Between bites of bad sausage, I’m writing my notes on the “grand processional” which introduced the new governor nominees and their partners to Rotary International. It’s a ceremony that is intended to give you a life long memory of a very special moment. NOTE: I’m sorry to say that in subsequent years this ceremony has been diluted and reduced.

The room is dark except for the stage at the far end of the Grand Ballroom. We wait for the signal from our escort to begin our walk down the long aisle. Suddenly the spot light nails us to the floor. We step forward on our walk to the stage. In the darkness around us, flashes flicker as people take pictures. Friendly laughter and cheers, and lots of “best wishes” and “good luck” come from all sides. We look at each other, smile and continue to walk slowly towards the stage. It is supposed to take us one minute to do this, and I’m pretty good at keeping the pace just right. On the screen behind the stage, pictures of us and a short biography is presented to the audience. I can hear the collective murmur of hundreds of people in friendly harmony with the processional music. God, please keep me from stepping on Lydia’s long gown.

Doesn’t she look resplendent in her silver gown and green silk blouse? She is wearing a heavy silk shawl from Indonesia draped from her shoulders. The red governor’s sash crosses over all of this, setting off her golden, Paul Harris medal on its chain. She’s ready for the crown jewels. I feel shabby in my tuxedo. I should have sprung for the expensive, silk tie.

Lydia climbs the stage steps carefully, assisted by a man so old that I think Lydia is actually holding him up. She extends her hand, graciously, and he totter after her. I climb the same steps; my shoes have grown be two feet long.

I clasp Zone Director Jerry’s hand and we exchange warm greetings; I clasp Diana’s hand—this is much more interesting—and then we hug each other and I’m sure I have a few tears in my eyes. She has tears in her eyes. Her tears are from bruised hands. She shook the hands of a thousand folks the day before.

And finally, Director Paul greets you with his hearty smile and good wishes. It’s a great send off from the stage. Lydia is just behind me. The spot lights turn down to the other end of the Great Hall highlighting the next couple and the ceremony begins again.

We’re out of the spot light, but not out of the limelight. We join our fellow governors and partners on another stage a few yards away, then watch as others take their grand promenade. Chuck and Marion pause, and Chuck dips Marion in a passionate embrace. The crowd cheers and claps. At his turn, Fred, who is a very tall chap in the contracting business, pulls his petite wife along so fast we were all afraid that she will trip. As it is, she comes flying after him, feet scarcely touching the floor. Well, Fred is a bit self-conscious.

After this, hundreds up people come up and take your pictures, flashes going off so fast that I am blinded. People you’ve barely met come up with tears in their eyes and give you a bear hug. These people have been there before you and they know how it feels. They remember that it was the best time in their life and they want you to know that you have their understanding and their support. It’s a very touching and exciting moment.

Actually, I don’t start writing about some of the things that happen the last evening in Anchorage until I’m back in the airport in Seattle. Part of the reason for this is that I didn’t have time the night of our grand occasion, and part of it is that I was too overcome with emotions that night. This “grand occasion” was our formal introduction as the new governor nominees, approved, inspected, stamped, and processed.

On our way out to the airport in Anchorage, I engage the cab driver in a conversation. The cab driver talks about her children in California ( I gathered that they lived somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego). She’s been driving a cab in Anchorage for eighteen years and thinks she might want to move back to California. She says she originally moved up here because, as a woman, she couldn’t find a job back in California.

We turn onto the departure ramp and she points out a glowing summit of ice and rock rising above the far away horizon. “That’s Mt. McKinley,” she says. “It’s over three hundred miles away.”

The young woman at the America West counter tells me, “When I was a baby, my Mother says that I crawled backwards for three years.”

The flight from Anchorage to Seattle was a lot less interesting than the conversations in the airport, I think.

There are two hundred tea cups and saucers laid out on decorated tables. I browse through dozens, followed about by a suspicious hostess, finally choosing a cup and saucer which make up an unmatched, but complimentary pair with designs that remind me of Japanese silk print work. I think Katherine will like the delicate flower and geometric motif. Certainly Lydia and I don’t need another cup and saucer. I spend some time chatting with Carol, who is still yawning after our late dinner the night before. Diana Barden comes up to remind me to send her a copy of “Atomic Flea”, a book of my poetry that I have promised to her.

I forget to drink from the decaf coffee pot, so by the time I write this in my journal my hands are shaking. I must remember to go to the House of Friendship room to pick up my Alaskan yo-yo.

That day, at lunch, I hear what I think is an exceptionally good invocation.

“I ask that you appeal to that which makes your life manifest, that this food and all creatures, wherever they may be, be blessed in life and purpose.”

The subject for the luncheon speech is the network of health monitors being set up throughout the world in the wake of the Polio Plus drive. I’m pleased to say that the drive to eradicate this most dreaded disease has succeeded in eliminating polio from most countries on this earth. We still have China, some of Russia, parts of India, and several central African nations to cover.

