The Long Maturing Road

As I was walking – no, crawling – on my long maturing road, I moved from a junior college to a university and switched majors from Communications to English Literature.  Why?  I was afraid to drive the freeways.  Embarrassing to admit back in the day, but it was true.  Anxiety regarding driving the freeways actually changed my entire college path.  I had transferred to a state college with a forty-minute drive on the freeway, but on the first day of school, I had a panic attack, and realized I couldn’t force myself to meet the challenge; when it came to fight or flight, I was a flight risk.  So, with a lot more shame than embarrassment, I ended up transferring to a university with a mere fifteen-minute drive from home to classroom… on streets.  At the time, it was just another seemingly paralyzing, shameful reason as to why I was stuck in a place of arrested development; and another reason why I felt so insecure and would find myself escaping into Tom Jonesville, a place I went to whenever I needed a boost or a release for my many emotions.

Tom Jones - Do we like the striped short-sleeved sweater?

Most people thought my fear had to do with actually driving on the freeway, or a fear of getting lost, which I have to admit, not wanting to go outside a 5-mile radius beyond my home tended to confirm that theory.  However, the biggest reason I didn’t drive the freeways had more to do with the fact that I got severe migraines, which were often triggered when driving.  I would be cruising along and suddenly, the glint of sunlight off of a chrome bumper would temporarily alter my vision and I would see spots and lose part of my vision.  Once the spots showed up I would inevitably have a “light show” in my eyes, followed by temporary, partial vision, and a severe, debilitating migraine headache.  I would end up in bed and stay in a dark room for one or two days.  The pain of these sick migraines was severe and debilitating and lasted for years. 

Because we didn’t go to doctors, I didn’t know what that visual problem meant, and so, in my ignorance, I was afraid that I was losing my vision.  My mother and I would pray, and pray, and pray over this lurking fear of blindness.  I had so many lingering fears regarding my sight and the horrible pain and sickness of a migraine that it interfered with my ability to live my life freely for years.  In my limited world, fear of losing my vision while driving also translated to fear of driving any distance by myself on freeways.  What would happen if I had to pull over and wait for an hour on the side of the freeway to get my vision back?  What would happen if I became sick on the side of the freeway?  Good things don’t happen to girls alone on the side of a freeway.  I would focus on every news show that featured a horrible story about a woman on a freeway.  As usual, my inability to contain my fears always led to catastrophizing.

Tom Jones, 1972 - The striped sleeveless sweater?

At this point, my father, who did see doctors, took me to his ophthalmologist.  The surgeon was shocked to find out that I feared losing my vision, and was quickly able to identify the lights and loss of vision as a migraine “aura,” which can precede a migraine for up to 60 minutes and can include blind spots, fine lines that float across your field of vision, spots that move or shimmer, and flashes of light.  I cannot describe the relief that came with the news that I wasn’t facing blindness.  It was as if I had been living in the Dark Ages, and a man from the future came back to share his knowledge.  (Side note: These migraines can still occasionally knock me off my feet, though in the late 80s I began to use medication to help with the pain and limitations they imposed on my life, and it made a huge improvement in the quality of my life.) 

Speaking of my father, I have to honor how he always moved heaven and earth for me to see Tom Jones.  In fact, I honor all of the men – the fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, uncles, and male friends – that were patient and accepting of all of us women who danced around Tom Jones for years and still do, and made them change their plans, spend money when maybe we shouldn’t have, attend concerts, let us control the TV clicker on certain nights, listen to albums or CDs over and over again, drive us long distances, etc.  For me and Mommio, any trips to our mountain cabin were planned around TV Guide and had to occur either before or after any TJ television shows or specials; Dad just accepted it as “girl rule” and part of his lot in life, as these were the old days, before Beta, video, or DVR.  (Today, can you imagine such a life?) 

Due to my fear of driving the freeways, Daddio would always drive me up to whatever L.A. box office was selling TJ tickets, because I could get better tickets than places like Ticketron offered.  He also gave me the tip to show my photos with Tom to “improve the odds of getting better tickets.”  He was a keen writer, due to the fact that he went to law school, (though getting his law degree was interrupted by the war), and when I was really young and trying to promote “Tom’s Booster’s” fan club, he taught me everything about being specific and checking for details, and how to edit, edit, edit.  He was a great salesman and businessman, and Daddio was probably the one who told me to have a “cheat-sheet” in front of me when I made calls to Tom’s management in order to prompt me what to say.  It actually helped assuage my nerves, and is a life lesson I’ve used for years.  Daddio always had more confidence in me than I had in myself, saying repeatedly, “You can do anything you put your mind to.”  I never believed him, until I met Tom Jones.    

