Ron Walker
I visited a dermatologist, a Vision Center, lunch at the Carson Valley Inn and am now standing in front of the shuttered façade of Gardnerville’s Walmart Pharmacy. It’s closed for lunch; we have nine minutes to wait until they reopen. I take a chair spin it around and sit down. I offer to provide a chair for the lady who is first in line but she declines. “I broke my femur last March. I was a dancer and choreographer,” I say for no good reason. The words pique her interest and for nine minutes I ramble on and on telling her what life is like in the world of live entertainment.
It happens that my new confidant enjoys the style of entertainment that we presented back in the days when gambling dollars paved the way for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Diana Ross, Engelbert, Tom Jones, Red Skelton, Sammy Davis Jr., Liberace, Danny Thomas, Helen Reddy, Cher and so many more. “I loved their entertainment but when I was old enough to see them in person, they had mostly stopped performing” she says.
After, myriad tales of life as a dancer in New York, choreographing all over the world, I shift gears and share Orllyene and my traveling experiences while living in the East. “We took the train from Philadelphia to Florida, and then drove to the Keys,” I say proudly of our sense of adventure.
My new friend replies, “I always wanted to take a train trip across Canada, but my husband was always working and now he has passed away,” she says. “When I was eight my mother put me on a bus from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles, a 13-hour trip. When we had a layover, the driver almost had to drag me off the bus for lunch because my mother made me promise to never get off the bus.”
I ramble on and on with more stories about working with entertainers, and what being a dancer is like until the shutter rolls up. “Thank you so much. I feel so much better” and with those words she moves to the Pharmacy counter. Her words of gratitude surprise me.
Later, after I do a modicum of shopping, our shopping carts meet once again. She says, “Please do not misunderstand and I wouldn’t blame you if you said no, but would you like to have coffee? I would like to hear more about your life as a dancer and being in showbusiness.” This catches me way off guard. Orllyene is waiting in the car and we live in Smith Valley. She immediately realizes her idea is not doable and she says again how much she’d enjoyed my stories and with that we part.
Sometimes the human spirit spills over and we speak openly and honestly to each other. This time our “Nine Minute Interlude” touched mostly on superstar entertainers and how they make us feel when we are in the audience, but, we also spoke of travel. It was a time to let out what was inside of us, to not plan our words and dip into the world of the unknown, a time of sharing.
Ron Walker can be reached at walkover@gmx.com
