CHICAGO – Bagpipes can play mournful renditions of “Amazing Grace,” and they line the streets at the South Side Irish Parade.

Rarely, though, are they the instrument of choice for a strolling musician at a romantic, candlelit dinner.

But for Kitty Kirk and Dave McKee, bagpipes helped start a love story that is still going strong 40 years later.

In 1964, Kitty and her younger brother, Frank, took two buses from their Chicago home on Garfield Boulevard to see a bagpipe band march in a parade in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge community.

Frank was enthralled, and began taking bagpipe lessons. When his teacher moved out of town, Kitty took him to find a new teacher where the Chicago Stock Yard’s Kilty Band practiced.

It was there she met Dave, a fellow South Sider.

“He was a hunk,” she said.

Dave liked “her good Irish face with a nice smile.”

Frank was 16 years Kitty’s junior, so Dave was relieved when he learned Kitty “was Frank’s sister, not his mother.” He decided to turn on the charm.

The couple dated briefly, but Kitty cooled things down when she discovered Dave was ready to settle down. She wanted to focus on her career as a school teacher, she said.

How cool? Try three chilly years. No dates. No phone calls. Nothing.

“The girls kept asking, ‘What about Dave McKee?'” Kitty said of her friends.

In 1967, she and a friend attended a St. Andrew’s festival at the Conrad Hilton. The Chicago Stock Yard’s Kilty Band would be there, and she was hoping to see Dave.

She did.

“He thought my name was Phyllis, but he recognized me and came over to talk,” Kitty said. “He and a friend marched across through the lobby, playing the pipes. But I forgot my umbrella, so they marched us back across the lobby. I felt like a celebrity.”

That was in December 1967. Their romance rekindled, they were engaged by March and married on Sept. 14, 1968.

These days the church where they wed is gone. So is the Stock Yard Inn, where they had their wedding reception.

“The only thing that has lasted, which is great, is the marriage,” Kitty said.

They have lived in Chicago’s Beverly community for 38 years and raised four sons.