 Shirley with other NMBA Board Members: (L to R) Dan Fallon, Anna Sochocky, Miguel De La Cruz, Jordan Jones, Me In late August, a record turnout – eighty NMBA members and guests – enjoyed complimentary drinks and sumptuous hors d’oeuvres on the patio of Las Campanas Santa Fe, overlooking vistas of rolling hills. Playing in the background was New Mexico Platinum Award winner guitarist Nacha Mendez. As NMBA Co-President, I kicked off the program with highlights of NMBA’s 30-year history, citing its unusual founding and its mission, which remains intact today: To preserve and perpetuate the BOOK as a repository of the wisdom of the past, the essence of the present, and a guide to the future. After I delivered NMBA’s annual report of accomplishments, my co-president, Miguel De La Cruz, emceed the Southwest Book Design and Production Awards (SWBDA). This year’s awards – in thirteen categories – judged by a panel of book industry experts, recognized creativity and quality in book design and production.  At the NMBA 2024 Summer Gala, I delighted in presenting Dorothy Massey with a beautifully engraved plaque, recognizing her nearly 30-year ownership of Collected Works Bookstore, which "nourishes the souls of both readers and writers." Perhaps the biggest treat of the evening was best-selling author Hampton Sides. Back home from a whirlwind tour promoting his latest book, The Wide Wide Sea, Hampton sat down with me for a conversation. I told the audience that when I asked Hampton if he wanted to see questions I might ask ahead of time, he said, “No, I like to be surprised!” Afterwards, Hampton thanked me for being his “Grand Inquisitor,” saying, “you asked terrific questions and kept the conversation moving organically and seamlessly.” With those few words, he made my night! An invitation to an on-the-spot book signing by Hampton Sides, sponsored by Santa Fe’s oldest independently owned Collected Works Bookstore, capped off our memorable 2024 Summer Gala. A couple of Hampton nuggets: “I start writing before I’ve completed my research because not writing (before completing research) can be a procrastinator’s excuse for never writing!” When asked how he balances his deep research with the need to keep the story moving, he talked about rabbit holes: “There are lots of rabbit holes – it’s important to evaluate a rabbit hole before going down it and getting involved in voluminous technical detail that might derail the story or keep it from moving.”  Conversing with best-selling nonfiction author Hampton Sides was wonderful! Perhaps the biggest treat of the evening was best-selling author Hampton Sides. Back home from a whirlwind tour promoting his latest book, The Wide Wide Sea, Hampton sat down with me for a conversation. I told the audience that when I asked Hampton if he wanted to see questions I might ask ahead of time, he said, “No, I like to be surprised!” Afterwards, Hampton thanked me for being his “Grand Inquisitor,” saying, “you asked terrific questions and kept the conversation moving organically and seamlessly.” With those few words, he made my night! An invitation to an on-the-spot book signing by Hampton Sides, sponsored by Santa Fe’s oldest independently owned Collected Works Bookstore, capped off our memorable 2024 Summer Gala. A couple of Hampton nuggets: “I start writing before I’ve completed my research because not writing (before completing research) can be a procrastinator’s excuse for never writing!” When asked how he balances his deep research with the need to keep the story moving, he talked about rabbit holes: “There are lots of rabbit holes – it’s important to evaluate a rabbit hole before going down it and getting involved in voluminous technical detail that might derail the story or keep it from moving.”  Hampton Sides
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 Frank’s 70th college reunion was not a blip on his radar. “Why go?” he asked. “All of my roommates are gone.” One of them, Sigurd Sandzen, a retired hand surgeon with a big personality had been at our wedding thirteen years earlier. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to Frank in years!” he said when we first met. “Believe me, I know. I’ve met them all!” I understood Frank’s reluctance to fly east . . . until he recognized three names on the list of attendees. “I’d like to see them,” he said. I made the flight reservations, completely oblivious that we would be landing at La Guardia on Friday afternoon of Memorial Day Weekend. After waiting two hours in a line that snaked through Budget’s office out under a searing sun, we were handed the keys to a woeful looking rental car. “Do you hear that sound?” Frank asked as he sped into bumper-to-bumper traffic headed for the Connecticut Freeway. “Yes! What do you think it is?” I asked. “Probably threadbare tires! This clunker has 63,000 miles on it.” We had just crossed the Connecticut state line when I frantically searched the console for an outlet to plug in my “low battery” iPhone. There was no outlet. We were counting on GPS to get us to our hotel outside of New Haven. Two hours later, within minutes of pulling into our hotel, my phone screen went black. Relieved to have found the hotel, we called it a night. Early the next morning, we registered on campus for Frank’s class reunion in time to join throngs of reunion classes at a lecture on Feelings by professor Marc Brackett, Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. “Why don’t we talk about feelings?” he asked the audience. “Because we can’t quantify them,” someone shouted. “Because we don’t have permission,” another said. “Because we don’t feel safe,” I shouted. “All right answers,” said Brackett, whose provocative presentation included a matrix-laden power point that I photographed for future study.  