The Moving Target tour ended with a bang called the Tucson Festival of Books. It was a marathon. According to the media 120,000 people swarmed the mall at the University of Arizona for the weekend event. My involvement meant two receptions, three dinners, four panel discussion, and a total of eight signings scattered over a three day period. The reception and dinner on Friday was the evening I flew home from the last tour appearance in St. Louis. In case your counting, the tour lasted from February 18 to March 16, with one day off in the middle for a mani-pedi. The remainder of the time was spent doing appearances, interviews, and travel, with the occasional day that included all three. To say I’m tired doesn’t cover it.

But still, I wouldn’t have missed the TFOB for anything. On Friday evening, I arrived at the Student Union Building and took the elevator down to the lower entrance into the U of A Bookstore where the pre-Author’s Table Dinner reception was being held. As I exited the elevator, my eyes were focused on the door to the bookstore and on the people inside and nothing else. 

My dance card was fully stocked. When Bernard Siquieros of the Tohono O’odham Cultural Museum asked if I would speak at noon on Saturday on the Native American stage, I could see that meant no lunch. When I agreed to do it, I jokingly said, “But will there be popovers?” (If you are a visitor to Tucson right now and have never had a Tohono O’odham popover, make a trip out to San Xavier early some Sunday afternoon and have one. The red chili looks as though it is fatal, but it’s made with ancho chilies and is, as a consequence, very mild. It is also, however, red–the kind of red that will permanently stain light colored clothing, so be sure to wear something dark. Do NOT ask me how I know this!) 

It turns out, my “will speak for popovers” quip was taken quite seriously, and Bernard’s lovely wife, Regina, made sure the popovers and chili were there still warm and waiting when my speaking engagement was over. That was the only lunch I had that day. It was both delicious and sustaining. 

That panels were full to overflowing, and they were also fun. The signing events all had people waiting in lines by the time I arrived at the appointed hour. 

Then came Sunday. Nancy Yaeli of the Arizona Alumni Association had arranged for me to be part of some kind of contest in which the prize was my having lunch at a nearby restaurant with the winner. The winner’s name was Ricardo Pereyda and his lovely girlfriend was Angela. The noise factor in the restaurant combined with my hearing difficulties means that I still didn’t know either of their last names until this morning when I asked the Nancy Yaeli for help. 

It turns out that Ricardo is what I call a writing wannabe, and so I spent our lunchtime encounter giving him an overview of what it takes to be a writer and talking about how personal experiences can turn into the fodder that makes fiction work. In the course of lunch, he told me that he was an Iraqi war veteran on a full disability who now works at the university in a department devoted to helping returning soldiers make the transition from war back to campus life. Ricardo’s own transition was anything but easy, and I could tell that he is passionate about helping others make that same complicated journey. 

In the process, he asked me if I had seen the Veterans Memorial in the U of A’s rotunda. I told him I had not. The truth is, I had no idea where it was, and so, after the events and after the next to last book signing–in which I signed a copy of Second Watch for him–he and Angela waited and took me there. On the way, we were talking about the dedications in Second Watch and in Moving Target–and also about the one in the upcoming book, Remains of Innocence. The dedication in the uncorrected proofs right now reads: In memory of the Hotshots, nineteen good men and true. 

Ricardo and JAJ

If you don’t have strong Arizona connections, you may not know that the Hotshots were the firefighting crew that was decimated while fighting the Yarnell fire last summer. Ricardo said, “I’m sorry for the families, of course, but my heart really goes out to the one member of the Hotshots who didn’t die–the guy who could only look on helplessly while every one else did. 

I was struck by what he said. In a few minutes, when I finally return to working on the galleys, and thanks to Ricardo, I’ll be changing the dedication slightly so it will read: In honor of the Hotshots, twenty good men and true. 

But then we arrived at the rotunda, a place that didn’t exist in the University of Arizona as I knew it back in the Sixties. To my astonishment, we arrived at the Student Union and rode down in the same elevator I had used on Friday night on my way to the reception. On Friday, focused on the reception, I had made my way blindly through that small basement atrium located outside the elevator. And what did I miss by doing that? Just to my right, I missed the bronze statue of a field memorial, a rifle topped by the helmet of a fallen soldier and beyond that a bronze plaque listing the names of all the people from the University of Arizona who gave their lives in the Vietnam War. Ricardo, who was part of the guiding sprit behind that rotunda memorial explained that the man who created the statue is a guy named James Muir. It turns out that one of the names on the plaque is also James Muir. The two James Muirs may not be related, but believe me, they ARE connected. 

Just to the left of the Vietnam plaque is a waterfall. The water comes running down two rusty lengths of cable that were once part of the anchor chains on the USS Arizona. Next to that is a plaque with the fallen from the Korean War and World War II. There’s another bronze statue next to the World War II plaque. It’s a Jeep, hauling away a commander who has been wounded in the field. He is reaching back towards his men but being held inside the vehicle by a medic. Beneath the jeep you’ll see broken pieces of a Nazi swastika and of a Japanese rising sun. 

There’s a bronze folded American flag on display there and a few other moving details that I can’t remember at this moment. And I’m not going to try. You need to go there. You need to see it for yourself. In the middle of that busy campus, Ricardo and like-minded people, have created a piece of sacred ground. 

While we were there, any number of people stepped off the elevator, including a man and a woman pushing a baby in a stroller. Like me on Friday night, they hurried toward the bookstore doors without paying any attention to the memorial to those brave men who gave their all so the rest of us could be free to be there with the bright blue sky shining far overhead. 

And then, just as we were getting ready to leave, the elevator door opened again. This time a woman maybe a few years older than I am stepped off the elevator. She wasn’t looking at the door to the bookstore. Instead, she turned immediately to her right, stopped in front of the Vietnam plaque, set down her purse, and stood there weeping silently. It was a sacred moment on sacred ground, and I’m glad Ricardo was there to see how much his hard work and effort meant to that single grieving woman. 

When I hugged Ricardo and Angela goodbye a few minutes later, there were tears all around. 

Yes, when I volunteered to be the prize for that U of A Alumni contest, I had no idea at all that when it was over, I would be the one walking away as a winner with a treasure-trove of blessings.