A Gathering Without Class

There were two Bentleys in the driveway and a classic convertible parked in the street. Aside from those glamor queens, the obligatory BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus, and other sundry desert chariots were all scattered about. I would have driven my Camry (I love that car) but the party was only a block away.  ‘High season’ had, once again, begun in Palm Springs.

Snowbirds, seasonal visitors, and other part-timers were returning to the desert and ICNO was there. ICNO, the Indian Canyon Neighborhood Organization, was hosting its annual get-acquainted party for the neighborhood. ICNO sponsors one party in the fall and another in the spring. The events are always hosted at someone’s house in the neighborhood. They’re great fodder for stealing decorating ideas, catching up on neighborhood gossip and renewing acquaintances with other seasonal players in town.

Last fall, the hosting house was a newly remodeled four-level custom designed home owned by two gentlemen from the coast. I always look forward to these parties because of the folks who attend. A lot of them are nearby neighbors and some are active on the ICNO board as I was a couple of years back. Then, there’s usually an eclectic assortment of newcomers rubbing shoulders with the old regulars who have been around since Frank Sinatra stalked the golf course with a martini and close friends under both arms.

The thing I appreciate most about these parties is the lack rarified air so typical of many West Coast gatherings. This isn’t a West Hollywood party where everyone is angling to hook up or a party in the canyons where movie deals are made around the swimming pool. It’s not like the gathering of those closed societies down valley in their cloistered gated communities. ICNO could be like that but never has been.

What sets these neighbors apart is an almost total lack of pretentiousness. These are accomplished folks who are comfortable in their own skin. Yet despite their financial success, they are charming, engaging, and fun to talk to. Most have fascinating backgrounds and abundant stories to share. It’s like meeting other seasoned world travelers who just want to share their travel ad-ventures. No one is there to impress. In fact, the ones who try to impress soon find themselves odd man (or woman) out. It’s a class of folks without a hint of class.

On a more personal level, it’s an interesting dichotomy for me to observe. I have several acquaintances and casual friends who now ‘have money’ but lack the panache to pull off what these folks can. These accidental associates seem to have forgotten where they came from. They were born middle class but feel they have out-grown their roots. They have this subtle need to either be showy or consciously put down those around them who are not as financially well-heeled.

One would think in those circumstances modesty would be the order of the day. One friend hasn’t really ‘arrived’ because she was never on the journey. With a jump start from daddy, it wasn’t affluence earned so (at least in my mind) it would seem best to be a little humble. As for the other friend who did make it on his own, I see no reason to put down those back home with less affluence. Both these folks seem to have forgotten the core values that are an intrinsic part of their common class roots.

Years ago, Sharon spent a great deal of time in her hometown of Wabasha, Minnesota. She was there to help sell her mother’s house, move her mom into assisted living, plus handle a laundry list of chores directly related to her mother’s care. This entailed dealing with the locals on a daily basis.

Wabasha is a small town. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. They either knew Sharon or knew of her; where she went to school, what she did afterwards and where she is now. There are few secrets in a small town. Sharon was constantly on display… but it hardly mattered. She treated everyone as she always has…with respect and common curtesy.

In many ways Palm Springs is a small town little different than Apple Valley. While it’s true Palm Springs has as many Yoga studios as Apple Valley has daycare centers, there are enough similarities to see that both worlds run on parallel tracks. On one level, there are different cultures, tastes and lifestyles between the two cities. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of similarities.

The movie star Alan Ladd once had a hardware store in Palm Springs and used to make home deliveries. Bob Hope used to stroll down Main Street to get his ice cream downtown. A precursor to the rat pack hung out at Chi-Chi’s nightclub and burned the midnight oil at Canyon Country Club.

Canyon Country Club, the precursor to Indian Canyon, had a storied history. Over the years numerous movie stars and noted celebrities made their homes there. Now it’s a curious mixture of gay couples, retired folks from the coast, Canadians and east coast transplants who don’t like the Florida scene. They’ve all come to enjoy our golf courses, spectacular mountain scenery and the whole Palm Springs atmosphere. Indian Canyon carries on that tradition of open hospitality and egos left at the door. There is comfort level here among neighbors equal to that back in Apple Valley.

The ICNO party was a great success. We renewed old acquaintances, made new friends, and planned for a very active season. Sharon and I are very fortunate. We’ve have been able to straddle these two worlds and live comfortably in both…without losing sight of where we came from.

Inland Ocean

I was first seduced back in the heady days of 1964 at the St. Clair Theater. Thousands of miles and a lifetime away from my boring, bland existence in the Midwest. It was where I first dis-covered California girls, sun-kissed beaches, rolling surf and a lifestyle I could only imagine in my immature, eighteen-year-old pea-brain. All there on the big screen for me to believe in.