Near the end of his life, my father took me out to a little restaurant on Balboa Island in Newport Beach.  After lunch we would always walk around the Island, admire the beautiful and charming homes, and check out the sailboats and “stinkpots” in the bay.  He was struggling with his short-term memory this summer, more so than ever before.  He forgot three times that we had already ordered our lunch, but was able to describe, in detail, the way his childhood bedroom looked, the first car he got when he was 14-years-old, and what he ate on board ship in the navy during World War II. 

Neither of us knew this would be our last lunch alone together, or that in a mere three months he would be gone.  Out of the blue, he asked, “Judi, was I a good father?  Was there something I could have done better?”  For me, just asking that question was the very answer.  There were so many ways he was a good father that I could write a blog about this tall, handsome man who wore a bow tie, seemed to know the answer to everything, was generous beyond words, and always left me with a kiss on the cheek, saying “I love you, my sweet,” or “Keep your powder dry.” (This is a “Be prepared!” reference that comes from the old days when you had to carry a satchel of dry gun powder to place into your gun when it was necessary to shoot, and meaning you have to be careful with your resources and use them when you need them.)

Tom Jones, 1973 - Or the plaid three-quarter-sleeve sweater?

I have to admit that among the many things I told him I was grateful for was his willingness to pave the way on my long trip to Tom Jonesville.  Like my mother, he knew it was important, but unlike my mother, I don’t think he understood why.  But that was the beauty of my father; even if he didn’t get the why, he simply understood it was.  While we ate lunch, I reminded him about the time he drove me up to my sister’s place to see Tom in L.A., and a few days later, after I seeing him on and offstage, Dad was supposed to pick me up and take me home.  Suddenly something came up in his business and he couldn’t pick me up; mother was ill and couldn’t pick me up; and my neither of sisters could get me home.  I was afraid of going on a public bus system with so many strangers, or in a taxi with only one stranger (on the verge of an anxiety-ridden agoraphobia attack). 

For some reason that neither one of us could remember, I had to get home.  What did he do?  Daddio sent me home from LA to Orange Country in a six-seat passenger airplane.  There was twenty-something me, scared-to-death to be with five very serious businessmen heading home from a long day’s work in L.A.  I was able to manage my anxiety because I was actually flying on a TJ high.  Daddio and I both laughed out loud remembering all of his enabling of my Tom Jones shenanigans.  I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, because by then I was managing my life-limiting migraines, fears of driving the freeways, and oh-so many other things that in my teens and twenties I didn’t dream possible during my Tom Jones days.  We both laughed it off, but I will be forever grateful that he supported me 100% in the long maturing road that included… the singer who saved me.

Six Degrees of Separation

Home from Vegas, I vacillated between feeling “safe” and kind of “crazy.”  It had been a trip of highs and lows.  The lows involved Mother feeling ill, and me being afraid to venture out beyond the pool and showroom due to anxiety-ridden character flaws (that’s what it felt like at the time, but it was actually a distorted belief).  The highs being feeling like a caterpillar hidden in a cocoon, yet somehow able to briefly transform into a butterfly in order to be near to, listen to, and interact with Tom Jones, my transitional object (unbeknownst to me at the time). 

I lived for the adrenaline of those moments, yet my life was mostly made up of “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to school we go” moments.  Yep, Snow White (AKA: Long Tall Sally) was schlepping books and charting a course for the future.  I really didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I just knew I needed to work on my motivating mantras.  I needed to be better.  I needed to grow (not physically, since six-foot-two was more than ample, thank you very much).  So my motivating mantra became, “If I work at being around people and learn how to better handle myself socially, then I’ll be able to get Tom Jones fall in love with me.”  In the meantime, it was not unusual, (pardon the unoriginal play on words), to listen to Jones’ albums in order to regulate, moderate, or accentuate my mood and emotions.   

Bright lights backstage – Westbury Music Fair, NY

In iconoculture, the culture of celebrity, there is a belief that everyone is just six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.  But, Mommio and I found ourselves a loose six degrees of separation from Tom Jones one Sunday morning in the 1970s.  Let me explain these very wide degrees of separation: 

First degree:  We resided in Orange County, California.  Actor John Wayne left the more liberal lifestyle of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles County, for the more conservative Orange County in the 60s and 70s.  John Wayne was so revered that they named Orange County Airport, the airport we flew in and out of in order to see Tom Jones perform, John Wayne Airport.   

