This is a momentous post for me–number 400 written and shared over the past five-plus years here.
As we begin June — Pride month — the topic of this one is more consequential than most.
Since May 2018, I’ve posted a long-and-winding stream of diverse stories about the Scottsdale-Arizona community I inhabit and about my life … as an independent writer, avid gardener, animal lover, critical thinker, loyal son, non-traditional father, and fortunate husband.
This openness is something I’ve learned and earned. More than sixty years ago, I was a shy child. I hid behind my mother and sucked my thumb for reassurance.
On a subconscious level, I must have felt I needed protection … for being different … though it would be decades before I would understand and embrace my gayness.
In the early 1990s (after my divorce from Jean and before I met my husband Tom), I felt lost and afraid. I certainly didn’t imagine I would one day sing on a stage with dozens of other gay men in Chicago … and then again in Phoenix.
Or that my husband and older son Nick (also living in Arizona) would watch and smile from the audience.
Much less, that I would write lyrics for the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus or develop dialogue for a palette of LGBTQ characters–a libretto, of sorts–for a concert in June 2023, titled Born to Be Brave.
This latest thrilling endeavor will premiere June 3 (2 pm and 7 pm shows) and then again June 4 (2 pm) at Tempe Center for the Arts.
All of this leads me to the point of this post.
In 2023–in a country where some would prefer not to say or hear the word gay or work to pass legislation to remove books from shelves written by gay authors–it is more important for all of us to live openly and loudly.
Moving back into the closet is simply not a viable or healthy option.
In that spirit, I am sharing two photos with this post. They contain images of my family members (past and present) and a sampling of the most important aspects of my authentic life.
For the concert this weekend, each of us (about seventy members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus) will wear a stole that drapes around our necks with such images … images that tell the stories of our lives for all the world to see.
Yes, in June or any month, all of us have much to be proud of. With the help of inspirational music, compassion from friends and neighbors, and the safe haven of our community, we’ve come a long way.
Hello literary lovers. It’s time for me to stop teasing you about my upcoming book of poetry. Book number five–A Path I Might Have Missed–is alive!
The title and meaning? I chose the title, because it is a reference to the creative odyssey I might have overlooked (but fortunately found late in life and explored through my poetry). Plus, I just like the lyrical sound of these six words strung together.
The concept? It’s a wide-ranging collection of forty-two poems, which I wrote over a period of thirty years (from age thirty-six to nearly sixty-six). My poems cover a host of universal topics–love, loss, pain, discovery, truth, and transformation–with an eye to the ever-present influence of nature in our lives.
The content? The poems run the gamut. Some are reflective, probing, mindful, and deeply personal. Others examine the challenging times we face in contemporary society. I dedicated the book to my father, Walter A. Johnson. He was an unfulfilled poet.
The format? The book is organized into six sections: buds and blooms; fog and fire; magic and music; trials and trails; water and wonder; and stones and sky. I’ve included a photo of nature with each section, images I captured while living in Illinois and Arizona.
Just click on the embedded link below to reveal the cover of the book and purchase a copy on Amazon. Also, please leave your review online. I look forward to your comments and feedback. Thank you for supporting my creative endeavors. Happy reading!
Tom and I get this question a few times a month–sometimes more often. In Arizona, Illinois, or anywhere in between.
We could be at the check-out counter of a grocery store, a restaurant as we wait to be seated, or on the treadmill at the gym we frequent in Scottsdale as we were on Monday.
That’s when a friendly man, wearing a San Francisco Giants ball cap, popped the question. (No, he didn’t ask me to marry him.)
In 2023, I generally smile and respond as I did Monday with “No, we aren’t, though we get that question a lot.” And the conversation ends there.
Depending on my mood–and how much I choose to share my personal story (after all, I am a memoir writer)–I have often gone on to say, “Tom and I are married.” Or “Tom and I are partners.” Or “Tom and I have been together for more than twenty-five years.”
Along the way, we have never received any open backlash concerning our relationship (nor should we). Quite the opposite. We have made more friends of all kinds because of our openness and comfort in our skins. (By the way, it took me decades to get here and I’m not going back.)
