Category Archives: Reflections

The Thunderbird

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The 1950s and 1960s were the heydays of America’s love affair with the open road. Gasoline was cheap–20¢ to 30¢ a gallon—and flying was expensive, so during summer vacations many families hit the road in search of adventure or just a break from tedium. They would need a place to stay if they weren’t camping or dragging a trailer, which opened up an opportunity for roadside sleeping accommodations.

There were a few major hotel chains: Holiday Inn with their enormous green, yellow and orange signs; Howard Johnson’s, which added lodging to many of their numerous restaurants in the 1950s, and the Phoenix, Arizona-based Ramada Inn, which opened its first motel in Flagstaff. But many vacationers stayed in small mom-and-pop establishments along highways and near small towns. They were initially known as “motor lodges,” “motor inns,” “motor courts,” or “motor hotels,” which was eventually shortened to “Mo-Tel.” Out West they had romantic-sounding regional names like Aztec, Apache, Desert-Aire, El Sol, Ghost Ranch, Monterey Court, Sun God and Thunderbird. One could park right outside the room and haul everything inside without having to climb stairs or wait for an elevator. They were relatively Spartan compared to now but it was adequate and exciting.

We never took extended family vacations when I was growing up because we didn’t have much money. I lived in Arizona; I finally saw the Grand Canyon 30 years after I’d left the state. And going to Disneyland was completely out of the question. I didn’t miss anything, though. I made it to Disneyland in 1989 during a business trip and was surprised at how small it really was compared to Disney World.

Sometimes, instead of trekking back to Bisbee after visiting friends, we’d stay overnight, or a couple of days, at the Thunderbird Motel in Tucson, on a strip of four-lane highway known as “The Miracle Mile.” We usually got Room 25, one of the few with two double beds. It had real air-conditioning unlike the ubiquitous evaporative “swamp coolers” found in most desert homes. The beds were made with white linens stretched so tight and smooth you could bounce a quarter off them. I’d never used a shower before staying there. And I remember that crisp, clean smell that welcomed us when we walked in, untainted by cooking, wet animals or old beer farts.

The swimming pool was the best part: bow-tie shaped; going from two feet at one end and eight feet at the other end where the diving board sat, and surrounded by tasteful desert foliage. I’d change into my bathing suit as fast as I could and run out the sliding glass door. I can still remember jumping feet first into the water and the abrupt change in sound from outside noise to that other-worldly SCHWOOOOOP as the water closed in around my ears. There was an underwater light at the shallow end; I’d swim up to it, sometimes with my eyes closed because it was so bright.

I don’t ever recall my mother or step-father sitting poolside to make sure I didn’t drown. Maybe they watched from the room or listened for a distress call. Maybe they trusted me not to do anything stupid. Or maybe they just weren’t as paranoid as parents have become.

The Interstate Highway System marked the beginning of the end for the roadside motel. I-10 bypassed the Miracle Mile and by the mid-1970s it had become a haven for prostitutes, drug dealers and gangs. Many of the landmarks were demolished and in 1987 the Miracle Mile returned to its old name, Oracle Road. The golden era had come to an end.

Time heals some wounds. The Thunderbird has found new life as a men’s residential recovery center for Teen Challenge Arizona, an honorable use of an old building. The nearby Monterey Court now houses galleries, specialty shops, a café and an outdoor venue for live performances. The Ghost Ranch Lodge is on the National Register of Historic Places and was converted to senior housing.

I spend a lot of time in hotels, but none of them compare to the thrill I got staying at the Thunderbird. T

Bright Lights, Small City

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I spent most of my childhood in Bisbee, Arizona, a small mining town tucked into the Mule Mountains 90 miles southeast of Tucson. Many people made a decent living working in the mines; some, like my father, lost their lives there. The mines closed in the mid-1970s and the miners have been replaced by hippie artist types. One can get a bumper sticker: “Bisbee, AZ. It’s Like Mayberry on Acid.”