Second degree:  Wayne was probably the most famous and revered celebrity who lived in Newport Beach.  He had a beautiful home in Bayshore, a private community along Newport Bay, in Newport Beach, California.  We also lived in Newport.   

Third degree:  Wayne’s beautiful wife during the 60s & 70s attended our church. We rarely saw Mr. Wayne.  I think we saw him once at church, and once at our local Savon, and you could not miss him due to his size.  He was one of the few men who was actually taller than I – a rarity – and he appeared to be as tall as they claim his 6-foot-four-inch frame was.  He was a big, brawny man, and you could not miss his voice; it was deep and uniquely, unmistakably John Wayne.   

Forth degree:  My mother’s uncle married a lovely lady who lived next door to John Wayne.  She, too, attended our same church, and they became “couples” friends.  They shared meals and evening card games in their beautiful homes until the Waynes’ separated.  We heard many times that the Waynes were gracious and fun hosts.   

Fifth degree:  Our family knew the John Wayne house only from the outside bay view, as my father was a lifelong sailor, and we regularly sailed by their notable home.  It was a large, white ranch-style, one-story home with impeccable landscaping and a stunning view of the Newport Bay basin.  Most exciting to see, and keep tabs on over the years, was Wayne’s 136-foot yacht, “The Wild Goose,” moored within Wayne’s sight in the bay.  It was the biggest “stink-pot,” (that’s sailor slang for a boat powered by an engine and not a sail), in the bay.  With its huge, painted white hull and varnished teak trim, it was known by the locals as the floating Taj Majal.  It was well known that Wayne would use it for family outings and that celebrities and other dignitaries also enjoyed its capable size, crew, and accommodations. 

Do you think TJ cruised off of Catalina Island…

Sixth degree:  After church we would often go to Richard’s Market, a local, individually owned, top-of-the-line supermarket at the base of Lido Island in Newport Beach, for our customary Sunday grocery shop.  The owner of the grocery store, who knew almost all of his customers by name, also just happened to go to our church, and was always friendly and chatty.  One Sunday, as we were purchasing our groceries, Mr. Richards pointed over to the next check-out stand and, said to me and Mom, “That’s the crew of ‘The Wild Goose.’  They’re taking someone you know somewhere.”  We were a little confused.  “They’re taking a special someone out.”  Still not getting it, we just looked blankly at him.  He then asked one of the men purchasing items, “Can you tell them who you’re taking out?”  The man looked a tad chagrined, but said, “Sure.  We’re goin’ out on a cruise with Tom Jones and guests.  We’re preppin’ the galley and stockin’ up on supplies.”  My heart skipped a beat or two.  Mother and I looked at each other as if we were in on a secret.  So many questions we wanted to ask, but we were, for lack of better words, good girls.  We didn’t grill the Goose Crew.  We didn’t need Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and it would be decades until Richard Castle and detective Nikki Heat were created.  Besides, we were smart enough to know the most important part of the who: Tom Jones!  We did not have to sleuth out the what because we were told it was a cruise.  We didn’t know where, although we could surmise it would be either to anchor off of Catalina Island for a short cruise, or the coast of Mexico for a longer cruise.  We could guess when, because the supplies included fresh groceries, so it had to be soon.  It didn’t take a detective to determine the Why was for R & R, (rest and relaxation), because why else would anyone go on a cruise?  And we were told the How, as they would be cruising on “The Wild Goose.”   

As much as we wanted to pry and ask a million questions of the Goose Crew, we wished them bon voyage, and watched them as they went on their merry way.  Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum… or in Tom Jones case, a bottle of  Dom Perignon.  And that, my friends, is irrefutably stretching the six degrees of separation between me and Mom and Tom… the singer who saved me.

…or do you think the Superstar cruised to the coast of Mexico?

Gypsy Singer

What struck me upon meeting Tom Jones for the first time in 1972 was that he was easygoing, casual, and, well, affable.  Not the expected, “I am lion hear me roar,” sex machine that had been described over the years.  When he sings, he sings without an accent, but when he speaks off-stage, he speaks with a Welsh accent.  He was just so darn real, life-size, and human off-stage.  On-stage, when Jones takes the stage, the star and The Voice become larger than life.  The largest venue I’ve seen him perform is the Los Angeles Forum, and I discovered that even in the large arenas, Jones was always bigger than his biggest venue.