A two-hour music fest featured Yale’s famed Whiffenpoofs, the world’s oldest (founded in 1909 as a senior quartet that met weekly at Mory’s Temple Bar) and best known collegiate a cappella group. Every year, 14 senior Yale students are selected to be in the Whiffenpoofs. The group performs more than 200 concerts across six continents each year. The Whiffs in Frank’s class, in jackets and ties, stood out among younger members in khakis, even Bermuda shorts! Not to be outdone, The Whim ’n Rhythm, Yale’s all-senior female soprano-alto a cappella group founded in 1981, sang jazz and pop tunes. That evening, we ventured into the newly renovated Peabody Museum filled with dinosaur skeletons for Frank’s class dinner. Twenty-eight of his classmates attended plus several spouses. After deciding that one classmate he’d wanted to see hadn’t made it after all, Frank found him . . . in a wheelchair pushed by his wife. “We had a wonderful dinner with Frank in Santa Fe many years ago,” she told me. Frank and I were sorry we didn’t discover her and her husband until we were all leaving. In post-Reunion notes, ’54 Class Secretary Dan Strickler wrote, “Frank Hirsch doubtless looked the youngest, more like someone attending his 60th reunion!” In New York City, Between Reunions Leaving New Haven on a Sunday morning, we headed back to New York City where we turned in our Budget clunker and hunkered down for two nights, long enough to take in a stunning exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had told Frank, who’s a fan of the Met, that we could see an exhibition that he might not consider wonderful. He missed hearing the word not. Sleeping Beauties Reawakening Fashion was an immersive exhibition of fashion – mostly dresses and a few headpieces – complete with video animation, sounds and smells to reactivate the sensory qualities of these lifeless works of art that can no longer be worn, touched or smelled. Their extreme fragility precluded their being placed on mannequins; some were exhibited flat, encased by glass. Once in line to experience the exhibition, there was no turning back, at least not easily. We – until Frank bolted, promising to meet me at the end of the exhibition – walked through narrow passageways from display to display showcasing some 220 garments and accessories spanning four centuries visually connected through themes of nature – flowers, foliage, fish and shells against a backdrop of earth, air, and water. Some of my favorites: Red Rose Gallery, where I touched smell molecules on the wall that emitted a distinctly red-rose aroma. “Rose Rouge” (1958) – a red silk taffeta evening dress & large rose hat designed by Yves Saint Laurent Others that caught my eye: “Beetle Wings” (19th century) – showcasing outer wing casings of so-called “jewel beetles” “Butterfly” (1974) by Alexander McQueen – Black silk organza appliqued with orange, black and white dyed and painted feathers in forms of monarch butterflies “Clam Shells” (2001) by Alexander McQueen – White cotton canvas embroidered with stripped, bleached, and varnished razor clam shells “Mermaid Bride” (about 1929, dawn of Great Depression) by Callot Soeurs, a leading fashion design house in the 1920s and 1930s – Dramatic cathedral-length train featured interlocking scallops that suggest undulating waves with circles of seashells; devoid of surface embellishment, the fabric is a blend of silk and cellulose acetate, an emerging synthetic fiber that provided an inexpensive alternative to silk Shelter Island Stop-Over
Catching the Hampton Jitney, we left New York City for Shelter Island to visit Frank’s childhood friend from the University of Chicago Lab School, Jim Webster, and his partner Karla Friedlich. A throwback to the 1950s, Shelter Island is where organic-grown veggies, freshly caught fish, and down-home neighborliness are the norm – an appealing respite from the frenzy of big-city life for NYC dwellers. To Poughkeepsie or Bust! Just one week after Frank’s reunion in New Haven, we picked up a gem of a rental car at JKF (Enterprise, not Budget) and Frank drove us to Poughkeepsie, New York, for my class reunion at Vassar. For years after graduating, my connection with Vassar was minimal. But over time, especially since becoming Class Co-Correspondent and getting involved with planning for our 50th reunion, it’s grown deeper. So, too, has my feeling of wanting to give back. When I was an under-grad, my father lost his well-paying job. Thanks to Vassar’s financial support, I was able to graduate with my class. This reunion weekend attracted 1,700 alums from class years ending in 9 and 4. Forty-five of them were in my class, Vassar’s 100th. A slew of activities tempted – lectures on the Vassar’s historic buildings, the environment, tours of new buildings, and a walk through Shakespeare garden – but most gratifying for me, apart from chatting with classmates, were these: an address by Vassar President Elizabeth Bradley, the Class Parade across campus serenaded by a brass band, and a memorial service around our Class Tree (Sugar Maple) with the reading of a Mary Oliver poem followed by the spoken names of deceased classmates. One name, Joan Whitmore, was one of my roommates senior year. In fact, after graduating, we roomed together in Paris. Joan was teaching English to blue-collar workers and studying at the Alliance Francaise to become fluent in French as a prelude to joining the US Foreign Service. I, having landed a job as a columnist (The Tahoe Traveler) for a California paper, was busy interviewing people my age and writing. A few years later, at the age of 28, Joan died in a car accident on the Beltway in Washington, DC – my first heartbreak. At a sumptuous Class Dinner held in the magnificent Gothic-styled Thompson Memorial Library, I was elected class president to serve a five-year term. I feel honored and look forward to helping my classmates stay connected through virtual and in-person mini-reunions. |
Author BLOG
I'm Shirley Melis. You may know me as Shirley M. Nagelschmidt, Shirley M. Bessey and now, Shirley M. Hirsch. Each reflects a particular phase of my life. Banged-Up Heart is a slice of my life's journey and in telling my story, I'm giving voice to my long silent "M" by reclaiming my maiden name, Shirley Melis. Archives
October 2024
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