With time and reflection, I’ve realized that the question is more of an observation in the world of people we contact who aren’t able to classify the intimacy or closeness they identify between two men standing before them.
Or maybe it’s an acknowledgment on a less significant level that we have picked up some mannerisms from one another that two brothers might have in common. However, we really don’t look alike.
At any rate, I will continue to live my open life as a gay man–proudly–in my community. I will continue writing about my experiences–positive and negative–as a gay man, a husband, a father of two adult sons, a neighbor, a friend.
I will continue singing on stage with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus. As I write this, I have just completed drafting a script about five fictionalized characters living in the Phoenix LGBTQ community in 2023. Their dialogue will be the glue that ties together the music of our next concert: “Born To Be Brave”, June 3 and 4 at Tempe Center for the Arts.
I feel it is my duty to demonstrate that two men–a gay, married couple–don’t have to be blood brothers to love each other.
Especially in a country where some want to remove the books of gay authors from the shelves. Or try to erase the checkered history of our country on race relations because the truth is threatening to some. Or ban drag shows, because they view them as recruitment activities for current or future generations.
Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now. But Tom and I aren’t brothers. We’re a gay couple living happily in 2023, and there are lots of us out in the world.
We’re making significant contributions. Loving our families. Loving our neighbors. Loving our friends. Loving the legacy, which we are leaving for future generations of children who need to know the truth about the past and the present. That there are all kinds of people in the world loving each other. And that’s just as it should be.
November 3 was a brisk Thursday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona. But when I walked past these empty soles on the edge of Camelback Road after my workout at the gym, I felt an eerie sensation. It was almost like learning a close friend had died or vanished.
My focus shifted immediately away from our cooler-than-average temperatures in the Valley of the Sun. I felt compelled to pay tribute to the remnants of a life well lived. To stop and take this photo and–three days later–write a story about what I saw and felt in those moments. Because that is what I do.
What would provoke someone to leave behind a pair of decent canvas shoes on the side of the road in such an orderly fashion? Did they suddenly outlive their usefulness? Perhaps they were simply an extra pair a homeless person could no longer carry. Or the sensible shoes were forgotten by someone who waited for a bus and was ready to advance to the next station in life.
For my storytelling purposes they are a metaphor for the sense of displacement many of us feel in our country. We’ve been pushed to jump out of our shoes from the criminal escape antics of our past president and the barrage of political ads spewing venom through our devices. Whatever the case, we wait for the next shoe to drop as we anticipate the outcome of the mid-term elections.
If you follow my blog, you know I am a positive person. Generally. I’m thankful for the beauty of nature that surrounds me and the quieter life my husband and I have carved into the desert landscape.
But as a nation we teeter on the precipice of despair. The future of democracy–as I’ve known it for my 65 years and 181 years before that–is definitely on the ballot this coming Tuesday.
Tom and I have already voted. Nearly two weeks ago. I checked the boxes alongside the names of only those who will protect our democracy. Not the high-profile election deniers in Arizona running for senator, governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. We need to believe them when they tell us they wouldn’t necessarily respect and honor the will of the majority of the people.
If you live in the U.S., be sure to vote on or before Tuesday. When you do, I hope you will support those who uphold our beloved U.S. Constitution.
Otherwise, I fear that the close friend who disappeared without their shoes is actually the democracy we once loved before we allowed it to vanish.
We live in an over-inflated, over-heated, over-zealous world.
There is plenty of blame to go around. In my mind, greedy politicians and media conglomerates are two of the biggest culprits. The worst of them scream at us through our screens to woo us over and over. All for the sake of personal swagger and the almighty dollar.
I do my best to follow the important developments in the world and tune out the bluster, though–in this summer of 2022–that is virtually impossible in the United States of America.
That’s why I typically pepper my blog with stories of sweet cats, eavesdropping cacti, brilliant sunsets, lazy lizards, and personal reflections. However, I’m over-exposed and need to rant.