“This is Tom Jones” Fan Club

What would it be like, to be a singer who is able to take command of a stage and an audience?  What is that feeling that singers feel?  Is it love?  Joy?  Adulation?  Acceptance?  Oneness with the audience?  Power? Is that what Tom Jones longed for when he was a young prepubescent boy stricken with TB and stuck at home alone?  Is it what he yearned for when he got his first real taste of popularity singing in the local Welsh pubs?  Is that what he felt when he claimed his fame and fortune?  Is it enough to fill you when you are on the road 24 Hours?

24 Hours is a critically acclaimed CD that preceded Jones’ recent Praise and Blame, with many songs co-written by Jones.  Some of the songs in 24 Hours are autobiographical and reflect the challenges a family deals with when a singer travels the road for a living 24/7.  There was much buzz about the ode to his long-time wife in “The Road,” by Tom Jones, Iyiola Babatunde Bablolla, Armando Manzanero, Lisa Rachelle Green, and Darren Emilio Lewis.  You have to know Jones and his story to get the connection to “Seen That Face” by Tom Jones, Iyiola Babtunde Babalola, Nicole Louise Morier, and Darren Emilio Lewis, which describes the recognition of pain on a child’s face when you leave him.

Whatever that feeling is that singers get, they get hooked on it like crack, and follow it through the gypsy lifestyle with its infamous sex, drugs, and rock and roller-coaster, which takes its toll on anyone who enters the golden gates of fame and fortune.  The life of a gypsy singer is fraught with struggles. It is the struggle of breaking into the industry.  Then there is the struggle to stay at the top. There is also the struggle to ride the ebb and flow of a career in the music industry, which eats you up and spits you up as fast as it can; or as fast as the gifted one can self-destruct.  And family members are along for the ride.

Jones with son, Mark. “This is Tom Jones” Fan Club

The most insidious loss for anyone involved with a gypsy singer is the difficulty of maintaining intimate family relationships, because it always starts out with the intention of being a positive thing for the family.  Tom Jones’ story is no different.  He had a wife and a child by the time he was 17-years-old and he knew he had talent.  The goal was to support the family.  “I started singing in clubs about the time he [son, Mark Woodward, who kept Jones’ surname; Jones is Tom’s mother’s maiden name] was born, so I wasn’t around him much.  I went to London in 1964, and my wife would come to see me, but I didn’t see my son unless I went back to Pontypridd.  I wanted to, but I was very preoccupied.  From 1965 I started going to America a lot – the records were as big there as here [England].  I didn’t have time to be in Wales, but I thought as long as I was sending money home it was okay.” (“Relative Values: Tom Jones and Mark Woodward, by Bridget Freer, The Sunday Times, UK,12/8/02).

What about the wife and child?  Where do they fit in?  How do they live a family life at home without that gypsy singer?  Once the struggle is over, is it all glamour and riches?  Is it lonely?  How do you live your life without the love of your life around?  Who do you have intimate relationships with (and I don’t mean sexual intimacy, I mean close, sharing, relationships).  And who does the gypsy singer become intimate with?  The gypsy singer becomes close to the gypsy roadie family.  And, like it or not, they do go “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”

(“Lookin’ for Love,” written by Wanda Mallette, Patti Ryan, and Bob Morrison.)

“This is Tom Jones” Fan Club

How do you participate in the family’s emotional needs while sustaining them financially as a gypsy singer?  This is how the young Jones family did it, according to Bridget Freer’s 2002 interview with Tom and Mark:

TOM:  “Mark’s had a life most kids haven’t had with their fathers.  We became closer as men than we did when I was a teenager and he was a little boy, and that was through working together.  We got older together…

“When the money started rolling in from “It’s Not Unusual,” I bought a house in Shepperton and said: ‘Now we can have Mark with us.’  That was 1966.  I enjoyed going to pick him up from school…  The mothers would be:  ‘Oooooh, there’s Tom Jones!…

“He was a shy child.  He spent a lot of time in his room listening to music.  Later, there’d be six-month tours; it affected him more than I realized.  He came out for school holidays wherever I was, and always seemed fine.  But one night, when he was 15, we went to a restaurant and he was very quiet.  Linda said: ‘He’s missing you a lot now.’  We talked it over and she said: ‘Do you think he could travel with you?  I said:  ‘Yeah, as long as it’s okay with his school’…”

MARK:  “Me and my mother were alone a lot.  She felt the strain, but she couldn’t go with him because I was in school.  I missed him.  It came to a head when I was an adolescent.  I got depressed, and my parents didn’t know what to do.  It was only the three of us – three young people.  It was a big decision, but I left school and went on tour with him.

