Or is it? As I work on the move, the blogable events just keep on coming in Palm Springs.

This morning my new friend Robert said he wanted to take me out for breakfast. I asked that we go somewhere more for locals than tourists. We tried Rick’s but the parking lot was packed. We ended up at Billy Reed’s.

I was expecting a greasy spoon but it was actually quite decent. The perfect backdrop for the story telling that ensued.

I’d no more told one of my patented Mary Todd Lincoln jokes than I received a 60 second lecture on Eastlake Furniture, hand-carved and made in the U.S. between 1860 and 1870.

I learned that Tab Hunter was a perfect gentlemen. They used the same stables in LA and would go riding together. Bareback? We didn’t go there.

A meal tastes better when it’s served properly. Robert went to a breakfast place for years that had wonderful food but abominable china and flatware. So he stored four settings of his own at the restaurant and would call ahead when he was on his way. And he didn’t mind paying a dollar more for a Pepsi when he went to Chasens. It was served in crystal.

I heard more about his paramours through the years. They had such poetic names like Todd Violet and Billy Breedlove. He had one who welded an ice bucket to the floor board in the front seat so there was always a refreshing cocktail at hand.

But the most interesting tidbit answered a question I’ve had since I’ve lived here.

On North Indian Canyon near Vista Chino there’s this incongruous pedestrian bridge over the street. Palm Springs is so unfriendly to walkers. You can wait five minutes at an intersection for the timed lights to give you permission to cross. And that’s with no traffic. So why this one bridge?

Robert said it’s because there’s a straight nudist resort on the one side of the street. When they also acquired the resort directly opposite, the area was zoned so the naturalists could walk back and forth. It resulted in so many looky-loos and so many accidents it became a public safety issue necessitating the overpass.

The resort’s number one client? Geraldo Rivera. Allegedly.

***

The Last Temptation of Me

• Helping the More Fortunate
• Do They Know It’s Christmas?
• Ithaca!
• A Horse With No Name
• The Blackened Snapper Is To Die For
• Come Together
• Pilgrimage On The 75% Off Trail
• The Ancient Cohachellian Art of Cacti Arranging
• Popsicle Sheers
• Life Is Strife
• Life Is Strife: Addendum
• Casting My Net
• Where Seldom Is Heard
• Desert Sage
• Jackie’s Tears
• Cancer, and My Name Is Larry
• Me and Mr. B
• On Milkshakes
• Learning Curve
• Dunbar’s Last Stand
• Tale of Two Cows
• Barstow Barista Boys
• The Season of the Donald
• Visions of San Jacinto
• Hackneying Hockney
• On My Way to Ralphs
• Gaydom’s Gump
• Goodbye to All of That
• The Final Salvo