A simple drive down the street here in Scottsdale, Arizona (and I imagine in most American communities) snaps me back to the realities of the day.
We are surrounded by political signs and crack-pot endorsements on street corners in advance of our August 2 primary. Unfortunately, a fierce monsoon storm here on Sunday night didn’t obliterate them all. The best thing I can do is vote. My husband and I performed that democratic duty–early–on Monday.
Of course, the bluster of our society isn’t confined to politics. On Tuesday night, I tuned in to watch a few innings of the MLB (Major League Baseball) All-Star Game. The over-produced coverage on Fox assaulted my sensibilities. Over-hyped celebrity ballplayers wearing mics for in-game interviews over-shadowed the action on the field. It bored me.
That’s saying a lot, because–if you follow me–you know I’m a die-hard baseball fan. More specifically, I root for the St. Louis Cardinals. This passion flows back to the 1960s, sitting in the bleachers with my dad with my transistor radio and watching legendary players perform on the field.
My fascination and fixation with baseball was all about the relative innocence of escaping into the strategy of the game, wondering what might unfold next. In 2022, that sense of mystery has vanished.
Maybe this is really a story about what it feels like to grow older. To see the world through wiser, more questioning eyes. To demand more from our polarizing politicians, fragmented society, and ever-posturing media outlets … while the world I once knew evaporates before me.
I’ve always known I am overly sensitive–overly aware of my fair skin and frailties. According to my dermatologist on Tuesday, a cancerous patch of squamous cells (removed from the top of my left hand in mid-June through minor surgery) has over-healed.
Evidently, I was too good at smearing Aquaphor lotion on the wound, so he froze the scar tissue. It will fall off in a few weeks, and my life in the desert will go on with another chapter of survival in the books.
On Wednesday evening, I joined a group of my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus friends at a funeral home in Mesa, Arizona.
We sang a beautiful arrangement of Over the Rainbow. It was our way of saying goodbye to Cy, our friend and long-time chorus member, who passed away recently.
It was an evening of tears, funny stories, and reflections–a tribute to a man who lived well, sang beside us, and fought hard.
It was also a good reminder for me to do my best to tune into the important stuff of life. To embrace what really matters each day. To keep doing it over and over again as long as I can. Because none of us knows what tomorrow will bring.
At seven-fifteen in my Monday-morning, Me-TV, Leave It to Beaver universe, older brother Wally delivered sad news to Beaver from the other side of their closed bedroom door.
A mischievous neighborhood cat had killed Miss Canfield and Miss Landers, Beaver’s pigeons named after his favorite teachers. The crisis occurred during Wally’s watch as crestfallen Beaver quarantined with a case of chicken pox.
“Beaver’s Pigeons” (season 2, episode 20 of Leave It to Beaver) first aired on February 12, 1959, in an America long gone and mostly forgotten.
But it still exists as a comfortable escape for Tom and me–a lesson-laden gift from our past civilization that taught children right from wrong and nudged parents toward greater understanding through humor and humility.
Watching it over breakfast today momentarily softened the blow of 2022’s cataclysmic news tsunami: the U.S. Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade that turns the clock back fifty years in human rights; the stunning evidence of corruption unearthed by the January 6th committee that dwarfs Watergate; and the devastation of the war in Ukraine that has shaken the world.
Then, as the episode unfolded, I felt the velvet hammer of realization clobber me. What was it about Beaver’s loss of two ordinary pigeons that moved me to tears over my yogurt and granola?
Certainly, it was the kind response of Beaver’s friends Larry and Whitey. They told Wally–and Ward and June, Beaver’s idyllic parents–they knew it would help Beaver deal with the loss of his pets if he could watch from his second-story window as they dug a hole and buried the pigeons in the side yard.
As Beaver glanced down to view the pet funeral, my tears also were prompted by this harsh reality that slaps me in the face daily: I live in a country that has lost its way, dismisses innocence as weakness, and embraces conspiracy theories over truths.
Too many in this nation fight more vehemently to protect their guns than their youngsters, reject books and diversity in favor of fear, and resist proven vaccinations that keep safe our most vulnerable citizens.
