Dear Dave Bossert, Wanted to thank you and your wife Nancy for the lovely time at your 50th birthday party last weekend. And above that, Happy Birthday to someone with that special glint of mischief. Fifty. Foof. You are such a kid. I finally figured out what to get you. I was scrambling trying to figure out just what the heck I was doing a decade ago when I turned 50. It hit me. I winced.

My best pal Phil Lanier and I are only a few hours apart. We hadn’t seen each other in about a decade then and Phil’s wife Kate arranged a surprise gift for Phil.

She flew him in from Chicago to Santa Fe, New Mexico. We spent a week terrorizing the countryside. Besides all the giggles, monkey business and avoidance of things cultural, I suppose the one thing that sticks out about that half-century birthday mark was that we ended up in a lesbian bar dancing.

Very, very, very, very important note here. We were not dancing together.

Our first night in Santa Fe, being confident heterosexual guys, we wanted some six-pound steaks and lots of cold beer to celebrate. Fifty years old. That’s the lifespan of two cavemen, or some such syntax. We scanned a tourist directory and saw a place called The Cowgirl Hall of Fame. What the guide did not point out was that the Cowgirl was a favorite watering hole for, as they say back East, “hemmo-thexuals.”

While we were waiting for a table, we bellied up to the bar and I noticed that the bartender was one bona fide tough-looking sunburnt female person of cow. She was pretty in an over-the-top athletic way and looked like she could whip the entire cast of a John Wayne movie. While Phil and I were dousing our dry throats with some ice cold Coronas, an Indian maiden sidled up to us and started a conversation.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at different parts of the country where the same scenario plays out. She asked where we were from. We shrugged, noting that she probably never heard of it, followed by the obligatory, “Newhall.”

“Newhall?” she repeated. “I went to school there!”

Well get out of Dodge.

It turned out that not only did she go to school there, the three of us had about 100 acquaintances in common, including ourselves. Said Indian maiden went to high school with us briefly.

She was now a Santa Fe artist named Nez. Who was gay and lived on the reservation, making her, “Nez the Lez from the Rez,” as she put it.

We talked for about a half-hour and had a grand old time catching up. Our table opened. Phil and I excused ourselves with promises to say hello to everyone in the Santa Clarita Valley for her.

Me and Phil and slow eaters and it took us about 45 minutes to realize that there didn’t seem to be any mixed couples in the eatery. At every table, there were gals sitting with gals and guys sitting with guys and no offense to the gay community, but it began to hit us that something was slightly off-center in this restaurant.

“Buddy,” I said. “Don’t look now, but I think we have been sitting smack dab in the middle of a gay bar.”

Phil casually glances around, like he’s about to get into a gunfight and he wants to measure targets before, ahem, slapping leather.

We thanked our waitress (in voices 8 octaves lower than normal) and moseyed out, trying to walk like heterosexuals or at least Republicans.

There was one last gauntlet we had to cross before we reached the exit.

We had to cross the dance floor.

We did not make it.

Nez, the self-professed Lez from the Rez, had enjoyed nearly an hour of serious drinking while me and Lanier were digesting steer. She was 87 percent blottoed. She sort of ran/danced up to me, grabbed me by the lapels, spun me around and we waltzed, Texas Two-Stepped and did everything but the hokey pokey out there on the parquet. She had a friend (we enlisted President-elect Bill Clinton’s  “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy) who danced with Phil and before you know it, there went much of April of the year 2000.

Now I know that couldn’t have been as much fun as hob-knobbing with Don Fleming, Larry Rasmussen, Mel Gibson and the other who’s who that were at your birthday party, but it must have been a close second.

I suppose if I had a magic birthday gift to give, I would wish we could turn back to clock and let you have a nice long dinner with Ruth and Scott Newhall, the former owners of the Signal from the good old days.

It was a spectacular and unique paper, possibly the most unique on the planet. If not, I’d surely like to see the competition.

The Signal was this wonderful, eclectic tri-weekly owned by the San Francisco couple, Ruth and Scott.

It was like Nick and Nora Charles had bought a newspaper in some North Dakota community of Mennonites. They brought mirth, élan and mystery to this sleepy little farm valley. They were an evening gown and tuxedo amidst coveralls and gingham flour sack dresses, an intellectual Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall stuck in a John Steinbeck still-life.

They were classy and, above all, they were about Truth.

I think Ruth and Scott would have liked you, Dave. I think they would have approved of what you try to with this gentleman’s salute to the First Amendment, this West Ranch Beacon.

As you sneak up on 51, I wish you well digging out crooks and buffoons (real and imagined) heroes and working stiffs.

Across America, our hometowns need this kind of stewardship. Local elections and then rising to county and state levels, have much more profound effects on citizens than the national pop star popularity contests for a president. Taxes, schools, jurists, bond measures often have more of an immediate effect on people. Yet, a good local election might drag out 18 percent of the registered voters. A presidential election can summon 60 percent or more.

Here in Santa Clarita and across America, we need the

kind of journalism The Beacon provides — not insane mumbling, self-serving editorializing and preening, or worse, a culture of factual and spiritual errors hidden in a shopper.

I used to know a couple of old school journalists named Scott and Ruth. They were firm believers in that ancient idea of vigilance. I think they would have liked you, Dave.

And as for that gift, here’s a little something from a book I’m finishing called “The Daily Man Pill.”  It’s on the topic of newspapering and it’s from Mr. Newhall:

“I’ve always said this to anyone who comes into this profession, with that marvelous look glint in their eyes when they want to enter the newspaper business. No matter what you find the realities are, the compromises you have to make, don’t ever forget your idealism. The most glorious priesthood in the world is the newspaper profession. If you let your cynicism run away with you, then you’ll self destruct. Never forget those wonderful ideals and exciting concepts when you were young and started in this business.

I’m glad to see at 50, cynicism hasn’t even approached you.

Happy birthday, amigo, and keep fighting the good fight.  

John Boston is the preeminent local writer and humorist who has won 119 national writing awards. He is a wonderful human being and it is a privilege to call him a friend. John will continue to live in the Santa Clarita Valley and write about anything and everything. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.