All my working life has been in my father’s business.  I never wanted to do anything else.  I was a roadie first, and whenever somebody got fired I learnt their job.  Tom let me have a lot of input.  I would never call him Tom to his face – that would feel weird.  I call him Tom to a third person.  I couldn’t say: ‘Would you book my daddy?’

He never gave me the father-son talk.  I had to learn from experience.  I was with grown-ups 24 hours a day…  He wasn’t a 55-year-old guy in a suit coming home from his nine-to-five, laying down the law: he was in his thirties, with a very unusual lifestyle.  My mother too – we all had an unusual lifestyle.  That made them more sympathetic to me…

Soon after Gordon Mills, Tom’s manager, died, Tom said: ‘Are you willing to take the reins?’  I hesitated, because it’s all well very well having an opinion, but as manager, if a business decision went sideways it would fall on my shoulders.  But it made sense:  I was a 29-year-old, road-hardened kind of fellow, and as soon as I had my own family, I decided I couldn’t carry on travelling…  I felt more qualified than ever to be his manager.”

The Jones family dealt with their family issues as best they could, and in the end, it kind of worked out for them.  In the 70s, however, most people raised eyebrows and reporters cast aspersions over the fact that Tom Jones allowed his underage son to travel with him.  I remember thinking, in my teens mind you, that their family decision was brilliant.  I was totally enmeshed with my own mother, and so I believed I understood a child’s need, a son’s need, to be with his father, even though the gypsy lifestyle is unhealthy.  It was also my teenage thoughts that made me believe that somehow I could possibly make Tom Jones fall in love with me and fit in with that crazy gypsy lifestyle.  I discovered, years later, that the brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25 – Duh…  (Oops, pardon the weak Charlie Sheen reference.)

“This is Tom Jones” Fan Club

At one point, my mom sort of half-joked, “You should flirt with Tom’s son!”  Mother was right.  I should have been interested in Tom’s son, who was only four years younger.  We surely had more in common.  We were closer in age.  Mark was shy; I was shy.  Mark felt uncomfortable at school; I felt uncomfortable at school.  Mark spent a lot of time in his room listening to music; I spent a lot of time in my room listening to music.  Mark had a family of three; since my sisters left home I had a family of three.  Mark was depressed; I was anxious.  Helloooooo… conversation starters!  His whole life was wrapped up in press and public relations and I was studying PR.

Mark eventually married and gave Jones a daughter-in-law PR person/manager and both Mr. and Mrs. Jones a grandson and granddaughter.  Jones was only 41 when he became a grandfather.  Whenever I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Woodward, I have to admit, I choked.  I was better with older people, and he was probably better with older people; neither one of us realized that we were the youngest kids around who might have had something in common when we were within arm and ear’s reach.  Besides, Tom Jones was providing a deep psychological purpose for me – I just didn’t know it at the time.  All I knew was that in order to make this gypsy singer fall in love with all six-foot-two-and-scared-of-her-shadow-me, I had to figure out a way to get over my fears… for the singer who saved me.

The Motivating Mantra of My Younger Years

While most 18-year-olds and the law consider an 18-year-old an adult, I still felt like a child.  Like a little girl in a big girl’s body who had to hide.  Someone who couldn’t cope with normal things, like driving on the freeway, going new places, meeting new people, or getting out of my comfort zone – and my comfort zone was really, really small.

From the Lens of T.H.

And so, with much encouragement from my parents, I enrolled in college.  I no longer had the incentive to see Tom Jones perform in Las Vegas, so this is the slightly twisted mental game I played with myself in order to give myself the courage to move forward in my life:

“If I am going to get Tom Jones to fall in love with me… I have to get out of the house.”

“If I am going to get Tom Jones to fall in love with me… I have to drive to college.”

“If I am going to get Tom Jones to fall in love with me… I have to walk into that classroom.”

From the Lens of T.H.

Why did I need to use the idea of Tom Jones falling in love with me in order to do the things I feared?  Obviously there was a lack of ego strength; a lack of confidence and self-love; a teenage self-loathing based on anxiety, teasing, bullying, rejection, not relating to “normal” kids at whatever age, being different from others, etc. The sheepish teenage girly-girl in me liked his exhibitionism and told me I needed my motivating mantra because he was handsome and must be as wonderful as my youthful hopes and dreams (projections, really).