I know I’m not alone in my observations, anxieties, and worries. The majority would agree with my assessment. But as I approach my sixty-fifth birthday next week, I wonder if we will find a way to turn the tide for our children and grandchildren.
Like black-and-white Beaver in the late 50s–now more than ever as the losses mount–we need to give our youngest citizens the love, guidance, truth, and protection they deserve to cope in an often-upsetting world.
My heart raced and jaw clenched. Like thousands of Americans, on Tuesday I tuned in to watch true patriots from Arizona and Georgia do the right thing.
The 2020 election numbers–votes counted and recounted numerous times–don’t lie. Neither did Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his deputy Gabe Sterling, and Georgia election worker, Shaye Moss.
At a defining moment in American history, on June 21, 2022, they delivered their testimony before the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
They sat before the nation. They breathed deeply, mopped their brows, and somehow maintained their composure. They told us how they kept their fingers in the dike to keep a corrupt president and his allies from breaking through the dam and cheating the American people. They upheld the law and the letter of the U.S. Constitution.
Over three hours of testimony, we heard heart-stopping stories. Each witness detailed how some of those who still support the ex-president have threatened and targeted their professional and personal lives. All in an effort to illegally change the outcome of the 2020 election.
In this one blog post, it is impossible to address the sense of fear, anxiety, and division that exists in our current culture. But suffice it to say, this insurrection and its related tentacles run wide and deep. It appears there is much more evidence to come. Each day we brace ourselves for more of the ugly truth about the targeting of public servants and slates of fake electors.
What will happen next in this drama? Who knows? But the biggest question of all looms on the horizon: Will the U.S. Department of Justice pursue criminal charges against the forty-fifth President of the United States and others who apparently have violated the rule of law?
Young and old alike, we watch and wait. Our nation’s future is at stake. Our sense of freedom hangs in the balance.
***
Tuesday’s hearing occurred fifty years and four days after five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Soon after, the Watergate political scandal dominated our lives. Our nation was thrust into the pain and complexity of a constitutional crisis and investigation that would expose President Richard Nixon and members of his administration.
I was a teenager at the time. I didn’t understand the gravity of the Watergate scandal. But I remember the anxiety of uncertainty that pervaded our country and how outraged I felt that our president would lie and cheat and do all he could to try to cover up his deceit. That pain has resurfaced today.
I also remember pausing for breakfast with my friends John and Jon in the middle of our western camping adventure on August 9, 1974. It was the day Nixon finally resigned after two years of political denial and trauma.
John, Jon and I chowed down on steak and eggs in a dark tavern/diner somewhere in Wyoming, while on the other side of the room, through the tube of a grainy black-and-white TV, we watched Nixon break the news in an address to the nation.
Before and after that moment, my buddies and I drove through miles and miles of magnificent western landscapes–mostly through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Wyoming. But we also ventured through the beauty and desolation of Arizona and New Mexico.
Imagine three sets of parents of three teenagers, permitting one seventeen-year-old and two sixteen-year-old boys to pack up a beat-up AMC Javelin without adult supervision. Somehow, we convinced them to let us go.
Over a ten-day period, the three of us towed a small camper more than a thousand miles each way from St. Louis to the Rockies and back again. We had fun, drank Coors beer, exercised our freedom, cooked over a Coleman stove, slept in a tent, and managed to stay out of trouble. Those were simpler and safer days. That trip wouldn’t happen today.
As a young man about to begin my senior year of high school, the possibilities of life surrounding me traveled as wide and deep as the terrain you see in this photo of Shiprock, New Mexico, which I captured and saved from our 1974 journey.
Little did I know that one day nearly five decades down the road–as I approached my sixty-fifth birthday in this western literary chapter of my life–our nation would face a much darker and historic challenge.
We must find a way to restore some semblance of sanity to our culture and political process … we must punish the perpetrators to resurrect our democracy from the jaws of an insurrection that continue to haunt us.
