ideas: from people

Showman Mel’s river of dreams

Mel loves his job. He doesn’t love it quite as much as acting on Broadway, which he did for 33 years, but there can’t be that many more genuinely, infectiously enthusiastic tour guides across these United States as TourMobile’s Mel. He might be the most remarkable person I’ve ever met.

I vowed, mercifully, not to document my trip to the American east coast. And I’ll mostly hold to that; hard to get a sense of Washington DC after two hopelessly rushed days anyway (other than to say it is the most grand and glorious sprawling monument to liberal democracy in all its deeply flawed beauty). But fresh from a visit to the Newseum – a temple to everything I hold dear – my journalistic instinct nagged at me to tell Mel’s story.

Mel is a giant bearded black man who immediately belies first impressions when he opens his mouth. He’s flamboyant, let’s say in weasely journalism parlance. He belies his age, too – 62 in February, he reveals – in the way African-Americans tend to do.

And not a prouder Washington resident and TourMobile employee will you surely find. He was born in DC, christened at the National Cathedral (the sixth largest cathedral in the world, he’ll have you know), went to college and joined the tour company straight after graduation. He tells us – without a hint of deceit – what an honour it is to show folks his beloved town.

But Broadway called. He spent 33 years on stage, he tells me, for Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum and other shows. He came home a few years ago, returning to his other great love – showing people around his city.

Mel, at heart, is a performer who craves an audience. He gets a little stroppy when nobody is listening. At one presidential memorial – his favourite, for America’s celebrated cripple Franklin Roosevelt – Mel suspends his colourful narration when some of the group fail to keep up. “I was going to tell you about the significance of this chamber but I won’t stand here and talk to nobody,” he huffs. That his tirade wasn’t dotted with a “girlfriend” and accompanied by a dismissively waving finger was the biggest disappointment.

But all the bluster only hides Mel’s soft heart, you see. We arrive at the watery World World II memorial, in the long moonlight shadow of the spectacularly phallic Washington Monument, following closely as he narrates having learned our lesson. He explains the 400 gold stars adorning the marble – one for every 1,000 American war dead.  He remembers as a child when military families would receive silver stars to display in their windows for every member serving. Those silver stars would be replaced with gold ones if the solider died in combat.

It’s on mentioning this that Mel loses it. His deep voice cracks, he pauses and tears roll down his buxom cheeks. He mentions later his father served in World World II – he came home, but clearly many in his neighborhood didn’t. Mel weeps openly now.

Now, Mel does this tour every night and multiple times each day. Has done for years. There was nothing special about tonight. The light wasn’t refracting a particular way on the memorial, I gather. There was seemingly no special anniversary marked on the day. Presumably, Mel cries in front of dozens of complete strangers every day. Repeatedly.

His father, he tells me, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a beautifully manicured but macabre tourist mecca overlooking the city as the resting place, most famously, of John F. Kennedy and his similarly-cursed relatives. Each day he narrates a tour of the site, passing his father’s plot, presumably cutting short the narration each time to gather his composure as he points out all those war dead.

Mel is a patriot, in the wears-his-heart-on-his-sleeve sort of way rather than the ugly jingoism you see from some over here. He loves his city, his country, his dad, and above all he loves life. He’ll be buried at Arlington, too, no doubt, after a life lived to the fullest – showman, familyman, tour guide.

When we part he tells me what an honour it has been to have me along for the ride. I believe him. He gives me a quote he says he led his life by (and I heavily paraphrase; Google proved fruitless): that his head wanted to do one thing, his arms wanted to do another, his legs another still. The body parts are all useless in isolation so he just damned well gave into them all. Follow your dream every day, he says. The words I do remember:

“Life is too short to only devote 10 percent of your day to what you really love.”

The Washington DC tour includes the imposing Lincoln Memorial, a tomb that sits at the foot of the National Mall overlooking the city Abraham helped build. On the steps Mel points out a small plaque marking the very spot Martin Luther King delivered his history-defining ‘I Have a Dream’ homily. Mel had one too, and followed it all the way home.

I bet he cried buckets that day, too.

© 2009 importance of ideas….