After such stirring news, I spend the rest of the afternoon recovering from the rich luncheon menu, then attend a reception for Chuck and Marion. There, I run into a man who worked on Bob Boggess’ infrared telescope project in Hawaii. At first he is too busy impressing one of his contractor friends to answer my questions, then he realizes I am a close friend of the man who ran the project and he shifts conversational gears. After that, we talk about the dynamical problem of rotating large domes in freezing, hurricane force winds as if the project were just yesterday instead of (what?) twenty years ago. You have to be careful, Steve. You never know who you’ll run into at these conferences. Now he treats me as if I’m CIA. Actually, until Lydia was nominated and I started meeting all of these people, I never realized how covert I could be.

Thursday, October 3, and where has the time gone? I have a luncheon with the Governor’s spouses. I sit at table five, between LaVonne and Elleen. There’s not going to be much room on the table for food because we have ten people sitting around a table designed for eight. Chris, taking the microphone at the podium, reminds everyone that the table favor without the rose belongs to the gentleman. As there’s only myself and Lloyd, each at separate tables, this makes sorting out the little ribbon wrapped boxes easy. I wondered what those things were for. Aren’t they going to give us men a course in tea parties and place settings?

I receive a small Eskimo boy sculpted in wood with a tiny fur parka. The piece is very well done. I promptly pin it on my shirt backwards because I didn’t bring my glasses and can’t see anything under an arms length in front of me. Elleen leans over and makes sure it’s done correctly. I’m going to like Elleen.

This is a working luncheon, and we have a facilitator named Susan who gives us an open book test on the Rotary Checklist. I miss three of them, but dispute the correctness of the answer to one of them. We get into such a spirited discussion over the role of women in Rotary that the facilitator is quite left behind. The question is, are partners or spouses of Rotarians going to be treated like second class Rotarians (my favorite expression is “good little Rotarians”) or will Rotary responsibilities be shared and rewarded equally. After all, in most households, it takes both the man and the women to carve a living out of the shrinking economic pie, as they say, these days. Conversation turns back to more controversial issues. What does “Facing the future with action and vision” really mean? Why am I making Sylvia nervous? Maybe it’s my soapbox speech on relevancy and Rotary. As I say about the difference between action and activity, Sylvia, “get a longer hose or get nearer the fire.”

That evening we dine in the company of our guests, Chuck and Carol. Everyone hopes Chuck will allow himself to be put forward as a candidate for district governor. This year, Carol is the nominee for the equivalent job in her Inner Wheel district. They’re both extremely capable, energetic, likable people.

I bump into Chris in the buffet line. We talk about the high price of breakfast (she paid twenty dollars apiece, but Lydia and I ordered a la carte and paid less than half that much). I guess that’d be because we haven’t often traveled on someone’s expense account, so we’ve gotten more used to adding up the different combinations before we order. She thinks next time she and Chick will bring Granola bars.

I turn over the page in my notes and find two pages that are titled “Strangers in the Night” and are printed carefully, not written in my crabbed long hand. I wonder if there is a connection to being in the nightclub, in the dark, with so many strangers (many of whom have since become our friends) and what I have written on these two pages about a star party in September. I will simply quote what I’ve written, in the hope that the relevance will become clearer to me.

“The green grass of the football field stretches away from where I am standing next to the white telescope to a full moon just clearing the horizon. In the other direction, the lush field ends in a short brown horizon. September is a dry month in California and only constant work with sprinklers has preserved this bit of vegetative animation among hills of gray and brown.”

“Deep twilight has fallen, and men, women, and children of the community all wind their way up the hillside from the parking lot below me and cross faded chalklines in the endzone. They drift across the field to our small cluster of telescopes set up on the fifty yard line. The cheerful murmur of neighbor to neighbor, the squeak of some excited child fills the still, cooling air with great promise.”

Some amateur astronomers bring their telescope out on these occasions as a kind of brag. Others bring their telescopes out to share experiences with people. When the young mother, probably a single parent, comes at the end of the evening with her two children, a boy about ten and a girl of five years, and says “Thank you, we didn’t think anyone cared enough to talk with us”, then I know that our world is not nearly caring enough.”

I’m about half way around the room, so when my turn comes, I add, after making a remark that I’m a surviving poet of my generation, “I’m glad you brought up the subject of nudity, Valerie, as I am an artist that most likes to paint women.” I was hoping for bigger laugh.

The busses have parked in front of the hotel and we are trying to fight our way against a stiff wind to get into a coach. It’s only four o’clock, but the days are short in October, and dusk is falling. Lydia and I sit about halfway down the vehicle, on the curb side, and watch the rest of the group trying to find coaches. We all shout words of encouragement and wave to the rest of the group struggling to find a bus. One man’s hair curls back over his head and sails downwind where a tall woman in a fur coat catches it by jumping up on an empty flower urn and extending her hand like she was making a jump shot in the NBA. We clap and scream with delight. What great entertainment. Who will be at the free throw line?

