Marriage Equality

“I think it’s very nice that in an age when love is so scarce that people are willing to gamble on getting married,” 80 year-old Yoko Ono

Off to California, whose Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is being challenged in the Supreme Court, as is the idiotic Defense of Marriage Act.   During oral arguments swingman Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, “The question is whether or not the federal government under a federalist system has the authority to regulate marriage.”  In 1967 in Loving v. Virginia the court unanimously answered with a resounding yes, declaring that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional.  Kennedy also expressed concern that “immediate legal injury” is being imposed on 40,000 children currently reared by gay or lesbian parents unable to marry.  Three reactionaries are almost certain to be on the wrong side of history, but let’s hope Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts join the four Democratic appointees in doing the right thing.  Even Dick Cheney is on record declaring that “people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish.”

Up at 3:30 to catch the airport limo to O’Hare. At security a sign announced that those 75 years or older could keep their shoes on.  In four years I won’t be considered a security threat. At Palm Springs airport Hertz was out of Toyotas, so I rented a neat Mazda.  There were a huge number of dials on the dashboard, most for the radio or CD player.  I got a GPS but by now was pretty familiar with Gene Autry Trail, Bob Hope Drive, Vista Dunes, Rancho Las Palmas, Highway 111, and other streets near Midge’s.  I visited her at Mirage Inn, located a block from the Betty Ford clinic, and then downed a couple 20-ouncers at Applebee’s.  With Andrea Aguirre and Natasha, now about seven months pregnant, behind the bar, Justin Bieber look-alike Jerry at the door, and the same two postal workers hunkered down a couple stools away from me, it felt like deja vu all over again. Two new waitresses, one impossibly thin-waisted and the other a Thirtysomething with a Melissa McCarthy build, turned out to be sisters.

I planned daily excursions with Midge.  Friday we visited the Palm Springs Air Museum, which had a special Bob Hope exhibit.  I remember him as a rather old man who emceed the Oscars for many years and supported the Vietnam War (earning him the nickname Bob Hopeless), but he was quite handsome, dashing really, as a young vaudevillian, radio host, and comedian.  Born in England, he grew up in Cleveland and once owned an interest in the Indians franchise.  For 50 years he entertained troops, culminating in a show during the Gulf War.  Consisting of three large hangers, the museum also had exhibits honoring the Tuskegee Airmen and women pilots.  Many of the planes came from wealthy Minnesotan Robert J. Pond, a WW II navy pilot who headed a company that manufactured industrial floor-cleaning machines.  Many helpful elderly male docents were on hand, no doubt veterans who enjoyed be useful and being with old acquaintances.

Saturday we walked through Moorten Botanical Garden, in existence since 1938 and featuring over a thousand types of cactus and tropical trees that provided shade and attracted a variety of birds.  Founded by Patricia and Chester “Cactus Slim” Moorten in 1938, it sold plants and hosted wedding parties.  While I was parking the car, a bride emerged from the rear of a hatchback, her dress obviously too copious for a regular seat. 

Sunday we met nephew Bob, Addie, and Crosby at a sports bar about halfway between Palm Springs and their place in San Diego.  The kids both dug into an order of calamari, calling the delicacy octopus.  When I told Bob, sporting a clipped beard and mustache, that Applebee’s waitress Natasha was expecting, he quipped, “Yours?”  On a nearby TV was the Indiana-Temple game.  With IU trailing late in the contest, Christian Watford made a crucial block and Victor Oladipo buried a three-pointer in the final 14 seconds to put the Hoosiers in the Sweet 16.  Three double-digit seeds also made it, LaSalle, Oregon, and Florida Gulf Coast, which knocked out number two seed Georgetown. An IU grad, Bob followed the TV action in the mirror behind me.