Imagine a welcoming, intimate, theatrical space where people of various stripes, orientations and political persuasions gathered for a few hours — twice in one weekend — to celebrate, sing, dance, clap, laugh, and cry in cool comfort away from the desert heat.
How is that possible in 2022? Glee, Broadway, and Disney tunes — delivered spectacularly by the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus and a duo of delicious drag queens — were the musical culprits.
It happened June 4 and 5 at the gorgeous and resonant Tempe Center for the Arts before two raucous and appreciative audiences.
Of course, I’m biased. If you follow my blog or have read my latest book, you know I sing second tenor with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.
Over the past several months, about forty of us — led by artistic director Marc and principal accompanist Darlene — prepared diligently for our Homecoming performances, celebrating the chorus’ 30th anniversary.
In addition to rehearsing in person regularly and navigating the relentless physical and mental challenges of Covid, we listened to our audio files at home.
We practiced in our homes and in our cars. Then, we did it all over again. The final week of preparation is a bit hellish, but in the words of Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive. I’ve learned to pace myself.
That’s what it takes to memorize a gleeful mash-up of music. Not to mention the choralography and costuming. (“There were costumes?” you ask. Please … we’re talking about a gay chorus!)
Standing on the stage Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, I felt a myriad of emotions as I channeled Madonna in my red choir robe. Exhilaration and relief reigned during my Like a Prayer solo ….
“I have no choice. I hear your voice. Feels like flying.”
Knowing my husband Tom, older son Nick, and an entourage of faithful friends were in the audience spurred me on. Plus, I didn’t want to disappoint my friends on stage. They’ve all become important to me.
I shudder when I think of what Tom and I endured nearly five years ago … surviving my heart attack and our move across country. What pulled us through?
It’s been our resiliency and the personal connections we’ve made. With those in the chorus, kind neighbors, gentle yoga with like-minded souls on Friday mornings, endless work out sessions with friends at Club SAR, and a fun collection of experiences with other Arizona writers, readers, artists, and film lovers. They all purchased tickets for the Homecoming concerts.
I feel so thankful. I feel so much love.
Occasionally, someone will ask me why I sing with a gay chorus. Certainly, it is about the music. But it goes much deeper for me and for many of the men of all ages who I perform with.
In this crazy world, we all need to feel safe. To find a place that feels like home. To be who we are. To share our gifts. To feel valued and loved. To push beyond our comfort zones. To go after that next solo or simply be content to be appreciated as one of many voices.
Whatever the case, the members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus provide that encouragement and support for each other. On that note, there is one behind-the-scenes moment I need to share from my concert weekend.
One of our five Like a Prayer soloists missed the entire weekend of performances due to his partner’s sudden illness. Naturally, he was deeply disappointed. We all missed him.
About ninety minutes before our Sunday concert, as we began to warm our voices, I captured this photo and sent it to him. This was my vantage point of the theatre from the top riser for most of the weekend.
It was my way of telling Brad …
“I have no choice. I hear your voice. Feels like flying.”
We sat–quietly and obediently–in rows facing the front of the room. Most of the girls wore frilly dresses, bangs, and patent-leather shoes; the boys sported bold-striped shirts, crew cuts, and bright-white Keds.
Our mornings and early afternoons were occupied with simple math, spelling, reading, recess, and cartons of cold milk on lunch trays. The American flag draped over the alphabet border above the blackboard.
Images of George, Abraham, and John–Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy–stood guard. I suspect they were there to ease our minds and protect our American innocence.
If only it were that simple.
***
I don’t remember feeling fear, when our teacher told us it was time for another drill. We knew the routine and followed instructions.
A voice on the public address system told us when to practice hiding under our desks, when to duck and cover, when to escape to fallout shelters in hallways if a bomb were dropped.
It lasted but a few minutes. We covered our heads and faces until the all-clear signal came from our teacher. We absorbed the fear–the height of the Cold War–without knowing what it was.
This was what we knew in the early 1960s in middle America. We were fortunate these were merely practice drills, false alarms.