Living in Bisbee wasn’t bad at all. We had a Safeway grocery store, a movie theater and a Dairy Queen—all hallmarks of civilization. But every so often we’d trek two hours north and west to “the big city” of Tucson to buy groceries a little cheaper or to shop for stuff at Sears. Highway 80 took us out of town, through Tombstone, St. David and Benson until it dead-ended at Interstate 10. From there we drove the modern, four-lane into Tucson.

Sometimes we’d spend the day with one of two families we knew. Barbara and Art lived in South Tucson. There was a sign propped up against the wall in Art’s garage—a cartoon worm with a bow tie, top hat and a big smile saying, “Howdy, Folks!” My sister and I would play with their three daughters, Troy, Debbie and Laura, while the adults did whatever adults do when kids aren’t bugging the crap out them. One evening, when we were getting ready to leave, I put my fingers in the wrong place and the back door closed around them. It hurt like hell and prompted a trip to Tucson Medical Center’s ER, where an x-ray showed nothing broken.

Woody and Dolores lived farther east, near the intersection of East 22nd and Wilmot Road, where the Oxford Plaza was built in 1960, making it the second largest shopping center in Tucson. The backyards of all the houses were enclosed in 6ft cinder-block walls that opened to an alley running by a drainage ditch, known as a “wash.” Pantano Wash, a couple of miles away, is a much larger canal, usually dry as a bone until monsoon season, when sudden thunderstorms beget raging torrents carrying all sorts of debris and the occasional car driven by some dumb-ass who didn’t think the water was that deep or powerful.

Their older son, Jim was in high school and starting to become rebellious. He had a poster of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet on the wall of his bedroom, the infamous Phi Zappa Krappa. Richard was closer in age to me, so we hung out together, playing in the back yard or prowling the neighborhood. My sister usually wasn’t included but I’m sure she was around since my mother would not have left her home alone.

Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time, so even in the summer it’s dark by about 7:00-7:30pm. When it was time to leave we’d pile into the back seat of our Chevy for the long trip home. I’d usually look out the window until we turned off the Interstate at Benson. There was a long house outside of town that, when the lights shone through the full-length windows looked a lot like the Wright brothers’ first airplane.

There was a lot of nothing along desert highways back then and even less traffic. Sierra Vista was a small speck of light 35 miles away—not the massive beacon it has become. I’d lay down on the back seat and listen to the soft rumble of tires on the road, interrupted only by the headlight dimmer, a small cylindrical switch in the floor near the driver’s left foot. Ka-Click. The lights would dim for an approaching car. Ka-Click. The high-beams came back on as the other car passed by. Punctuation in the ongoing conversation between the car and the asphalt that continued until we were back home.

Less is More …More or Less

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NOTE: I left my writers group over creative differences. They demanded “more emotion” in my writing, but when I gave them the following, they didn’t like it. Be careful what you wish for.

In 1992 John Grey told us “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” This revelation did not surprise any man— most of them didn’t read the book in the first place—but it was a shock to most women. Yes, men and women are different but despite the latter’s fervent wishes to the contrary, we men are fairly simple creatures who don’t require endless analysis to understand.

Men learn quickly that women are mysterious, complex creatures but not much else. We know they have boobs. We know they possess that Holy Grail “down there,” our bumbling quest for which is eternal. And we know that saying the wrong thing however innocent will get us into a shitload of trouble. We also like to piss them off sometimes by doing something they expressly told us NOT to do, because it’s fun in an adolescent way. But we’ve reconciled never understanding the female psyche and moved on.

Women find men to be exasperating, lacking in self-awareness, and devoid of that most-coveted but rare attribute, “emotion.” That’s not entirely true. We understand and express a few emotions—anger, humor, sarcasm, lust, and the overwhelming joy that comes from vicariously crushing your buddy’s dreams in sudden-death overtime.

We bury our feelings in alcohol, drugs, work and manly pursuits like football, hunting and Call of Duty until ulcers or a heart attack grant us a reprieve from our stoicism. We don’t run naked through the forest howling at the moon, join drum circles, or pour our hearts out in embarrassing songs like “Sometimes When We Touch,” the sound of which still makes me cringe.