My subconscious was sending some kind of message I didn’t know or understand at the time, and had something to do with me knowing that Tom Jones would never fall in love with the person I was.  So somehow I had to become the kind of person Tom Jones might fall in love with.  I couldn’t become the kind of person I needed to be just for myself, so I had to become the kind of person someone really special, someone who had a gift, might fall in love with.  If someone who has value loved me… it would mean I had value… right?

From the Lens of T.H.

If you look at ego development from Erik Erikson’s (esteemed developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst) point of view, adolescent occurs between 12 to 18, and is a time in which you find your identity through what you do, who you socialize with, how you define your beliefs, how you begin to grow away from your family, begin to move into your own social circle, and become part of society.  Somewhere during the normal course of childhood development, I grew physically tall, but was emotionally stunted; my family defined my beliefs and I had accomplished none of the steps of maturity listed above.

While I did a lot of praying, I didn’t know any other ways to help myself, so I “attached” to this singer who was able to express so beautifully and powerfully, in song, every emotion a human being could feel.  I depended upon his voice to always be there for me; I depended on his songs to identify or express how I felt; and once I saw Tom Jones sing live in Las Vegas I depended upon him to make me feel like a woman.  I also depended upon Tom Jones to never reject me.

From the Lens of T.H.

In Tom Jonesville I was safe.  Entry into the real world as a college student, however, was challenging because I had become so withdrawn it was difficult to be around strangers (basically, anyone I didn’t know, which meant everyone).  I lived in fear that someone, especially a professor, would speak to me and I would have to respond.

Thus began my secret life with my motivating mantra, “If Tom Jones is going to fall in love with me, I have to…”  And though it may sound odd, this is what helped me negotiate the scary dark corners of my younger years, and yet another way… the singer saved me.

Road Trip to Vegas!

At 17, I spent months preparing to see Tom Jones live in Las Vegas. I pushed myself to the limit just to accomplish my mother’s bribe to get me out of the womb tomb of home.   I was nervous about leaving my safety zone.  Whenever I wasn’t home, I felt like a modern-day Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, running though an obstacle course of insecurities and just wanting to click my heels to get home.

While I had the support of my family and a lot of prayerful support for all of my free-floating anxieties, as I look back as an adult, I wish someone had been able to talk to me realistically about my fears.  Like a typical teenager, I thought I was the only one on the face of the earth who had these weird feelings and thoughts.  I didn’t even know there was a name for panic attacks.  And there were no Lucinda Basset infomercials at 3 am in the morning to identify symptoms and share successful solutions that gave birth to her Midwestern Center for Stress and Anxiety.

Tom Jones – Writing a Note

One thing I wasn’t nervous about was the fact that we three sisters and Mom would look good in Vegas.  We were all into fashion, and Vegas in the 70s was not the Vegas we know now.  It was not the “family place” it has become; it was a place where adults went to gamble, see the shows, and enjoy the hotels.  No schlepping around in ratty t-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops.  You dressed up when you went to Vegas.  You wore your best jeans or “pantsuits” or mini-skirts during the day, bikinis with cute little cover-ups at the pool, and lovely cocktail dresses, gowns, or sophisticated pant outfits for the shows.

And so we loaded our luggage into “ Sea-foam,” Mother’s big ol’ Cadillac with a white-beige leather top and gorgeous aqua bottom that looked like a wave on four wheels, and hit the road.  We were all really excited, which helped get us through the flat four-hour ride through the desert from Newport Beach to Las Vegas.  Once we got there we decided to eat lunch at The Flamingo Hotel, because – duh! – even Mom had listened to the Live from Las Vegas album a gazillion times and wanted to check it out.

We arrived at the Hotel International and it was huge and gorgeous and modern and Vegas beyond our imaginations.

Tom Jones – Reading a Note

Our bevy of beauty and the ugly duckling, (I am now able to identify this as a distorted belief, but at the time, it was my tiny world view), explored the hotel and took advantage of the April sun and pool.  Later we played the slot machines.  My sisters were well over 21, and while I was still a teen, my height and quiet manner feigned maturity, allowing me to appear to be of age.  I was able to pull down a few slots myself, and I felt like such a grown up!  I think we spent a whole $35 in quarters, and someone won back about $25.

To tell the truth, however, the only thing running through my adolescent head was that Tom Jones is here.  He is in this hotel.  I am going to see him.  I am going to hear him sing.  Like a calming mantra slowing my breath, I was breathing in Tom Jones… Breathing out Tom Jones… Breathing in Tom Jones… Breathing out Tom Jones… Calming my nerves and soothing my anxious soul…  I was only 17, and waiting to see… the singer who saved me.