I imagine the scenes weren’t much different in schools on the outskirts of Chicago, Cincinnati or Cleveland. At Mesnier School in Affton–ten miles from downtown St. Louis–we aspired to a gleaming symbol. We lived in the shadow of an emerging national monument.
By its completion in 1965, the Gateway Arch would soar, though across the nation the fog of pollution and social issues intensified.
As history would have it, all of the names of St. Louis school children would be stored in a time capsule in the base of the Arch. Mine is among them.
Back in the classroom, between random drills and parent-teacher conferences, we learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We tied our shoes and kept on skipping in a world where rules were prescribed narrowly for girls and boys.
This was the credo for boys: Get good grades in school. Be prepared. Keep your eye on the ball. Run faster. Jump higher. Find a decent job. Don’t be a sissy. Meet and marry a woman. Buy a house. Have kids. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Pass the baton to the next generation.
But what about those of us who are different? Where do we fit into the story? We had to figure that out for ourselves.
***
The sixties weren’t pretty. Assassinations reigned. The Vietnam War raged. Poverty and racism amplified. People felt trapped, ready to shed the remnants of restrictive gender roles and sexuality, sealed in the repressive 1950s.
But the world is exponentially more complicated now. The latest madman is hellbent on ravaging innocent people in Ukraine. Though love appears in abundance in many circles across all continents, ignorance and hate manifest themselves next door and around the world.
Once again, sixty years later, we find ourselves living in fear of the fallout. We must find ways to duck and cover, to speak the truth while standing as tall and mighty as the Gateway Arch.
We owe it to our children and grandchildren to put politics aside, to protect our planet, to uphold individual rights and civil liberties, to teach them about black and white, but also the color and grayness of the world and all its permutations. Pandemic or not, they are watching.
Even if they don’t know it, the youngest members of our society are counting on us to speak the truth, denounce racism and hate, celebrate gay and straight lives, and to teach them that every generation has a responsibility to remember and honor the seminal moments in history, and–hopefully–carry the best of humanity forward.
This is a true story about a chance encounter on New Year’s Day, January 1, 1962. It’s a testament to the good citizenship of my mother and father, who did the right thing sixty years ago.
The story, A New Year Resolution (I wrote it in 2017), fills me with hope and the warm possibilities of life even after seemingly awful things happen. It first appeared in Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator, my book of Missouri stories.
As we cross into 2022, I wish you good health and a few magical surprises to lighten your spirit.
***
Aunt Thelma was flush with frozen anticipation and prepared to toot her fringe-laced party horn. It’s how she felt every year. She had a new year resolution: to be the first out the door to inhale the cold remnants of December night air and replace it with January oxygen expectant with sharp promise and unassigned possibilities.
Thelma fumbled to secure the buttons on her worn car coat, snap her hat in place on the top of her wobbly bun, and race into the frigid Midwestern night. “Happy New Year,” she hollered leading her merry band out the door as the clock struck twelve. In an instant, the atmosphere from two distinct years comingled in her lungs and the clamoring began on cue.
Uncle Ralph, Mom, Dad, Diane, and I twirled our ratcheting noisemakers, flailed away with wooden spoons on pots and pans, and shrieked with glee. Magically, in an instant, the joys and regrets of 1961 were erased. Each of us had a fresh batch of winter air to contend with. It was January 1, 1962, in St. Louis, Missouri.
The frosty air told us it was too cold for the revelry to linger. By 12:15 a.m., we scurried back inside and returned our cockamamie thingamabobs and pointy hats. As Thelma and Ralph gathered it all and washed off the wooden spoons for safe keeping in the kitchen drawer, Dad and Mom broke the news to Diane and me. Our makeshift winter carnival was over.
With Dad behind the wheel, it was time to head home to South St. Louis County and our three-bedroom brick ranch in Affton. We had an hour-long drive ahead of us in our ’59 Plymouth.
Dad figured Hanley Road would be the most direct route. He could take the highway, but he didn’t want to contend with higher speeds and the potential for an anonymous, boozy driver veering head-on into his path. The thought of that was too much for his weary brain.
