During decades as a journalist, I had countless conversations with interesting people — future presidents, wannabe leaders, governors, business executives, religious thinkers, crooks, and ordinary folks who made a difference in their own corner of the world.

With soldiers headed to our cities and chaos in our nation, now is a good time to remember one difference-maker. My memories of Wade Meloan remain sharp almost 50 years after I met the retired druggist in the Mississippi River town of Oquawka, Ill., just upriver from Burlington.

On my first trip to Oquawka, I quickly learned it was no secret Wade had a much younger girlfriend. She was 30. Wade was 65. Her name was Norma Jean.

Wade and Norma Jean did not spend a lot of time together. Fate has a way like that. You see, Norma Jean was a showgirl. She traveled and performed for people’s enjoyment, especially children.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Norma Jean was not grooming kids. She just made them laugh.

Wade’s wife, Mary, was quite understanding about his affection for Norma Jean. Mary was a delightful person and was charmed by her husband’s feelings for this other woman.

Let me be blunt here. Norma Jean, as we might say in polite company, was big-boned. She had leathery skin, and you could not help but notice her long nose.

Sadly, by the time I first met Wade, Norma Jean was gone. She died a tragic death four years earlier. But Wade simply could not put her out of his mind. She had stolen his heart.

Norma Jean was a star of the Clark and Walters Circus, which had come to Oquawka to perform in the city park in 1972. It was a small circus — a one-elephant circus, in fact. And Norma Jean was its premier pachyderm.

Several hours before the show was to go on that summer day, Norma Jean was chained under a tree in the park when a storm moved overhead. Lightning struck the tree and snuffed out her life in a flash.

The circus packed up and left town — leaving Norma Jean, all 6,500 pounds of her, on her side under the tree. It fell to the folks of Oquawka to figure out how to dispose of the headline attraction. They brought in a backhoe to dig a 12-foot-deep grave, right there in the park. They rolled Norma Jean into the grave and filled the hole.

Everyone moved on with their lives — everyone except Wade Meloan.

A month or so later, Wade drove past the burial plot and was troubled that nothing had been done there. So, he planted grass. He placed a small plywood marker on the grave and erected a little picket fence around the plot. Each Memorial Day, he gathered unsold wreaths at the local grocery store and placed them on Norma Jean’s grave.

But Wade thought the old girl — that’s what he called her, “the old girl” — deserved to have a nicer marker. He told me, “When Norma Jean got it, that was the end of the show for the circus. The guy lost his business. But it was tough on the elephant, too.”

Wade thought a circus star needed a proper grave marker, and one larger than life, just like she was. He talked up his idea around town. It took four years of coaxing, but people recognized Wade was right. They knew his heart was as big as Norma Jean’s.

He raised about $800 for a proper tombstone, and on the eve of Memorial Day in 1977, five years after Norma Jean’s demise, the new tombstone was ready. It was impressive — 8 feet tall, 12 feet wide, handmade from slabs of fieldstone, with a granite insert with Norma Jean’s birthday and date of death, and a display case recounting her career.

The dedication ceremony attracted tens of people. Wade even arranged for another elephant to attend. During the ceremony, this visitor named Okha carried a large wreath of daisies with her trunk and gently placed it on Norma Jean’s grave. Okha then propped her front feet up on the stone monument and trumpeted loudly.

It was a touching tribute, except for the business card Okha left on Norma Jean’s grave.

Wade summed up that wonderful day: “Everyone was so darn nice. It gives you a warm feeling in this cold world. I think we did her proud.”

There is something else about Norma Jean’s life and legacy, due in no small part to this guy you did not know. A website called Find a Grave catalogs thousands of graves across the United States. If you click through to cemeteries in Oquawka, Illinois, you can find a photo of the tombstone for Wade and Mary Meloan, with a little elephant carved in the corner. There is something else on Find a Grave for Oquawka — a listing for “Norma Jean Elephant Burial Site.”

I have returned to Oquawka through the years. I find the community refreshing. It reminds me of the town where I grew up. It reminds me people are basically good. It reminds me we are all here on this earth, as they would say in show business, for a limited engagement.

So, we should remember Wade Meloan and his advice: Make the best of every day you have.

As he told me many years ago, “If you can’t go through life helping people — even if it’s an old dead elephant — then there’s no use being here.”

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Randy Evans is the executive director of the

Iowa Freedom of Information Council. He can be

reached at DMREvans2810@gmail.com.