The Tucson Festival of Linda Ronstadt

Starring Bernie and a billion books

Last Friday night, at the Student Union Ballroom, between the more serious speakers, I had the honor of offering some thoughts to the authors and guests attending the Tucson Festival of Books Author’s Table Banquet.

I welcomed everyone to our book festival by noting last year’s festival was so crowded “out there on the mall” it looked like a Haj for lovers of hardbacks. “And why wouldn’t book lovers show up in droves? It’s a beautiful 70-degrees here. Although, out in the sticks, thanks to some of our nutty school boards it’s closer to Fahrenheit 451.”

I poked fun at some of the authors in attendance like Craig Johnson, author of the Sheriff Walt Longmire Book series and Charlaine Harris, author of “Dead until dark”, which I inaccurately characterized as “documenting life in our lusty retirement communities.”

I pointed my pen at Harry Buzz Bissinger , who won the Pulitzer for “Friday Night Lights”. He was with us to promote his new book, “The Mosquito Bowl”, about a brutal football game played between two regiments of Marines at Guadalcanal during World War II.  Fifteen of the players in “The Mosquito Bowl” would die at Okinawa.

Which rivaled the body count at the book festival between attendees fighting to get in to see Linda Ronstadt and Bernie Sanders.

I teased mystery writer Cara Black and Grub Hub’s Mike Evans.

I roasted the brilliant Luís Alberto Urrea. “Luís is back! Again! With yet another book about another relative. It’s always a delight to see you, Luís.

Luís, you come around so often you may as well swing an endowed chair at the U of A and teach here. Eventually you’re going to run out of relatives to write bestselling novels about and you’re going to need a good day job in a sunny clime where Spanglish rules. You and Noam Chomsky could play Scrabble together. 20-years from now I expect University of Arizona President Luís Urrea will welcome author Jeff Kinney to Tucson to promote his book “Diary of a Wimpy Senior in Hospice”.

Luis Urrea

Over 2,000 volunteers give their time, energy and devotion to the fesitval. Why? Here are a number of reasons why:

First, there are the books. One bazillion books.

And you get to spend a Spring weekend in Tucson’s central park, the most beautiful campus on earth, The University of Arizona.

And you may get to meet me and experience unforgettable disappointment! Odds are good you’ll run into me here, pretending to skim literary masterpieces, speed balling kettle corn. I heard a guy walking away say to his wife, “Not what I expected. He looks like a Sun City silver alert crossed with a hobbit.”

And you might be as lucky as I was to meet your life partner like I met my Ellen at the book festival. Here’s the killer pickup line I used to snare my bibliophile: “You read? Huh! What do you know! Me, too!” After all these years I may be out-of-print but my dust jacket’s clean and my spine’s not cracked.”

I shared the little-known history of book festivals in our valley.

“The first book festival hosted by the Spaniards, La Fiesta de los Libros, was held at the base of Sentinel Peak in 1774, back when the ‘A’ was for ‘Apache’.

The book fest featured just one author, Presidio Comandante Neto Juan Luis Urrea Perez Raul Aguirre Romero Portillo, who moderated a panel discussion about his self-published journal “Por el amor de Dios, Sácame de este Infierno” which roughly translates to “For the Love of God Get me Out of this Hellhole”.

I closed by noting we were excited and honored to have Bernie Sanders coming here, to promote his book “It’s okay to be angry about capitalism”. 

And that we were equally delighted to have Hall of Fame singing legend, Linda Ronstadt, author of “Feels like home”, with us.

I couldn’t confess to Miss Ronstadt how her voice haunted my homesick heart for years after I left my beloved Tucson.

“All I'm saying's I'm not ready for any person, place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me, so goodbye.”

And to the east coast I headed, into marriages, jobs, and fatherhood.

I couldn’t tell her how hearing her perform in Virginia, churned my homesick heart like a dust devil. O Tucson how I longed for you. Her siren voice was everywhere, constantly calling me back to Tucson. When the Star finally hired me in 1986, my 7-years in exile came to an end. I fired up the U-Haul and raced home.

I will never forget the morning when the beautiful Santa Catalina mountains appeared on the horizon and Linda Ronstadt’s beautiful voice coincidentally, miraculously, came on the radio, to welcome me home.

“And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari

Tehachapi to Tonopah

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made

Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed”

I was home, I was home!

I told the audience none of these things. Instead, I noted the title of her cookbook memoir “Feels like home” sums up the feeling all of us feel when we return to the Tucson Festival of Books every year. It feels like home.

After the warm applause I sat down. Miss Ronstadt was seated near where we were seated. I asked Ellen, “Did I go on too long?”

“No, you were great. Just right. Everyone was laughing. Didn’t you hear the applause?”

I never do. I just barrel through my performance.

“Everyone at our table was laughing. Why don’t you go over to her and say hello?”

As dessert was being served I thought to myself, “Ellen’s right. This is your chance, fan boy. It’s now or never.” I was going to meet Linda Ronstadt, damn it. I had rehearsed what I was going to say to her over and over that day. I wound through the crowd over to her table. She looked up at me with her huge brown eyes and smiled the smile of a woman exhausted, but undimmed, by Parkinson’s.

I thought,” You’re an idiot, old man. You are the billionth human being interrupting her life, her time with her family, to tell her what every fan tells her every day of her life.”

My “speech” disintegrated. And then Linda Ronstadt, The Linda Ronstadt, Our Mother of Mariachi, the diva who always marched to the beat of a different drum, the Old Pueblo’s Princess of Pop, the most Supreme Sublime Adolescent Crush of all Crushes, said to me, “Nice to see you.“

I blinked. I froze. I smiled. I answered, “Nice to see you.”

And that was it. I walked back to my seat, defeated. Ellen asked me, “What did you say to her?”

“Nice to see you.” I sighed and raised my eyebrows, conceding to everyone at our table that, yes, I am an idiot. By the first glass of wine my self loathing faded. By the second glass my embarrassment was eclipsed by the memory of her smile. And my certainty that as sure as love is rose and the heart is a wheel, Miss Ronstadt’s kindness will remain stitched into this old man’s heart with silver thread and golden needles until the last sunset.