Under the whir of tires hugging cold pavement, Mom glanced over her left shoulder to check on the two of us in the backseat. Diane and I were beginning to fade. Mom knew we would be asleep soon. She and Dad were prepared to rouse us from our slumber once we pulled into the driveway. She felt comfort knowing we would need to be carried into the house and rolled into bed. She didn’t know there was more excitement coming before we trailed off to sleep.
A few minutes passed before something caught Mom’s eye between the high beams of an approaching car. She spotted a fuzzy figure up ahead a few hundred feet on the right shoulder. Someone was walking alone. From a distance, it could have been a man or woman. She and Dad couldn’t be sure.
Dad reduced his speed. As we approached, our headlights illuminated a bewildered young woman teetering on silver high heels, shivering under a skimpy mink stole thrown over her shoulders, exposing an emerald cocktail dress and too much skin on a cold night.
Mom verbalized what Dad was thinking. “Walter, I think she needs help. Let’s pull over and see if she needs a ride somewhere.” They rolled down their windows and waved her over to the car.
At first, the young woman’s eyes darted away. She could see a man was driving the car. But when she realized that an entire family was in the car, she relaxed a bit and approached on her fast-freezing feet.
“It’s so cold out, honey. Can we help you?” Mom offered through her partially open window. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”
“Yes,” she stammered. “I guess I do.” She grabbed the hinge of the back door and shimmied into the backseat next to Diane. “I was going home with a date after a New Year’s Eve party, and we got into a big fight. So, I got out. That bastard drove off and left me on the side of the road … Oh, I’m sorry about the language.”
“It’s alright,” Dad assured her. “We’re just glad we stopped. Point us in the right direction and we’ll get you home. What’s your name?”
“Oh, it’s Melba,” she confirmed. It was a name I’d seldom heard. Melba recited her address in Maplewood. By this time, any notion of sleep in our eyes was history. It vanished when Melba and her allure entered our world. We were wide-eyed and dumbfounded–captivated by her exotic name and slinky dress. Diane homed in on Melba’s beaded purse and shoes. I was mesmerized by her glistening green eyes, which flickered when cars flashed by. They matched her sequined gown.
Melba must have been an aspiring movie star or a lost character in a Twilight Zone episode, I thought. I wasn’t sure which. Either way, I was certain she was navigating a sudden detour on the road of life, trying to make the best of plans gone awry. She was craving silence in a secure sedan with no requirements, explanations, or assumptions.
From the front seat, Mom respected Melba’s need for quiet and distance. In the back, Diane and I sat motionless; we preferred to watch relief wash over Melba’s face. Dad focused on the tasks at hand: operating our vehicle and driving Melba home. He could tell the young woman was rattled. He wanted to return her home safely without fanfare.
Within twenty minutes, Dad pulled up in front of a tidy bungalow with white awnings and a steep front porch. This must be where Melba lived, I thought. Even though it was 1:30 a.m., all the lights inside Melba’s house were lit. I was thankful and relieved that her family had waited up.
With a flip of her hair from the top of her fur collar, Melba thanked Dad and Mom for the ride. She flashed a grateful smile, wrapped each end of her mink stole around her neck, patted Diane and me on the top of our heads, and braced for the cold air. She left the cozy warmth of our green sedan.
By this time, I had imagined a whole new life for Melba–a wandering, sensitive soul with a caring mother and father of her own, a nosey little brother, and a dream to escape her world and climb a ladder into a fairy-tale universe filled with brilliant stars.
Then, under the partial glow of a frosty January moon, I watched Melba ascend the concrete stairs, turn to wave goodbye, and step across the threshold of her ordinary front door into an awaiting aura. Certainly, New Year’s Day 1962 was off on a magical foot.
None of us thought we’d see Melba again. And we were right. Even so, all we needed was thirty minutes together to keep the memory alive. I curled up in the back seat next to my sister and considered the vision of Melba–coming and going in a pre-dawn hush.
There wasn’t much to say, but Dad knew what to do. He eased the car from the curb and guided us back onto the road. With a flash of his headlights, he signaled to Melba that all was good.
Mark Johnson Stories 