Since there was no Pacific Ocean in my backyard, Lake Nokomis proved second best and has since always held a special place in my heart. Even before dropping out of college, entering military service and leaving civilian life behind, the lake was a magnet for my dreams, illusions and high hopes for the future.

Around the turn of the century, the lake and its development were a part of Theodore Wirth’s grand plan to capitalize on the string of lakes in Minneapolis. He was one of the driving forces that transformed Minneapolis into a city known for its parks, lakes and outdoor recreational opportunities.

Lake Nokomis was the largest body of water near my home. While it couldn’t chorus the siren call of passing ships and meandering waters that crept down the delta, it did feed my psychic nature with its calm waters and the strange natives who inhabited its shores.

It was often a destination point for my long-distance bike rides and learning to be fleet of foot outside of high school track. It became my contemplative mountaintop without the elevation. It was a stolen glimpse into the wild and carefree antics of other youth who didn’t have the burden of a steady job and perhaps had more clarity toward their future. Nokomis became an icon for what I thought the future might hold for me. It became my inland ocean.

But instead of salt air, there was the sweet scent of pine. Instead of seagulls floating overhead, Robins stalked worms in a blanket of green. Instead of ocean waves crashing against the shore line, there was the gentle lapping of water moved only by a passing canoe. It wasn’t the same but, in my mind, it was about as good as it was going to get…at the time. That was before Uncle Sam took me away for two plus years.

By March of 1966, I was back in my old habitat…or so I thought.

After escaping the regimented confines of olive drab, I quietly slipped back into the real world and, of course, had to return to my old Lake Nokomis haunts. It was like hearing an old song which brings back distant memories and a slice of your past life that’s so real and clear you can almost taste it all over again.

The lake hadn’t changed much over the years but I had. I was back in that old mire of a still confusing relationship and travel dreams that were shackled with a year and a half of college still to finish. Yet somehow, the lake brought focus and clarity where the fog of reality clouded my vision of the future.

Circling the lake and meandering its shoreline brought out my contemplative nature and opened my world to all kinds of possibilities; both real and imagined. Even before that warm summer of ’66 had begun, I would venture over to my own inland ocean to walk the shoreline and imagine those frozen waters lined with bathing beauties and bronze gods. There was something magical about that expanse of water and shore line and meditative mounds where a young man could imagine what the real world might be like after graduation.

Would it include a career in advertising (‘Mad Men’, here I come) or a return to my pre-hippie roots in San Francisco. Somehow, Lake Nokomis brought all those wonderful thoughts, dreams and wild aspirations to the surface even in the dying last gasps of winter.

Lake Nokomis became my oceanic home away from home. I could look across the shore line and see Rincon Beach, Half Moon Bay, Huntington Beach, Sunset, Malibu or Laguna Beach. It was all there for the imagination.

The old unofficial unmarked high school beach scene was still there. The girls look the same except they were younger now and showed a lot more skin. The boys circling the girls looked the same and still acted as if they were all by themselves playing Frisbee or soccer. But now when the boys took off their shirts there was more ink than a platoon of Marines.

It used to be young white kids fishing off the pier. Now it was more families of color hoping to hook an evening meal. I’m sure they were there back then but I never saw them. I noticed porta-potties in place of the bushes where we used to go. Couples still walked arm in arm like they were in some three-legged race and oblivious to the world around them.

The couples pushing baby strollers around the lake looked like hipsters. He in his press pants, white t-shirt and hat. She in her flowered skirt or sarong. Both are pushing baby precious in a $100 dollar stroller which was probably equipped with more accessories than my old Pinto.

In ’66, the main beach was mainly for families and oldsters who would lie on the sand and soak up the sun. Now the main beach has a plethora of activities, refreshment stands and places to get a snack. You can rent paddle boards, canoes, kayaks, fishing boats, fishing equipment, sailboats and paddle-bikes. I guess Park and Rec. has to make a buck too.

I hadn’t realized it at the time but Nokomis had become an icon for what I was seeking in my life. That summer of ’66 wasn’t quite like the movie “The Summer of ‘44” but it was nevertheless a pivotal point in my life. A summer of love and lust and confusion. Olive drab was replaced by Madras and blue jeans and the real world was slowly opening up to my young imagination. It came before that winter breakup and graduation and living in Europe. It came before my real world was augmented with loves found and lost, the sweet nectar of satisfying work, being a foreign correspondent on the West Bank and enjoying the ebbing foolishness of youth.