Our bus growls and grinds its way across Anchorage. The driver’s voice drones on as he points out various sites of special interest as well as quoting some informative statistics. “Babies are in flood season in September” and “the Public Library is the largest building in town” are two things that seem to make the most sense. These quotes aren’t in my notes, so forgive me, Anchorage, if I’ve got these wrong.

Finally, our bus turns by the whore house next to the military base, currently festooned with signs declaring it the election headquarters of a local Republican, and squeal to a halt in a parking lot at the side of a ramshackle building identified by a pink neon sign that spells out “Dick…”. There are some flickering words after that I can’t quite make out through frozen eyelashes. Later I learn that this is Dick’s Anchorage restaurant and entertainment center, but out on the highway, between Anchorage and somewhere else, is “Skinny Dick’s Half Way Inn”.

Far more interesting, next door, is a “restored” Woolworth’s. As I enter, I can smell gravy and mashed potatoes, as advertized on the lunch menu. There are some mashed green peas on the counter. In the basement I browse through shelves stuffed with archives of icons, especially GI Joe, which seems to occupy, complete with accessories of assorted daggers, rifles, grenades, bayonets, helmets, and backpacks, at least fifty feet of shelf space. Where is Barbie, Army Nurse? In the corner, hockey poles are mixed in with a display of women’s panties and bras. Is there some order to this? Men’s jockey shorts are on the same aisle as crochet thread, fuzzy dice for read view mirrors, and hand cleaner.

Back at the hotel, the lunch is uneventful, though Mike entertains us with his “to make a buck you have to get off your butt” speech. I find a dollar bill and a greeting card taped to the underside of my chair. We all wander about the room trying to find the person whose name is on the card. It’s a good way to meet people.

I have a meeting with about thirty women at two P.M. I’m only the second male spouse in the population of governor’s spouses in this Zone, so Lloyd presents his title of “Rooster” to me. The ladies think this is funny; I consider it quite brave.

Dick and Ann are caught in the same eddy by the window that I am sheltering within. Ann remarks, “Wow, you sure clean up well, Charles.” I take this to mean that she hasn’t seen me in a suit and tie, before. Through the window, I see Mt. McKinley glowing deep orange in a beautiful sunset (we all agree it is McKinley, but later I find that we were looking at some other peak). There is a shallow balcony which would give a clearer view, but I’m afraid I’d get pushed over the railing in this press of people. At last, we take a break from nonstop eating and drinking to move to the dining room for a much needed dinner.

The dining room is beautifully decorated with flowers for every table and swirls of post modernist Rotarians circulating among islands of white table clothes and anxious hotel persons carrying water pitchers and coffee carafes. Dinner has been delayed until eight o’clock to accommodate some fog-delayed flights out of San Francisco. I meet Valerie, a charming (actually, stunning) woman with red hair who sits down next to me. She pokes at the salad and pronounces it overripe. Lydia is off talking to people at another table. Valerie and I agree that the turkey (or is it chicken?) pasta is quite good. So are the speeches. They are short. Thank heavens.

I must say that the positioning of the head table gives new meaning to the admonition to speakers about not speaking in a setting where visual distractions are present. Who really listened to Dick or Cliff when you could look beyond them at reflections of distant mountains in the mirror smooth waters of the harbor below us. At our table, Lydia has taken up with two of her fellow governors and talks Rotary business. Valerie talks with me about her dream journal in which she keeps notes on all of the dreams that she remembers. We chat of symbols, schools of psychology, dreams, and the insurance business which she and her husband (another DGN) own. I am taken with the wit, charm, and beauty of this woman—perhaps just a bit intimidated. I am the only male spouse in the group of governor’s spouses at Anchorage. How will I be received? If Valerie is any indication, I will have nothing to worry about. I worry, anyway. What is this brown stuff we are having for dessert?

I wouldn’t say that Rotarians consume a lot of alcohol at these meeting. The fact that they consume everything in sight is moderated by a penurious view of the entertainment budget. On this occasion, however, someone has had the foresight (or enterprise) to park a distributor’s truck filled with liquor just outside the lobby door. Fresh supplies are arriving by the case even as we thread our way across a very crowded lobby floor. Money is changing hands faster than in a Moscow bank. Where is that other tower elevator?

We work our way steadily forward until we are at the front of the queue waiting for a ride up the North tower. The door opens and more Rotarians spill out. In the elevator I stand eye to eye with an exceedingly charming red head. I pray to keep my eyes from straying downward. May my breath be sweet. My eyes drop as if they are connected to lead weights, so I pretend to fumble for my handkerchief in my coat pocket. I’m reminded of fishing behind Hula Dam in Oklahoma. The best fish are caught immediately behind the dam when the spillways are opened. Fishermen are also caught behind the dam when the spillways open.

On the fifteenth floor we run into an International director we know. He and his wife are also looking for the same reception. In fact, there is a long stream of Rotarians pouring from the elevators who are all looking for this same reception. As it turns out, we are in the wrong tower. Our latest information now instructs us that the reception is in the same tower as our room. This is the happy state of information exchange within Rotary. I knew I should have followed that last case of wine into the other elevator bank.