AudioBookMan

Former Arizona Governor and WWII POW Evan Mecham has died at age 83.  He downplayed his heroic behavior and his escape from a Nazi prison after his P-51 Mustang was shot down over Germany. If the events affected him, he did not show it.  After the war, he came home, educated himself in Business Management and Economics, married, built businesses, reared seven children, stole my Cross pen, and became Governor of Arizona against powerful odds.  Stole your pen?????  Well, not really. Not on purpose. 

Let's start at the beginning. In the mid-1980s, I operated a recording studio that specialized in the production of radio commercials. One day, I received a call from a radio sales rep who told me of a car dealer client of hers who needed commercials produced. The arrangements were made, and five minutes before the appointed session, a small man entered my studio. I was ready, and after two reads of the commercial he wrote, he approved it, and was gone. My joke was that he showed up early, and was gone by the time he was supposed to arrive. He paid the invoice I sent, and I figured I'd never hear from him again.

Next month, same thing. And the next month, and the next month, and...well, you get the picture. He became a regular. When time permitted, we visited. We respected each other's time, and I found myself wishing I had a hundred Ev Mechams as clients. He always ended his commercials with the line, "If you can't deal with Mecham, you just can't deal!"  Truer words were never spoken.

It was years before cell phones were on every hip, and one day, Ev needs to make a few calls after our session, so he asks to borrow my office for privacy. I had recording appointments after him, and my office time was usually relegated to the hours before 8AM, and after 6PM. The balance of my time was spent in the studio, or the duplication facility seeing to the client needs that defined my business existence. That evening, I found a note on my desk from Ev thanking me for the use of my office. "You were busy when I had to leave. Thanks," it read.

Some days later, I couldn't find my gold Cross pen. I'd had it for ten years, and its only significance was that I found it on the day Elvis Presley died when I showed up for work at NBC. It was laying on the audio console. I hated to have anything of the sort laying where it could impede the smooth operation of long-throw faders, so I began a concerted effort to find its owner to admonish the behavior. No one claimed it, so at the end of the shift, it was mine. Now, after using it to sign every major document in ten years, it was missing. I thought I had lost it, or it had fallen into the garbage. It could  have been anywhere.

Two months later, Ev is on the phone to me. I think he's arranging his next recording session, but instead, he asks me if I am missing a gold Cross pen. By then, I had nearly forgotten it, but I told him that I was missing my pen. 

"When I used your office to make some calls, I must have picked up yours," he said.  "I have one just like it, and I just found mine. I'll return yours."  I figured he'd bring it to our next session, but Ev surprised me. In thirty minutes, he was in my lobby returning my pen. "These things can have sentimental value, I know. I didn't want you to wait."

Two years later, he announced he was running for governor of Arizona, and he asked me if I had some time to produce some radio commercials for his campaign. I said, "Ev? You remember when you returned my pen that you had mistaken for yours?"

"Yes," he said.

"I want a guy with that level of honesty and integrity in office. Schedule all the time you need, and consider it a campaign contribution from me."

He went on to win against a long-time legislator who assumed that  it was his turn to win, and after his defeat, he organized his political machine against Ev, which resulted in one of the ugliest political times Arizona state government has ever endured.

In recent years, Ev suffered from Alzheimer's disease. I miss our visits, but I am relieved that his earthly torment has ended.  After his contributions to country, state, city, and family, he deserved a gentler end. Rest in peace, my friend.