It came before I began work in public television and met the nighttime receptionist there. A stunning blond who had focus and understanding and empathy and patience. She’s been one heck of a friend, travel companion, lover for the last fifty-four years.

The lake is still a magnet for all kinds of people. They come to play and rest and dream and enjoy the visceral appeal of what might be. It served that purpose for me. It brought comfort and clarity and finally closure to that part of my life.

A body of water can do that sometimes.

Marrying Up

My friend was aghast when I suggested that some men marry up. He found it hard to believe that any man would be attracted to woman far more accomplished than himself. Whether it be in education, the social graces, or any other tool for maneuvering about the world we live in. The idea that any male would marry a female smarter, more socially adept, and defter at the daily chores of life was a strange new concept to him.

He then went on, in detail, to explained to me how he and his wife were quite equal and complimented each other in every way. Sounds like a new sit-com: ‘The Brady Bunch and ‘Father Knows Best’ get married.

To lower the temp a bit, I quickly backtracked. Not because I felt I was wrong but because I didn’t want to offend my friend. He had married well. So had I. I guess it was just my semantics that had thrown him off and raised his defenses. But my proof rested in fifty-four years of togetherness, two wonderful children and five equally wonderful grandchildren later.

To clear the air with him, I tried to clarify my position. There was, indeed, a balance between my wife and myself but it certainly wasn’t equal…in every way. Instead, it was a balance between two strong personalities (ISTJ verses ENFJ) and (I never told him) ‘not’ a case of plain vanilla symmetry.

For example, I’m inherently cheap (I like to color it ‘thrifty smart’). On the other hand, my wife isn’t reticent to spend money. She likes to meet new people and try new things. I don’t but I don’t mind going along with her wishes. She likes to be in charge (Alpha Female personality.) I usually don’t care about most sundry everyday decisions of our day-to-day living. My focus is elsewhere. I’m not afraid of strong women. In fact, I admire them. She is a very strong woman!

Fortunately, when it comes to our core values, we are both in total sync. Whether it is the value of education, personal development, financial goals and objectives or the vapid nature of material goods, we speak the same language.

The internet is replete with articles about how to marry the right person. There are guidelines, benchmarks, tests, and self-evaluations to see if marrying someone older than yourself will work out, if mixed religions can flourish together, if cultural and ethnic backgrounds make a difference.

Some guidelines make a lot of sense: Don’t marry potential. Choose character over chemistry. Don’t neglect the emotional needs of your potential partner. Avoid opposing life plans. Avoid a lack of emotional connection. Pay attention to your own emotional anxiety. Beware of avoiding personal responsibility. Finally, watch out for a lack of emotional health and availability in your potential partner.

And yet once you’re done with all the graphs and charts and guidelines and rules, there can still be this inexplicable, unmistakable, hard-to-define connection. And even after many years and countless miles traveled together, the connection can still be there. It happened to my mother, widowed for thirty years, and meeting a like-minded soulmate late in life.

How many people marry up and don’t even realize it? It certainly wasn’t intentional on my part. It just so happened that Sharon had many of the qualities that I was lacking… who knew? An ISTJ marries an exact opposite. Talk about disparate ends of the personality spectrum. Yet after fifty-four years of marriage, we still find similarities as well as differences that define our relationship. Besides, I’m not sure I’d want to be married to someone like me…nay, probably not.

Both my son and daughter found spouses who share their interest in the important things in life but also balanced them out. Their spouses compliment my kid’s their idiosyncrasies and shortcomings. Yes, I can say that, I’m their father.

Finding the right spouse can sometimes be a crap shoot or just the right combination of luck and timing. My high school girlfriend married a doctor right out of college. That seemed to fit her personality. My college girlfriend married a fellow who became a professor at one of the service academies. That also seemed like a good match for her personality and needs.

Then, through a curious combination of timing, placement, and karma, I began dating my future wife. Our backgrounds were quite different. I was a city boy dating a farm girl. I like Bob Dylan and the Beatles. She was more into smooth jazz and Frank Sinatra. I like smart sophisticated women. But this was a woman whose level of sophistication was far superior to my own. In fact, an Alpha Female who was as comfortable in the classroom as she was in the boardroom.  On the surface, someone totally out of my league. Beneath the surface; just the same. So why has it worked out so well for so long?

Fortunately, I’ve never let my ego get in the way of a strong female companion. It must be tough being married to men with large egos. Who would want to be known as the ‘little woman back home’? Even Don Draper’s wife Betty grew tired of that moniker and finally threw him out.

So, marrying up, although unplanned, has worked out pretty well for me. Although a curious mixture, it’s a chemistry that works for us even if it still requires patience, tolerance and understanding.

I’m still working on those attributes. And probably will be for the rest of our lives.