On My Way Out Series -- Vol. 1, Part 6
A false spring...John Wayne's Goodbye...a virus for all seasons...the printed word: a guide to knowledge
John Wayne's final film, The Shootist, released in 1976 with bad guys Richard Boone, Hugh O'Brian, and Bill McKinney...and co-starring a young man named Ronnie Howard, along with superstars Lauren Bacall and James Stewart, ends with a streetcar ride, followed by a gun battle inside a saloon as J.B. Books (Wayne) goes out in a blaze of glory.
"It's a false spring," Books explains to the young lady sitting across from him on the streetcar -- actress Melody Thomas Scott, currently (I'm not making this stuff up) playing a starring role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless.
Books had discovered, moments earlier in the film, just what a false spring is, as Bond Rogers, played by Bacall, enlightens the aging gunfighter on the circumstances behind such a phrase.
During the last 18 months, the world has witnessed two false springs that have nothing to do with planting flowers -- a gardener soon fooled by the onslaught of freezing temperatures, which voids all the hard work he... or she had put in. I'm taking liberty with those two words and offering a slightly different meaning as I try to describe all the chaos our country has endured in 2020 and 2021.
We are closing in on a virus-laden, false spring, winter, summer, and fall. We are hoping for a sudden change so the flowers can bloom, for sad faces to turn into deep grins, from ear to ear, for the sky to turn bright blue across our land...and for the virus to disappear, take flight, and never come back.
And now on to another story...
I make my home in Tucson, Arizona. I have left the Old Pueblo more than once, only to return home. I've now been back in town for 21 years, and it looks like I will finish out my life here. I have met some, or know of some amazing Tucsonans—the famous ones, of course, are a given—Linda Ronstadt, for example. And, of course, Tucson is a college basketball town with its legendary coach, Lute Olson.
But the lesser-known Tucsonans, our friends, neighbors, teachers, school administrators, doctors and lawyers, and the men and women of our town who have put in years and years of service to our community, they, too, should be in the headlines...remarkable people who have done remarkable things.
On my narrow highway of life, I have met or known my share of remarkable people...people who have quietly gone about their lives, creating a home, raising a family...excelling in their work, and making our little place in the sun an even better place.
I will select a few. You knew I would, right?
Let's start with my high school. Of course, Linda Ronstadt walked the halls of my alma mater, Catalina High School, in the early 1960s before she ventured to Los Angeles to meet up with the Eagles. Now, my most famous person was my Journalism advisor, John G. Carlton, who taught me the written word, so to speak. His former journalism students still get together and party down, celebrating annually the life of a teacher who made a difference in so many lives.
For example, just focus on Aaron Latham and Jackie Sharkey.
Sharkey, a former feature editor on Catalina's Trumpeteer, the school's award-winning weekly newspaper, became the head of the University of Arizona's journalism department. Latham is quite the story as well.
Latham, who graduated a year ahead of me at Catalina in 1962, would go on to become an American journalist and co-wrote the script for the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy, starring John Travolta and Debra Winger. Latham is married to Leslie Stahl, an American television journalist who has spent most of her career with CBS News and 60 Minutes.
Closer to home and staying focused on the printed word, I'll mention two more Tucsonans who ran presses. A dear friend of mine, Jim Pagels (pictured above), also taught printing at Salpointe Catholic High School and Cholla High School. Jim spent many of his retirement days in Tubac at the Presidio State Historical Park, thrilling children and adults on how to operate an old-style Washington Hand Press, which was used to print Arizona's first newspaper. Jim would demonstrate (again, see above photo) to onlookers how to roll the ink and put the paper to the metal --just like the machine operators did back in 1859.
Pagels passed away in 2015.
The other pressman was from more recent times and was involved in the printing presses at the Arizona Daily Star. His name is Danny Crain. He was a 1964 graduate of Tucson Palo Verde High School and ran the presses at the Star for 32 years.
At the time, Wayne Bean, Tucson Newspapers vice president of operations, stated: "I'm told in round numbers, it's about 20 million bucks worth of equipment, so it's quite a responsibility. The thing about the presses, they've got to run all the time."
Crain rose through the ranks at the newspaper and earned the Outstanding Manager Award at Tucson Newspapers in 1992 and the company's President Award in 1993.
Crain passed away in the year 2000. He was 53.
The local heroes in our community and others will not make the headlines, and their names will not be found in bold print and scattered on the front pages of newspapers across this great land of ours—and maybe they should.
The old Washington Hand Press is probably still on display in Tubac. I'm not sure they could ever find a replacement for Jim Pagels. Danny Crain's presses are no longer in Tucson. In fact, the Arizona Daily Star is now printed in Phoenix.
The Star now arrives back in Tucson a day late with much of it: page after page of old news.
It's a sign of the times.
Photo: (below) Dan Price, author of the On My Way Out series
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