Men don’t want to get in touch with their inner child; we’d rather have had the opportunity to yank the little bastard out to warn him about the shit he’s gonna face in life. We do not want to wallow in, nor publicly express, the soul-searing pain most of us have experienced during our lives, having learned a long time ago that doing so invites the rebuke, “That sounds like a personal problem to me.” Or, as a woman I knew in college told me, “Nobody likes a downer,” a gut punch that said in no uncertain terms, “You’re on your own.”

In the 1980s, women said they wanted men to be like Alan Alda, comfortable with emotional intimacy. Not true! Women really wanted men who acknowledged women’s emotions, not men with their own matching set of emotional luggage. “How can you take care of me when you are sad/depressed/angry/scared/hopeless?” So, in order to successfully navigate the minefields of personal relationships, our innermost feelings stayed buried, taken out occasionally in front of a therapist for a hundred bucks an hour, or with a bartender for far less.

I spent the first forty-some years of my life wearing my emotions like a badge of desperation, an emotional train wreck. I look back on those times with a great deal of shame and humiliation. I may not live there anymore, but I remember the address. And the phone number.

All that changed when the pain of my affliction outweighed the stigma of acknowledging it and I sought absolution through Prozac, leveling out the highs and lows. I abandoned New Age music’s comforting vulnerability for jazz’s impenetrable complexity. I bade farewell to Bogie and Bergman, embracing the likes of Stallone and Stone. Disengaging from my emotional side made coping easier. I saved my soul but lost a part of me, for better or worse.

Writing may be therapeutic for many—in the past it has helped me—but I’ve achieved a balance I’m reluctant to disturb. I am neither Henry David Thoreau nor Nicholas Sparks. I do not want to “lead (a life) of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in (me).” I don’t want to resurrect demons previously banished or go back to the edge of the abyss. Mostly I don’t want the existential vulnerability of my previous life. I’ll walk down old paths carefully, breaching some walls while leaving others undisturbed, but in my own good time.

Yes, men and women are different. We have feelings but we’d rather die than admit it, so please stop asking us. Our inner child will thank you.

Roberta Joan

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Winter in the Midwest is something to be endured. After the faux joy of the holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s—January settles in like an uninvited relative who won’t leave. Mind you, it’s not the cold or the snow. It’s the continually cloudy days that turn into weeks, then months, sucking all the life out of people until they are listless, colorless and humorless. A brief warm-up turns plowed piles of soft snow into crushed ice, and melts just enough of the ground cover so the landscape is several shades of brown somewhere between dormant and dead. Spring is still light-years away.

Sometimes there’s a break just in time to prevent a complete breakdown, but it’s half-hearted. The clouds stretching to the western horizon filter the sunlight just enough to rob the clear eastern sky of that truly rejuvenating blue, making it look like a backdrop from Davey and Goliath. Occasionally it’s so warm you’d swear the seasons were running in reverse and it was mid-October again, but the dried cornstalks were harvested long ago. Days like this are meant to be savored like a shot of Johnny Walker Blue, before the slowly suffocating grey rolls back in.

It was a time like this when you discovered her and the music—that high, clear, girlish voice; the oddly tuned guitar; and the words that spoke to you. She sang about cities and taxis, seagulls and pirates, darkness and redemption, and the child she gave up. She drove your roommate crazy; he didn’t understand and just looked at you with anger and frustration. But you and she were kindred spirits.

You moved on and lived alone in a Depression-era bungalow that smelled of fresh paint and old linoleum with a tinge of the Devil’s breath from the stove’s pilot light. It was okay; she made it easy to drift into a place of comfort and solitude. At least you weren’t in a beat-up New York City flat with a clanging radiator and millions of others “leading lives of quiet desperation.”

That was before the jackals tore at her soul, leaving her wounded and bewildered. Before the string of unsatisfying paramours made her jaded and cynical about love. Before the anger that could not be assuaged, given life in an animal roar that both roused and terrified.

Her words transcended mere poetry; they were exquisite, profound. She wrote of “broken trees and elephant ivories,” and “cold blue steel and sweet fire.” She peered into your ravaged mind when she wrote:

So why does it come as such a shock
To know you really have no one
Only a river of changing faces
Looking for an ocean
They trickle through your leaky plans
Another dream over the dam
And you’re lying in some room
Feeling like your right to be human
Is going over too

Time was relentless, passing ever more rapidly with each year. The wounds healed over; the scars faded. Anger, always destructive and exhausting, gave way to resolution, if not acquiescence. Both of you seemed to find a quiet peace, having lived your lives in your own ways.

