Sun Days on Orcas | Stars fell on Carrizozo

||| SUN DAYS ON ORCAS by EDEE KULPER |||

If you don’t know Frank Loudin, you need to. Frank is like our own local Norman Rockwell. If you do know Frank, you most likely know that his paintings range in subject matter from various aircraft zooming through the sky with swirling jet trails and locomotives chugging through white wintery nights, to picturesque barns in old deserted towns and idyllic little abodes nestled in magical country settings.

Frank is a highly trained architectural artist, but there’s also a good chance that greeting cards with his paintings on them passed through your hands over the decades. If you’re the adventurous type, perhaps you even perused his art gallery while passing through Catalina Island on a sailing trip.

Frank is also a natural storyteller, and he has transitioned from painting to writing. He has compiled and is publishing a book of his short stories written over the past 25 years called Yarns: Stories From the Way We Were, Based on a Few Actual Facts. It will soon be available (late spring to early summer), and you’ll find memories and tales about everything from his life growing up as a preacher’s kid in New Mexico to his travels and Orcas stories with his beloved wife, Jannie. To get a little taste of his book, here’s a fond love story of his from when he was a young buck in the early ’40s…

STARS FELL ON CARRIZOZO

Deep blue skies seem to be much closer to the earth over the high desert country of New Mexico. Particularly at night. Stars are bigger and certainly more plentiful. The infinite stretch of heavenly bodies is clustered like the glitter sprayed overhead of a Las Vegas honeymoon suite. Resting right there over the surrounding mountains. Maybe even closer. And the most wondrous thing is that those very same stars are still there hovering over the front steps of that little house at the corner of Court and Sixth as they were on that certain glorious evening in the summer of 1944.

The movie that night of nights was one of those MGM musical extravaganzas starring Betty Grable and George Montgomery with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and special appearances by Oscar Levant performing “Rhapsody in Blue,” for no apparent reason. And for an additional treat there was a dancing performance by the fabulous Nicholas Brothers with their slip-sliding splits style. And plus … Tom and Jerry, Captain Midnight, RKO-Pathe News, and selected shorts. Silver Screen, that well circulated movie encyclopedia of Hollywood mythdom, which we starstruck teenagers swallowed as gospel, expounded upon the slightest tidbit of any possible lustful misgivings in Tinsel Town. Everyone understood and accepted that the lower extremities of Betty Grable were unquestionably the ultimate in feminine beauty. Pulchritude! We didn’t know just what that encompassed but it was inviting, and the older, more sophisticated young studs of our clan elbowed each other vigorously at even the slightest hint of a female classmate’s bare knee.

It was a “first run” movie, though, and that was good enough, even if Carrizozo was at the end of the line for anything of a cultural nature. Neither Betty nor George could dance or sing very well, but they could and did kiss a lot, and Betty didn’t miss any opportunity to display her claim to fame.

The Lyric Theater was operated with an iron hand by Old Man Walker (old was anyone who didn’t have to go to school anymore), who had no tolerance for kids of any size or persuasion. The movie was the only release we kids had, now that the skating rink was shuttered again for unknown but highly rumored reasons.

It was the long summer of 1944 with the war raging furiously all over the world, supported patriotically by the folks clustered in this dusty little burg in the middle of New Mexico where the exhausted crews of the Southern Pacific main line west to California chowed down and changed shifts, while the big, orange-striped engines were serviced with coal and water.

I was a skinny 14-year-old with a spotted complexion and a newly discovered urge whenever Janet May Shaffer came near. In fact, I had the urge whether she was near or not. Just the thought of her gave me little tingle flashes that even a low-flying pass by a P-51 Mustang, which happened frequently, could not match. Her daddy owned the local Ford garage and Janet May had the use of his new green pick-up. I kept a sharp eye out for any sign of that particular vehicle and was struck with goosebumps whenever it passed by our house.

Every day after school, she would sit on the crossbar of my new red Hawthorne bike as I proudly took her to her house there at the corner of Court and Sixth Street.

She would tolerate the discomfort of her position, occasionally leaning back to touch my chest with some part of her body or make sure a stray lock of her light auburn tresses brushed across my cheek. Then we would stand on the front steps nervously making small talk.

