“Stayed here on our wedding night,” is the first entry in the scrapbook. Accompanying her text is a linen-paper postcard of the Hayes Hotel in Jackson, Michigan. My parents spent an entire month driving to California and back, a lengthy journey even today, and a grand expedition in the 1940s, before the wide availability of air conditioning and the franchising of America.
The Knoxville team was a AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, so of course it was called the “Knox Sox.” Its games drew scarcely any fans, and many of those who came seemed lost, like troubled souls stumbling into an empty church—or, like me, simply sitting in the silence, absorbed by the mysteries of the game.
The idea was simple: we’d host a live comedy talk show in a theater every week and interview people from around town. Just like Letterman if Letterman was broadcast from a tiny theater in Nashville—or, really, just like Letterman if Letterman wasn’t actually broadcast.
My mother was not the sort to invite strangers inside, so I’m not sure how he made it into our house. But there he was, sitting on our sofa and telling my mother that he knew she was a good woman and, as a good woman, she would surely want to have the word of God in our home. A traveling Bible salesman had arrived at our door.
Bikes and I had not formed a strong and lasting partnership in the past, so why, at the brittle-boned age of fifty-four, was I keen on yet another two-wheeled dream date? I have no idea. But, reader, I bought it. A blue cruiser and a snazzy helmet to match.
I tried to dig a hole with a shovel, but half an hour later I’d made no more than a two-inch dent in that hard-as-granite claypan. So I borrowed a pickaxe from a neighbor and hacked at the dirt for hours, mixing in bag after bag of soil amendment. At the end of the day, though I still wasn’t confident something could take root there, I planted the camellia. This was a new beginning for both of us.
