Miss January, 1972

Driving along, I stare at the sand. Out here, it’s everywhere. It is a desert after all.

On the radio, Lucha Reyes belts out “Guadalajara”. I stare at the sand some more. The landscapes out here are beautiful. I’d forgotten how much. I left the desert in 1998. Didn’t go back again until 2005. Now, I’m watching it go by again. I’m only stopping for gas and food. Gas and food. Not that I have somewhere to be. I just haven’t figured out if I want to go someplace at all.

The song ends. A commercial starts. I switch the channel. It’s on the AM dial. So it just keeps moving. Until it stops. On a discussion.

“Why the hell did Orson Welles have Charlton Heston play a Mexican in “Touch of Evil”?” the voice asked.

The other voice, a woman’s said simply “Well. Hollywood in the late 1950s would not have let Janet Leigh be married to a Mexican! So, they said “we’ll put Moses in Mexican face!”

Seemed to be about right to me. Well, historically, at least. And I didn’t want to listen anymore. Click.

The next station my radio found was playing something straight out of the “Three Little Bops” Looney Tunes cartoon. I leave it as it brings a smile to my face. A rarity of late. I start to play along with my fingers on the dashboard of my car, a la, John Candy in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”

The song ends. Another commercial. I stare at the sand some more.

I start to wonder what the hell I’m doing driving in the middle of Arizona staring at sand. I pull off to the side of the road. I want to walk in the sand. I take off my shoes. I get out of my car. I walk to the west. Immediately, there’s an obstacle -- barbed wire fence. I slowly work my way over it. I guess I’m trespassing now.

The sand isn’t like that on a Florida beach. First of all, there’s no Gulf of Mexico to look at. Just buttes and plains and a couple of cacti. I was always disappointed with the lack of cacti when I lived in Arizona. Except in certain places. But most of them in the high-cacti density kinds of places were shot by idiots and their guns or ruined by exhaust fumes.

And when you actually get out and walk around, barefoot, you realize there isn’t really sand in the desert here. It’s just dirt. Hot dirt. With lots of twigs. Lots of burrs. Lots of other things.

I find an old can. It’s rusted and brittle. I kick it. It mostly falls apart.

In an old river bed, well, old in the fact that it’s been there for a long time, I see an old car. A Mustang. Probably from 1974 or ‘75. Whichever year they started screwing with the design. What I would call the downfall of a great car. But I’m sure there are fans of those versions too.

I look inside. It’s still a beautiful car without any upholstery. The radio, shockingly, is still in the dash. I marvel at that for a moment. Think about how unlikely that is. About as unlikely as me walking around out here on a spring day without any shoes on. Not the brightest of ideas, but I’m not a light bulb.

The walkabout continues. I kind of wish my buddy John was here with me. He’d dig the strangeness of it all.

I come upon an old travel trailer. It has no tires. It has no door. I look inside. On the wall is a painting of a Playboy centerfold. Miss March 1972. A perfect reproduction of the magazine spread. Some one really had a thing for that gal. Even did the info part.

“Marilyn Cole. Miss January. 1972,” it read.

“36-24-35. 5-feet, 8-inches. 119 pounds. Born May 7, 1949. Portsmouth, England”

“Pretty thorough,” I think to myself. “But no turn-ons and turn-offs.”

She’s standing in front of books. Holding one even. I look a little closer. Why? Because I’m in the middle of the desert staring at a life-sized painting of a Playboy centerfold on the wall of a travel trailer, that’s why. The painting is very life-like. Her hair is brown, with beautiful 1970s waves. She also has blonde hairs on her belly. Something they’d airbrush away nowadays. Not then. Beauty shone through.

I take a mental picture. This is one to remember.

The sun is starting to go down. It’ll be dark soon. I turn around, got to go back to my car. Got to drive some more. Stare at the sand some more. Think about everything and nothing. Some more.