Usually we would agree to meet at the movie that night. That was the only thing we had to do. The onslaught of highly romantic movies of the time just encouraged this malady as a plague in every high school in the then-48. Janet May and I were “steadies.” Well, as steady as sprouting youths can get. We secretly held hands in the secluded darkness of the rickety old movie house, encouraged by the screenland fantasies pelting us with romantic delusions. There was one troubling hitch. Even though I held her hand, held her close to the sultry rhythms of Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls” as we danced at the local women’s club recreation hall, skated “couples” at the dusty skating rink, our perspiration mingling, walked her home from every event, and stood on her front steps talking for extended times, I could not get up the nerve to actually kiss her.

We never spoke of it but a mutual friend, Betty Jewel, informed me and assured me that Janet May wanted me to kiss her. In fact, I had better come through pretty soon if our romance was to continue.

It seems Danny Sharp was eager to step into my shoes with Janet May at the first opportunity. I didn’t like Danny very much anyway, and the fact that he of all people was hanging around “my girl” made things worse.

Betty Jewel warned me almost daily that if I didn’t come through after the movie that night, it was “Hello, Danny Sharp.”

Night after movie night this went on. I was such a dweeb. I wanted to kiss her and she wanted me to, but I just didn’t know how.

This situation grew and grew more desperate for me until one day a miracle happened in the back seat of my folk’s ‘36 Chevy. My sister Mary was home from her freshman year at Highlands University and was just learning how to drive, so we had borrowed the family car for practice. This practice consisted of cruising the town’s two paved streets looking for “action.” The action proved to be picking up Art Doheny and Betty Jewel. Art had dropped out of school, or maybe he was expelled, to join the Navy but returned after a couple of months under mysterious circumstances to take up the highly desirable job of “skate master” down at the dilapidated old roller-drome. He retained the air of a sailor with a white T-shirt and a pack of Lucky Strikes folded up in the left sleeve, bell-bottom Navy work dungarees, and an attitude. He was the James Dean of Carrizozo. A stray lock of hair draped casually down over his forehead above squinty sullen eyes and a totally bored half-grin. The girls loved it.

I couldn’t believe that Mary would take up with him but then I couldn’t see what any boy saw in either of my sisters.

We picked up Betty Jewel on the way home from town lugging a huge sack of groceries because she was always lots of fun.

Betty climbed into the back seat with me and immediately started on my situation concerning Janet May and “The Kiss.”

“I really want to but I just don’t know how,” I whined.

“Don’t know how! You dumb-ass!”

And with that she grabbed me by the ears and planted her lips firmly on mine. And just held them there for what seemed like a long, long time.

“There Franko, did that seem so difficult?”

My whole head felt hot. I was out of breath. My hands belonged somewhere but I didn’t know where. Now I was in love with Betty Jewel. IN LOVE WITH BETTY JEWEL!

“Now you do it to me.” She punched me on the chest. “Do it. Do it, you dumb-nit.”

So I awkwardly kissed the corner of her mouth, quickly.

“No, no, no. Like you mean it, Franko! Pretend I’m Janet May. Come on!”

So I did and thought, “Is the curse lifted? Will I be able to come through tonight?”

I could still feel the touch of Betty Jewel’s lips that night as I headed toward the old Lyric Theater.

The movie that night, Coney Island with George Montgomery and Betty Grable, seemed to be extra short, but by the time Betty had stumbled through “Cuddle Up a Little Closer” and she and George had performed several kissing expositions, I was cranked up to the bursting point.

After the show, the walk down Court Street to Janet May’s house went too quickly and there we were again, standing on those front steps where we had spent so many magic moments. My fate was sealed. If I didn’t kiss her tonight … the grinning image of Danny Sharp hung over her shoulder.

I mumbled something stupid, took a deep breath, and kissed her full on the lips. A direct hit my first time. Wow! I had done it! I was now a cool guy, at last. It felt soft and moist. I pulled back a bit and our eyes met. I had never noticed that there were little golden specks in her deep brown eyes. Of course, I had never been this close to her before. There was an aroma of something sweet. It was warm like lilac, or my mother’s linen closet.

I did it again. Better this time. Longer and with more emphasis. I felt like George Montgomery must have felt kissing Betty Grable.

I could feel the surge of my total heart, arteries, veins, and capillaries pounding out “Screw you, Danny Sharp.” My brain, however, had deserted in my time of need. I hoarsely murmured, “See you at school tomorrow.”

I turned and, without a backward glance, jumped down off the front steps and ran for home. I was young and healthy and in good shape and on the junior varsity basketball team and so cranked up that I ran full-tilt the eight blocks home. It wasn’t until I was at our front steps that I stopped and noticed the stars of all colors and sizes. A grand spectacle. And they will be there again tonight. Will they remember? Do they even care? Here’s to you, wherever you may be, Janet May.