Classic Christmas Television

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Christmas shows during television’s Golden Age were different because the rules were a tad more stringent.

The National Association of Broadcasters developed the Code of Practices for
Television Broadcasters in 1951, defining ethical standards for television programming. Many of us remember seeing the Seal of Good Practice at the end of a show’s closing credits. Among those standards was that “(n)ews reporting should be factual, fair and without bias” and “should be telecast in a manner as to avoid panic and unnecessary alarm.” Ah, the good old days.

So Baby Boomers grew up with variety shows as television staples during the 1950s and 1960s. Every year we looked forward to those shows’ Christmas specials: Bing Crosby, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett, Dinah Shore,  Andy Williams, with and without The Osmond Brothers, and the somewhat bland Perry Como. Bob Hope and the USO did an annual Christmas show with the troops in Vietnam until 1972. We all sat on the national couch in the Great American living room collectively enjoying the once-a-year rituals.

But there was one quirk that really made Christmas week special.

Many people are probably unaware of an unwritten rule: no one died on prime-time television programs during Christmas week. Dramatic shows relied on comic relief—often subtle, sometimes uncharacteristic—to meet that requirement. Combat!’s 1962 Christmas night episode, The Prisoner, featured Shecky Greene as a conniving soldier whose scamming gets him paired up with a bombastic colonel played by Keenan Wynn. That was a lot different from “Newborn King,” the 2011 NCIS Christmas episode during which Gibbs delivers a baby in the back seat of a car while ZIva wastes several bad guys in a shoot-out.

Many of the classic movies and Christmas specials from my childhood appear every year, sometimes ad nauseum, as when AMC runs “White Christmas” back-to-back to back. But there are a few that have faded into obscurity.

Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951-1966). Composed by Gian Carlo Menotti and inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s painting Adoration of the Magi, this one-act opera is about a crippled shepherd boy and his mother whom the Three Wise Men visit on their way to Bethlehem. It was done live until 1963, the first time it was videotaped, much to Menotti’s consternation.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962). The well-known voices of Jim Backus,
Morey Amsterdam, Jack Cassidy, Paul Frees and others came together in this animated, musical version of Dicken’s story. “All Alone in the World” is the plaintive song young Ebenezer Scrooge sings when the Ghost of Christmas Past takes old Scrooge down memory lane.

Twilight Zone: Night of the Meek (December 23, 1960). Art Carney is a department store Santa fired on Christmas Eve. He finds a bag in the street with a seemingly endless supply of gifts which he gives to the needy kids, and finds redemption. The 1985 Twilight Zone remake with Richard Mulligan and William “Richard Thornburg” Atherton just wasn’t the same.

The Story of Christmas: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Roger Wagner Chorale (1963). I described this in my last post. Tennessee Ernie Ford Enterprises finally released it on DVD in 2006. Here’s “What Child Is This,” the beginning of the Christmas Gospel according to Luke.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). I was fortunate enough to see this debut, before advertisers chopped it up into the little pieces we see now. If watching Linus explain the meaning of Christmas doesn’t choke you up, I have a load of Kingsford for your stocking.

Rich Little’s Christmas Carol (1978). Rich Little did a one-man version,
impersonating famous people for the cast: W.C. Fields as Scrooge; Paul Lynde as Bob Cratchit; Richard Nixon as Jacob Marley; Truman Capote as Tiny Tim, and many others. My favorite lines:

Marley/Nixon: Don’t you believe me???

Scrooge/W.C. Fields: No. And neither did anyone else.

The Littlest Angel (1969): I mention this one only because of the sick feeling I got watching Johnny Whitaker (Jody Patterson-Davis on Family Affair), plunge off a cliff to his death. I read the book to my kids, a much more pleasant experience.

I’d like to know if anyone else remembers seasonal and/or regional favorites growing up.