On a Clear Day

When Fred and I pulled into Dallas on the first Saturday of 1995, we stopped to refuel at a gas station in the city. Our first close encounter with a Texan was with a statuesque woman filling up her Bavarian-made sedan while dressed in pressed jeans, kick-ass cowboy boots and a full length fur-coat. I thought to myself, “I’ve got some shopping to do.” But by Monday we were plotting our return to California.

It would not be wrong to say that we didn’t take to the Big D. That January weekend came replete with freezing rain and bitter cold along with the chilly awareness of starting over in an unfamiliar place. Even the common things, like language, felt alien in the land of drawl, but hindsight is a funny thing. Now, when we look back upon those years spent in Texas, our memories are unexpectedly fond. Within just a few months there, we bought a wonderful old brick Tudor home in the city’s M-Streets neighborhood and soon thereafter we furnished it with our Yellow Lab, Greta and the elderly cat that had been living under the back porch, Butterscotch (Fred gets sole credit for that name). It was an ideal location, central to everything including downtown, the hip and funky Lower Greenville area, the fashionable Knox-Henderson shopping district as well as the Oak Lawn section, the hub of all things gay in Dallas.

What we failed to see then, but have recognized long since leaving was that we spent too much of our time focusing on the perceived negatives: the weather and that first hot summer with its forty consecutive days of 100-plus degree temperatures, the pain-in-the-ass that eight pecan trees in your backyard really is along with the persistent corrections from the natives that it’s peh-cahn and not pee-can. There were the ubiquitous conservative politics and all those Cowboys fans and the fact that we were living over a thousand miles in either direction from a legitimate ocean. Neither of us had ever imagined that we would live anywhere other than along the Pacific or Atlantic coasts.

When news of the looming transfer to Dallas first arrived over Thanksgiving weekend of 1994, we knew that with Fred’s sons in high school and with college on the near horizon, it wasn’t the right time for Fred to ditch an established career for the unknown. So, we packed up our left coast lives and departed with a fair amount of apprehension for the nation's geographic southern center and a landscape that we presumed would lean far to the right.

We soon learned that our fears were, for the most part, unfounded. Dallas quickly revealed itself to be an oasis of tolerance in the vast desert of the evangelical orthodoxy that defines most of Texas and the South. Besides, where else but Dallas could you find a gay country and western bar called the Round Up? Fred and I stood there half- bemused and half-freaked out upon seeing for the first time, a dance floor, nearly as big as a basketball court, crowded with same-sex couples, and a smattering of straight ones, dancing the two-step. We gave up after a few attempts at the necessary synchronization, but we kept our cowboy boots until recently.

In spite of the presence here of nationally recognized evangelical churches like Robert Schuyler’s Crystal Cathedral or Rick Warren’s modish Saddleback Church, the O.C’s variety of conservatism tends to be a bit more in the Goldwater vein as opposed to the biblical brand that’s predominant back in Texas. Dig deep enough and you’ll still uncover plenty of social conservatives in this area. For proof, log onto the letters to the editor page on the Orange County Register website on any given day and peruse the correspondences from the locals. I especially enjoy the ones that don’t think it’s a problem for a Vice Presidential nominee to demonstrate abject cluelessness while twice proclaiming incorrectly that the V.P. presides over the Senate. Just as enthralling are those who write to warn of the slippery slope towards men marrying trees or incestuous matrimony if same-sex marriage is allowed to continue in California.

On a brighter note, we had our first rain of the season yesterday morning and by early afternoon the small storm had passed and we were left with a gorgeous Southern California day. While driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, the clarity with which we could see Santa Catalina Island, 22 miles off-shore, was amazing. The ability to distinguish the precise shape of the island and the vibrancy of its vegetation is typically reserved here for the crystalline days of winter, so this was an early treat.

It also served as a reminder of what is truly wonderful about living here in Southern California. In two words: weather and scenery. It also made me acutely aware of how much I’m in danger of doing the same thing here that I did in Texas; not appreciating where I am until I’m somewhere else.

So, with those good thoughts in my head, I settled into my seat for the remainder of the ride home, letting my eyes take me further up north along the highway to the equally impressive views that are the Palos Verde peninsula and Saddleback Mountain once we turned eastward. In a matter of minutes we were in Newport Beach and as we approached our back bay neighborhood, I could see, planted in the median divider, a dozen strategically placed “Yes on 8” street signs. Nothing can kill a buzz like the realization that there’s a lot of people, likely a majority, in this area who seek to eliminate the newly granted right of same-sex couples to wed via the Mormon Church-sponsored ballot initiative known here as Proposition 8.

Fortunately, it’s slightly behind in the polls, but no matter what the outcome is, we’ll still be here and since winter and its cleansing rains aren’t far off, there’ll be more clear days to come.