It was a nice day, the summer long ago and a few friends of mine took me to Phoenix. We were headed to the Coliseum there. There was a conflict brewing far off and there was the term 1-A, and someone pulled a December date out of a jar I guess and it came up 12. Letters, and notices and life changing things were going to happen and some had to take a break and visit strange and far off lands. Graduation was done and of the 38 senior boys, 12 got their draft notices.
 

The Coliseum was at the state fair grounds, we went to a place called Encanto Park and rented a couple of canoes and paddled around the place. We found a place to eat, somewhere on Central Blvd. The night found us at the Coliseum with cheap seats, way way up high, the third row from the top.

The show began, it was the Supremss, and we could see those slender young ladies way down there with long white dresses and long white slinky gloves singing those Motown songs we came to know by heart. They sounded good and after a while we could see there were empty seats down there.

As each song was sung, we found ourselves transported by magic closer to those lovely ladies. It was as if we were in a trance taking us to places we had not been. When intermission came, we were sitting there, somehow in the second row from the stage. Lonnie had found a good spot for us. James sat on the end, and Henry sat crosslegged on the floor.

We could see the sequins reflecting in the light, the twinkle in their eyes, and they came over to us. There were a few chairs sitting empty someplace near the middle and we carried these to the aisle, center row and sat there transfixed.  Four Indian rez boys on a lark. Those young women, the Supremes came off the stage and walked over to us, and they were so near we could touch them. I can still hear those sweet voices, silky they were and later when I think about them, those guys who were with me, I wonder if they remember that time like me, when those simple words, Baby Love, Baby Love...were real and it brings back a good summer

day from long ago.

Where are these young men now....I am sorry to say, one killed himself some years ago, the other I have lost touched with and my friend Lonnie, was found in December in a park in Colorado after a cold night. I did not know he was gone until by chance I saw his sister who told me he passed away in December, but back then we just sat there thinking about how things would be, our lives, hopes and dreams and the sweet sound those girls made when they sang their songs......