Rancho Mirage

“Never saw the sun shining so bright

Never saw things going so right.”

  Ella Fitzgerald, “Blue Skies”

I spent five days in California on the occasion of my mother’s ninety-sixth birthday.  American Airlines took me to Dallas/Fort Worth and then on to Palm Springs, where the weather was 110 degrees when we landed, down from 114 earlier.  I never saw a cloud in the sky the entire trip.  The sun was so relentless I could have burned a finger touching my rented Corolla.  Thanks to the Hertz GPS I arrived at my mother’s assisted living facility, Mirage Inn, and we chatted a while before I checked in at the Holiday Inn in Rancho Mirage and had two Michelob Ultra 22-ouncers at Applebee’s.  The next evening we celebrated at Shame on the Moon, named for a Bob Seger lyric.  I had a tender veal pot roast entry (my apologies, animal lovers).

At the motel breakfast buffet Thursday I watched CNN’s coverage of the Obamacare Supreme Court decision.  First reports were that Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, struck down the individual mandate section, but it turned out he merely decided it wasn’t constitutional under the commerce clause but legal due to the federal government’s taxing power.  Unlike the reactionary judicial activists he often sides with, Roberts seemed to search hard to avoid striking down the controversial legislation and emerged the big winner despite initial howls from Obama haters who wanted to see his most important first-term accomplishment invalidated. 

We visited Sunnylands Center and Garden, on the former estate of Walter and Leonore Annenberg, now a public trust. Walter accumulated money as publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and a racing form, then started TV Guide when fewer than ten percent of Americans owned televisions and Seventeen for teenage baby boomers.  He acquired the ABC affiliate in Philly, which grew by leaps and bounds after the launching of “American Bandstand.”  After receiving considerable funds from the Annenbergs, Nixon appointed the communications mogul ambassador to the Court of St. James.  On display in the Welcome Center were eighteenth-century gold server dishes once belonging to Prime Minister William Pitt.  Leonore, whose uncle was legendary Columbia Pictures czar Harry Cohn, was chief of protocol under Reagan.  The gardens were fantastic, designed ingeniously to conserve energy and minimize evaporation.  In front were four trees native to Africa.  According to the guide, when giraffes start eating the leaves of that species, as a survival mechanism trees would give off an odorous signal to others by releasing a chemical making the leaves repellent to the taste.

We had several meals at the Mirage Inn, which enabled my mother to show me off to her friends.  Shirley, age 97, is a live wire and very sociable, as are her other dining companions Dottie and Adeline.  A woman who was 101 goes without a cane or walker to a nearby Indian casino every Friday.  There’s a well-attended afternoon Happy Hour, and Friday’s entertainment in the Cabaret D’Mirage featured Mara Getz belting out old standards.  Many of the ladies were swaying and singing along or at least mouthing the words.  The hour program began with Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train (to Harlem)” and ended with Ella Fitzgerald’s “Blue Skies.”  I had a beer and turned down an offer of seconds.

During the week I grappled with USA Today crossword puzzles.  For “Lincoln’s first home,” I guessed Kentucky only to discover later that the answer was “log cabin.”  The heart of mothers turned out to be “the” (the middle three letters).  My mother helped me with “wide lace collars” (berthas).  Because my TV got HBO, I saw parts of “Dances with Wolves” and “Crazy Stupid Love.”  I’m a big fan of Steve Carell and Julianne Moore, and when I saw the latter at the movies I hadn’t realized that the great Marisa Tomei played the horny teacher.

Nephew Bob arrived Friday with Niki and the kids.  Four year-old Addie gave me a big hug and Crosby didn’t mind my embracing him and kissing the top of his head.  We had a second birthday celebration at the Yard House, a huge establishment that had dozens of beers on draft and delicious crab cakes.  Saturday evening the kids swam in the motel pool.  Normally they hate the water, but Addie wanted to show off for me and, once in, loved it.  Crosby, wearing an arm buoyancy device, was fearless jumping in toward one of his parents.  Bob and Niki were bursting with pride.  Afterwards, while the kids bathed, Bob and I had an hour to ourselves at nearby Applebee’s and he filled me in on his new marketing job.

I recognized a hot-looking bartender named Natasha from previous visits and struck up a conversation after she sat down next to me and asked where I was from.  She’s been working there for almost ten years and is German on her father’s side and Southern (Georgian) on her mother’s. We talked about both liking “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,” especially the Russian cartoon characters Boris and Natasha, who were secret agents.  Natasha watched reruns with her dad.  When I worked evenings in the women’s cafeteria at Bucknell as a dishwasher alongside football players on scholarship, we’d often watch the show during our break.  Like “The Simpsons,” its puns and asides were meant more for adults than kids.

On both flights home a friendly blond woman was traveling with a small dog.  Before take-off a flight attendant threatened to kick her off the plane if she didn’t put the animal in its carry-on case.  She didn’t comply but had something indicating it was a guide dog and the attendant apologized for his actions.

Big doings back home while I was away. Cracker performed Friday at the Hobart Jaycees Fest beer garden.  The Michiganders attended Becca’s tenth birthday party, and seven of them, including two boyfriends, plus a dog crashed at the condo.  Sunday was SEIU stalwart and dear friend Alice Bush’s retirement party.  Sorry to miss all of them.  Awaiting me at home: a thank-you note from Dale Fleming for the proceeds raised from the sale of his drawings at Pop Up Art and, drum roll, please, five complimentary copies of “Valor: The Odyssey of Roy Dominguez” as told to James B. Lane.  The book looked fantastic; I phoned Roy, and he agreed.  I mentioned how cool the photo section was and that it was a shame Gary Martin, Bob Lovely, Jesse Villalpando, and others weren’t alive to read how important they were in his life.  Among the photos on the back cover is a shot of Roy and me.  In my Afterword I thank oral history pioneers Studs Terkel, Michael Frisch, Donald Ritchie, and Alessandro Portelli who broadened the parameters of our profession by their “from the bottom up” approach.

James Madison loves Henry Farag’s “The Signal” and will recommend to IU Press that they publish it as an Ebook.  That’s great news, and we are crossing our fingers in hops that it becomes part of his series on Midwestern History and Culture.

At lunch George Bodmer showed me the journal he has been keeping, usually a couple paragraphs about how his day went.  He even had an entry about getting hit crossing Broadway by a car, written from the hospital.  Alan Lindmark asked me what politician might become IU’s next president.  Evan Bayh, I replied, without hesitation.  Thursday the sheriff and I will have lunch and autograph copies of “Valor” to Bayh (who wrote the foreword) and others, including Steve McShane and Ronald Cohen, whose blurbs appear on the back cover.

The South Shore Journal accepted my article “The Dune Fawn: Diana of the Dunes’ Male Counterpart.”  Both reader suggested (and I concurred) that I delete two pages from Webb Waldron’s chapter on the “Dune-Faun,” and the other recommended revisions were minor and, for the most part, welcomed.  I am hoping to combine the issue of the journal with a reprint of “Tales of Lake Michigan” as a special Shavings volume.