900 and he never again yearned for the snows of New England.

Marge Burns also had a Navy career man in her family. Her dad was stationed at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station near Lakewood, N.J., where she was born. That area by the way was the scene of the terrible Hindenburg zeppelin disaster in 1938.

Dad, a Pearl Harbor survivor and Chief Petty Officer, was transferred to Mare Island as Naval Bandmaster and Marge, all of three years of age at the time, became a Californian.

Fran Burns told me of his early years in town. His job was at the American Trust Company which later became Wells Fargo Bank. He was working at the bank in 1960 when his life, as he put it, "took a definite turn for the better."

At a dance in a hall in Vallejo in 1960, he met Marge, a young widow with two young children, a boy and a girl. Apparently, it was love at first sight. Marge had gone to the dance with her friends, a married couple, and Fran asked her to dance. A two- month whirlwind courtship followed and their 46-year marriage produced three daughters of their own.

I asked Marge if she recalled the songs they danced to that long ago evening and without hesitation she said, "Sea of Love" and a real oldie, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." It seems women do remember things we guys seem to forget.

Fran told me of the wonderful life they've shared and proudly showed me the framed pictures of their beautiful children and grandchildren, but there was much more to tell and I had the time -- if not, I would have made the time.

In 1963, Fran left the bank and changed careers. His new career took him to San Rafael where he learned the pawn broker business. Three-and-a-one half years of tough commuting and Fran went into partnership much closer to home in a pawn broker business on Main Street where Mervyn's now stands. That venture was followed by pawn shops in the area near Main and First and later, Main and Clinton, closing out his brokering career in 1986. In 14 of those years, Marge worked at his side and they learned about life and its up and downs, as if they didn't already know.

But in retirement, Fran, who always loved music, has written at least 1,200 melodies and has sung with bands up and down the valley for as many years as he can remember.

Today, he plays his tunes on a transporter keyboard whose wheels permit him to play in any key and he presented me with a CD album he made called "50 Years Behind the Times." Music for dancing -- relaxing -- romancing, especially for seniors!

The sound may be only elevator music to the present generation, but to me and guys and gals like me, it's the music of our lives. I for one truly believe Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee had no equals, so in Fran and Marge's living room, music-wise, I was home again. On the way out of the Burns' house, I met Gloria Morris, the lyricist who has put words to many of Fran's melodies and I was humming a few of them on the drive home.

I must add here that before I left home that morning, my wife sort of caught me off guard with an unexpected "I hope you know what you're doing!" I was rolling the car out of the garage when she said it and I called back "Not too worry -- old cops know a thing or two about pawn shops and searches for stolen property."

I guess she didn't hear me, because when I got home, over a cup of coffee she said, "I don't know how you are going to write a story like that for a family newspaper." I put my cup down and said "A story like what?" and she said, "You know, pornography and smut!"

I had resumed sipping the hot coffee, but her words had me laughing and choking. When I recovered I said, "Spell the kind of shop you thought I'd be writing about, please." She spelled out P-O-R-N. When I recovered from another laughing fit I said, "Those good folks ran a P-A-W-N shop, not a P-O-R-N shop."

I told my wife that Fran and Marge Burns of South Napa and St. Thomas Aquinas parish were the "salt of the earth," the finest people you'd ever meet.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.