Everybody has a story: Who needs Marilyn Monroe? He had Mary Travers

In 1964, when I was a teenage boy, my father, a WW II submarine combat veteran and union framing carpenter, tried to convince my mother to spend money we really didn’t have on two tickets for a music performance. He wanted to see his favorite group. He could purchase them for a discount at the local union hall in Canoga Park, west San Fernando Valley, in the blue-collar neighborhood where we lived. Two tickets cost 25 bucks, a great deal of money back then. The whole family could see the L.A. Dodgers play baseball for $7.50.

Dad did not tell Mom the performance was not a local event in L.A., but 450 miles away in San Francisco. When Mom found out, she was furious, but she knew how much the group meant to him. It would be a big sacrifice for her because we only had one car, a VW Microbus, and she would be stuck at home with my three younger brothers and my toddler sister for a long weekend. I was chosen to go because everyone knew I listened to and liked Dad’s record albums.

We left one summer Friday evening. The concert was Saturday at 7:30 p.m. I had never been to San Francisco and neither had Dad. We drove route 101 past Ventura and Santa Barbara and up the California coast before it cut inland across the Santa Ynez Mountains. We camped in the dark inside our bus along Pismo Beach, north of Santa Maria. We slept in sleeping bags on the seats. After cooking breakfast on a Coleman stove, we puttered back to the highway. Our Microbus couldn’t go past 63 mph. We were headed for the Hungry I dinner club somewhere in the notorious North Beach area east of Chinatown. We arrived in the Bay Area around 5:30 p.m. and Dad asked a gas station attendant in Daly City where the Hungry I was. He smiled: “You must be going to see the concert.” Dad did not believe a gas station attendant knew about this group — this was folk music. Everyone was talking about the Beatles, or the British Invasion, or Elvis.

When we got to the show, we found the club was packed. But we had good seats only fifteen feet from the left side of the stage. Yet the floor was flat and there were two tall guys blocking my view. My dad was taller and told me to stand on my chair if needed. My other complaint was that it was very smoky. Every table had an ashtray. Dad smoked a pipe back then but he didn’t light up; he wanted to see, too.

When the show started and the group emerged from behind the curtains and shadows, our jaws dropped. We were stunned. There were these two trim men with dark horn-rimmed glasses, Van Dyke goatees, one taller, one shorter, with identical dark suits, matching pants, white shirts, and purple ties. They could have been bankers or accountants; they surely didn’t look like the beatniks my best friend, Jimmy, said they were. Both were carrying nylon stringed, very polished acoustic guitars.

But in front of these two guys was this woman — a woman unlike any woman I ever saw before, even in L.A. Her straight, corn-silk golden hair with long bangs sparkled in the stage lights, blinding us. She wore a form-fitting turquoise-blue silk cocktail dress with a matching blue sash belt and buckle. The dress was just above her ankles and wrapped around her neck as an oval trim. She wore two-inch white leather high heels. She wore ruby lipstick that matched her finger nail polish. Her pearl necklace had matching earrings. Her cheeks had a hint of blush and just above her stunning eyes she wore golden eye shadow complete with mascara and long eyelashes. I believe she had a small mole and dimple on her left cheek.

Dad and I thought we were looking at a Marilyn Monroe in the flesh. I never saw any woman so stunning, so feminine looking … so gorgeous.

But it was when she sang that her real beauty and power emerged. There was only one microphone stand with a central amp behind it, I recall. I noticed a bass player in the dark shadows of the rear stage. When they played, the guys would move in and out, back and forth to the mic, but she was the center of it all. She would turn her neck to toss her hair from her eyes, shake her arms, wiggle her hips, snap her fingers, and tap her heels. You can tell there was a fire in her voice and in her eyes. She believed in these songs!

Peter, Paul and Mary had the repertoire everyone knows: “Blowing in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” But I especially remember two songs Mary sang solo. One was “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies,” a traditional Celtic song. Peter and Paul sang in perfect harmony in the shadows behind the stage light. Her sweet and enraptured voice was as clear as a mountain stream. It gave Dad and me shudders. When she sang the mournful “500 Miles,” playing a guitar on a stage chair (yes, she played the guitar too), I thought I was dreaming, and seeing the prettiest dream ever.

And now whenever anyone asks me to tell them what I think pretty is, I just say: “Pretty is … watching the young Mary Travers singing and playing ‘500 Miles’ on stage.” My wife doesn’t mind the slight.

I am going to miss them, their perfect harmonies, even their politics, which I did not always agree with, but I’m especially going to miss her. If there was a better singing group now or since then, this old teenager certainly doesn’t know them.

EVERYBODY HAS A STORY welcomes nonfiction contributions (1,000 words maximum) and relevant photographs. E-mail is the best way to send materials so we don’t have to retype your words or borrow your photos. Send to neighbors@columbian.com or P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA 98666.