Luis

Probably in his late 40s, Luis was a large and jovial man with dense black hair swept over his forehead.  He talked about being raised with five sisters and one brother, the proverbial “Catholic Family,” although he corrected me with “Hispanic” when I said “Latino.”

Growing up with female-sibling overload gave him an almost intuitive understanding of women that astounded me, except for one point: he kept insisting women were smarter than men; I kept insisting we were just wired differently.

Luis shared home-life anecdotes and insights into traveling with a family of stragglers and the value of his wife’s way of thinking. His voice rose in his throat full-bodied whenever he mentioned her—a peacock spreading bold feathers, proud. He believed in her. He believed in his life with her. Her sense of humor. The way she tilted her head before asking a question as simple as, “Which drawer did you put the bottle opener in?”

I was awed by his kindness and generous spirit and how much he appreciated and admired the women in his life. He was self-confident enough that their strength in no way threatened his own. He was candid the way people can be when they’ve been well-loved.

Marco

He and his wife had followed his parents and siblings to Orlando from Brazil. Superhero-handsome, intelligent, and in his late 20s, Marco was still in graduate studies, but his wife was a working criminal analyst, who moved between local police and intelligence agencies, well-respected and in demand for her skills.

They had moved to Vegas to follow her career, but they weren’t happy. They found the city beyond the Strip ugly and depressing. The homelessness and poverty reminded him of San Paolo and Rio de Janeiro without the beauty. And he missed his family in Orlando. Those still in Brazil.

Marco had worried overall about Trump and his authoritarianism, but also felt the same thing with Bolsonaro, still in power, and worried about the state of the world. His wife believed that Trump fit several criminal profiles in addition to being a dictatorial threat with his cult-like followers.

They felt stuck. In, but out. Financially comfortable, the promise of a successful future—for both of them—looming. But happiness. No. Not here.

Jared

Can someone reek of Bible Seminary like fresh Ivory soap? Thin, pale, well-scrubbed, with a softly twanging voice, Jared had too-short of hair, oddly coifed.

Turned out Jared did, in fact, start out in College Bible study with friends in Tennessee, but then he read several novels and books of poetry, which led to even more, that took him “beyond” what he’d been taught.

I kept thinking of how my late husband, the college poetry professor, would warn his discontented, but wealthy, housewife students to “Turn back” unless they were ready to change their lives: “Poetry is a dangerous elixir once decanted.” More than one of his students ended up divorced, in graduate school, sequestered in a mansion, writing poetry.

Jared laughed at how he was now in “Sin City” and reading James Baldwin. If you’d told him this three years ago, he’d never have believed you. Told him that I was a big fan of the “Prodigal Son” method to finding faith by exploring the universe inside, that the best path to true spirituality is self-discovery. Let’s face it. Self-knowledge is a deeply humbling thing. We both admired how the Amish turned their young people loose into the world to see if the Amish lifestyle was what they truly wanted.

We then talked about Hesse and Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, and before we said goodbye, he decided to order them both on Amazon that very afternoon to read after Baldwin.

Hector

We started out talking about weather as soon as I answered that I lived in Alaska.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I know that latitude. I lived nearby, in Russia. Not too close… St. Petersburg. Tiny little snowflakes that packed hard into snow like boulders. The wind went right to the bone…”

“To the bone” was always one of my favorite phrases. We would enjoy this ride.

Cuban and full of machismo, Hector expressed himself in masterful English. He’d lived in the U.S. for maybe 20 years, brought over by relatives who hated Castro and the entire revolution.

Decidedly anti-Socialist, he could sense my liberalism and took it on himself to school me as thoroughly as he could in 20 minutes.

“Do you know where Socialism started?”

I shrugged. Had my ideas, but much more interested in where he took us, both in the cab and in the conversation.

“France. And the American Transcendalists took it up as their own. The Utopians.”

Aaah—a well-read man.

He bragged about the “immigrant spirit” and how Trump was wrong about that. “Immigrants are zealots—almost fanatically patriotic. If we stayed a country of first-year immigrants, we’d have the hardest working, most patriotic citizenship in the world.”

“Did you see Hamilton?” he asked, seemingly free-floating, but not.

I nodded.

“He was outside the box. Hamilton could see objectively what a new country needed. The American forefathers—what collective brainpower!”

There–right there–that zealous pride, that immigrant adoption / adaptation of superior patriotism.

Then Hector told me about the failures of South America, of Cuban health care (“Don’t believe for one minute that it’s better than here.”), of American capitalism going back to Teddy Roosevelt and the creation of the National Park system (“It was an enticement for Americans and foreigners to travel and spend money across the U.S. It spends fuel, fills hotels, connects states, sets up dynamic exchange.”)

“Don’t believe anything you hear. Venezuela… such a mess.” I asked about the country’s political corruption. “Well, sure… but Venezuela… its socialism led to the collapse. What a mess.”

I asked about American socialist programs like highways, education, fire departments. He insisted we have none. Our “socialist” programs invest our taxes, he said, to pay for services, that then pay the government back in other ways, even directly in many places.

I actually don’t know the market investments of government well enough to agree or disagree. My contrary nature wanted to argue, but Hector had me charmed with his immigrant enthusiasm.

Marcellus

Born in Romania, Marcellus was a large man who barely fit into his car. Gentle-toned and kind, he talked about his wife and two children and living in the south of Spain before settling in Vegas, and how now they felt inundated by the frenetic pace and tourist greed of the town. Ironically, he did like the money, but felt they’d lose their hearts if they stayed much longer.

He and his family were in preparation to move to Utah, as they had many, many friends there, and, as Mormons, longed for deeper community and peace. He put himself in my place and chuckled over the thought of a Romanian Mormon. He’d make a good writer, I thought, anticipating the questions and amusements of his audience.

Marcellus, like Luis, spoke with reverence about his wife, who he felt managed to stay grounded no matter where she was or who she was with.

We spoke about the beauty of Alaska, of Utah, of the world, and about his fears over Trump’s attacks on preserved lands. He hoped the new administration would overturn Trump’s many executive orders favoring corporations over nature. He worried that reversing Trump’s damage might get lost in a sweep of reforms. He loved Utah, its ruggedness, its soulfulness. He imagined setting up a charitable agency with his friends, his wife, something reflecting a love of God’s landscape.