  Since closed lines of {\it accidental} electronic degeneracies were
demonstrated to be possible, even frequent, by Herring in 1937, no further
developments arose for eight decades. The earliest report of such a nodal loop
in a real material -- aluminum -- is recounted and elaborated on. Nodal loop
semimetals have become a focus of recent activity, with emphasis on other
issues. Band degeneracies are, after all, the origin of topological phases in
crystalline materials. Spin-orbit interaction lifts accidental band
degeneracies, with the resulting spectrum being provided here. The geometric
phase $\gamma(C)=\pm\pi$ for circuits $C$ surrounding a line of such degeneracy
cannot survive completely unchanged. The change depends on how the spin is
fixed during adiabatic evolution. For spin fixed along the internal spin-orbit
field, $\gamma(C)$ decreases to zero as the circuit collapses around the line
of lifted degeneracy. For spin fixed along a perpendicular axis, the conical
intersection persists and $\gamma(C)=\pm\pi$ is unchanged.