As we looked through photo albums, Midge talked about her childhood.  Stella, her mother, was a dress designer who commuted to New York City and came home weekends.  A housekeeper stole numerous items until her suspicious dad, Elwood, paid her a surprise visit and made her return them or face arrest.  Midge recalled being pleased when her mother announced she was staying at home, where she continued to design and make wedding dresses.  Stella died of pneumonia in 1927 when Midge (a nickname for Mary Virginia because she was small) was 11.  Elwood managed a men’s clothing section of a large department store in Easton, PA.  He subsequently dated someone in the woman’s clothing department who committed suicide after the store went belly up during the Depression.  Elwood was out of work, too, and Midge went to live with her widowed maternal grandmother Grace Frace.  Grandfather Frace had taught in a one-room school before buying a dairy farm.  Her Aunt Mamie lived in Erie and was married to dentist Harley Ackerman, who called Midge Ginny.  They helped pay for her college education at Grove City.

Midge has several close friends at Mirage Inn whom she sits with during meals.  At supper one evening a new lady who dresses formally and always wears a hat left her table and returned 20 minutes later to find three new diners there.  Saying “That’s my wine,” she picked up someone else’s glass and started drinking before the startled trio could do anything.  More men were in evidence than last visit; several asked Midge with a wink who her handsome new boyfriend was.  Some, Midge reported, have been taking Spanish lessons, which could enable them to flirt with the mainly Mexican-American staff.  Some of the latter walk dogs for folks too feeble to do it themselves.

Monday we went to the Palm Springs Art Museum branch in Palm Desert.  It was closed but we could stroll through the beautiful Faye Sakowsky Sculpture Garden.  We agreed that the best piece was a rendering of a Lakota woman wearing a star quilt by Dave McGary entitled “Walks Among the Stars.”  Midge didn’t think much of the abstract sculptures, but two in particular impressed me – Dennis Gallagher’s “Ball Suspended,” a ceramic sphere suspended between two vertical figures, and Jesus Bautista Moroles’s “Lapstrake,” a granite piece whose title refers to a construction method of overlapping planks.  We shared a laugh at the expense of Donald Judd’s untitled concrete structure that resembled a giant box divided into three parts.  Afterwards we had lunch outdoors along the River Walk at Acqua Pazza California Bistro. 

Evenings I watched NCAA basketball (Marquette’s victory over Butler was the most entertaining) and snatches of HBO movies, including such goodies as “The Descendants,” “Rock of Ages,” and “Jungle Fever” (Samuel L. Jackson was awesome as a junkie).  One I watched all the way through was “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” with Tom Hanks and Max von Sydow.  I had thought the previews hokey, but it was very gripping.  Nine year-old Thomas Horn as Oskar Schell, whose father died on September 11 at the World Trade Center, deserved an Academy Award nomination.

At the Holiday Inn Express pool I met David Willy.  From Vancouver, he and his wife were on vacation but she contracted pneumonia and was in intensive care. My last day, she was out of the hospital but couldn’t travel for another week.  I had two full bottles of St. Pauli Girl but couldn’t find him so they went to friendly Ramon at the front desk.  Next to me on the flight back to Chicago were a Palm Springs couple headed to their cabin near Traverse City, Michigan, with two boys and a little dog, who slept the entire trip with the help of a tranquilizer pill.  The flight arrived 20 minutes early, enabling me to catch the 7:15 airport limo and enjoy a Chicago-style hot dog beforehand. 

Among the 103 emails awaiting me: good news regarding a buddy’s tenure and promotion case although she is still crossing her fingers, as the ultimate decision rests with IU’s President.  On Facebook Oregon grad Jerry Pierce, unjustly denied tenure two years ago, posted, “Go Ducks.”  Like many of my friends, as well as Phil, Angie, and Alissa, he changed his profile picture to a “red equality” symbol in support of the marriage equality case being argued at the Supreme Court.  I would, too, if I knew how.  The Wades, ardent IU fans, found a likeness of Victor Oladipo dressed in Pope Francisco’s robes.

Teams seem to bowl their best against us.  Jim Cyprian, who throws a reverse hook, rolled a 279, 86 pins above his average.  He left four-pins in the first and second frames, then struck out.  Bulls ended Miami’s 27pgame winning streak despite being without Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose, who has been clear to play but may sit out the entire season.