Growing Up Then and Now

So we attended the photography lecture.  Standing-room-only crowd.  Bob went one way and I took a seat on the ledge by a bannister.  A late arriving (almost tall as Bob) pretty woman with long blonde hair was looking for a seat – so I offered mine.  She accepted and after the lecture we started to chat.  She was a Univ. of Az. co-ed taking a photography course and attending the lecture was part of a class assignment.  Bob found us just as she and I made a date for the next night.  I convinced Bob staying in Tucson was what we wanted to do especially given the fine accomodations at the football stadium.

There were no lonesome caddy girlfriends the next day so we were just driving around town when we spied a “Help Wanted” sign for landscapers.  That day we shoveled the white pebbles that Arizonans seem to prefer to lawns out of the back of a pick-up truck and made a little money.

Then I went back to our parking lot accommodations, showered, and went out on my date.  Had a really good time; came back and told Bob, “Hey, we’ve got jobs, a nice place to stay, and Debbie’s invited me to supper tomorrow night at her house.”  The next day one of the landscapers got us better jobs doing “scrape down & scrap out” work.  They were building lots of houses and apartment complexes in Tucson that February.  Our job was to go into a freshly dry-walled, textured, painted apartment, smooth out the texturing, scrape down the excess tape, plaster, insulation material, and wheelbarrow all the scrap to the main dump site.

That night Debbie invited me to move in with her.  Bob was glad to have the Volare to himself.  Plus we had jobs and Bob didn’t mind the work because he mostly slept in the bathtubs while I did the scraping down and scrapping out.  Later I found out this was a sore point for Bob – although I kept telling him, “Bob, I don’t mind a bit – the days go by faster for me if I work hard and I don’t mind your sleeping most the day – I just can’t wait to see Debbie again tonight.”

On a Saturday, me, Bob & Debbie took in a Cleveland Indians spring training game.  After baking in the hot sun, we decided to come back the next day and sell “Solar Dogs.”  [See photo.]

Actually we ran an extension cord to heat those dogs up

After about a week of sleeping with Debbie, enjoying a fine spaghetti dinner she fixed, I announced that I thought she & Bob were really made for each other – both tall, Jewish, attractive and witty, same intellectual interests.  She agreed!

That night I went and found Bob at the parking lot and gave him the news.  Next night he was at Debbie’s and I was in the Volare.  That lasted about a week as well and then it was time for everybody to move on.  We all three stayed friends for life and Debbie even insisted that we stop in and see her mother and sisters in San Francisco after we left L.A.

Tomorrow:  Katie!

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You’ve got the job!  [seventh daily dose of Florida Rescue Mission]

When we get to Portland, Oregon, we stop in to visit Bev, a friend of both of ours from Legal Services in New Jersey.  She’s now an attorney with the Portland Legal Aid Society.  We get to her office around 4 p.m.  She’s excited to see us, listens to why we’re here (Bob is going on to Alaska and I’m catching the Amtrak in Seattle for St. Paul), and says,

Driving to the Ends of the Earth to settle down

“Bob!  They’re hiring an Executive Director for the Community Access Cable TV Station, tonight even! And I’m good friends with the President of the Board who just told me minutes ago how forlorn she was over the lack of any really good candidates for the job.”  Bob had been the producer of a local cable TV show during Bev’s time in South Jersey (which played a major role in our community organizing efforts, read “How I Came to be a Lawyer”).   Bob was also known for having produced some very good documentaries.

Well, we quick use Bev’s typewriter (no computers in those days) to hurriedly put together a Resume for Bob, and race over to the cable TV station.  We arrive out-of-breath, and yea! the Board President friend of Bev’s is there and the meeting to decide whom to hire hasn’t started yet.  She’s very glad to meet Bob and does a short interview.  Bob is a quick study and I already told you he was a great guy.   She says call from Seattle tomorrow and I’ll let you know.

In Seattle we visit Ginny, another friend from South Jersey, Bob makes the call:  “You’ve got the job!” she says, and Bob drops me off at the Amtrak station before turning the Volare around for Portland.  Bob became a fixture, even a legend, in Portland for the next 30 years, and I went on to become a State Legislator in Minnesota.

So that’s what I told Bob and he’s really excited and into The New Rescue Mission.  That night we played shuffleboard because the motel didn’t have a pool table,  marveling at how things have developed and how lucky it was we thought to come back to see Fred a second time – “Don’t you think we should go back and see Bette a second time too?”

When we show up at the Ramada the next day Fred tells us she’s made up her mind to leave Michael and come with us and has already told the Ramada staff this is her last shift.  “I finish at 2,” she says to us, “then let’s just go.”

But I said, “What about your things?  – especially the Christmas presents?”  She says we can’t go back to the house because Michael will be there.  “Well,” I said, “just call him up and tell him you ran out of gas.”  (She drove a little motorcycle to work).

That won’t work she says, “We don’t have a telephone [this was back in the days before cell phones and computers],  I’ll just send him a postcard.”

Bob says he has a plan:  “We’ll hide Fred out at the next beach up the Coast; find a big box somewhere, Fred you make a list of the things you want – and we’ll go get them.”

“No, that won’t work,” she says, “Michael’s a big time drug dealer and keeps a loaded gun in the house.”

“Where?” I said.

What do you say to a guy with a gun? “Let’s talk!”

 “In the drawer by the living room couch,” Fred says.

“OK,” I said, “It’s good Bob’s such a big guy, I’ll keep an eye on Michael while Bob gathers things up, and jump him if he makes a move for the drawer” – I was sure with Bob’s help we could handle Michael if things got rough – “and besides, he isn’t going to call for help without a telephone and knowing it all might lead to a big drug bust for him.”

When we knock on the door, I say to Michael “Look Michael, Fred’s decided to leave you; we’re here to get her things, but she’s going to come see you once we’ve got everything loaded and explain what’s up” (a white lie).   Though surprised to see us, he seems to buy the bit about Fred still coming to see him, and sizing up Bob, lets us in.  I keep talking to him about what Fred’s going to be telling him — paying attention that he doesn’t get too close to that drawer.  He tells me he can’t believe that Fred will leave the dog. I tell him that’s one of the things she’s going to talk to him about.  Pretty quickly Bob gives me the thumbs-up sign, and I tell Michael we’re off to get Fred.

After picking up Fred, our next stop was miles away in St. Mark’s, Florida.  St. Mark’s is on Florida’s panhandle where Bob has a friend from his Peace Corps days named Donnie.  Donnie lives by himself in the middle of the marshy everglades in a house built on stilts.  He’s a Park Ranger in charge of making sure nobody destroys the natural habitat for the few remaining Black Panthers in existence.  By the time we leave Donnie’s I can tell Bob has formed a sort of uncle’ish bond with Fred, who seems in good spirits about her decision – although she does say more than once how she misses the dog.  Yea!  Rescue Mission Accomplished!

Or so we thought.  On the way out the long roadway to Donnie’s house, I’m driving and I see a Black Panther cross the road behind us in the rear view mirror – but the panther’s too fast for Fred and Bob to turn around and see for themselves.

Tomorrow:  This Story has Happy Endings!

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