Marilyn Malone loves learning.
Which is why the former teacher entered the police academy at age 45 and went on to become a detective. And why she took up flying and why, in retirement, she devoted years of her life to studying the tide pools of the Upper Gulf of California and then discovering the trials and tribulations of turning all that knowledge into a book.
“If we had known the amount of work — although we enjoyed it — we probably wouldn’t have done it,” says Malone, 78, reminiscing from the couch in her living room that looks out over an expanse of west-side desert.
Malone and longtime friend Betty Hupp, 87, transformed four years’ worth of Rocky Point trips and research along with thousands of photos into their self-published “The Edge of the Sea of Cortez” in 2008. The book received praise for its generous use of color photos and conversational tone — a welcome change of pace from typically dry, light-on-the-pictures field guides. And that, the women figured, was the end of it.
Not quite.
After the book went out of print three years ago, people started asking for it. Not an avalanche of requests — “It’s such a niche book,” Malone notes — but enough to consider another print run.
Weekly paper Ajo Copper News wanted to stock more books, and a real estate agent in Mexico said he never entered a condo that didn’t have a copy on the coffee table. Turns out “The Edge of the Sea of Cortez” was the Rocky Point equivalent of a hotel-room bible.
So Malone and Hupp plunged their toes back into those waters teeming with sea life.
This go-round, they split up their efforts. Hupp is concentrating on an electronic version of “The Edge,” which works on different platforms and is expected to debut later this month. Malone focused on updating the print edition.
“I’m married to a printer,” she says, referring to husband Ray Keck. “I like ink and mess.”
In fact, she likes it so much that she spends much of her spare time these days taking online art classes and creating sea-themed, block-print art that she hopes to turn into book tie-in merchandise like linens and housewares.
Malone, who says it cost $13,000 for 3,000 copies of the 102-page book printed locally by Arizona Lithographers, isn’t expecting to make money. She just hopes the book — which includes a glossary and expanded information on conservation and shell archaeology — will be useful to people. It’s the kind of guide she and Hupp would’ve loved to have had when they were moms visiting Puerto Peñasco and their kids would rush up to them with a beach discovery, wondering what it was.
But, back then, they were too busy raising their families to tackle such an endeavor. It took retirement to create a book. In fact, Malone herself is book material.
Her father was a Navy pilot who was killed on the Japanese island of Okinawa during World War II, leaving behind three young daughters. Malone’s mother ended up marrying another Navy pilot.
“I guess they’re addictive,” laughs Malone, who has an identical twin.
The blended family — her stepdad had a daughter, too — moved around a lot. Malone landed at the University of Arizona to study art and archaeology and taught art and geography at Pueblo High School. Married at the time to Carl Hodges, one of the founders of CEDO, the Spanish acronym for the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans and founding director of the University of Arizona’s Environmental Research Lab, she left teaching to be able to accompany him on his many trips to the Sea of Cortez.
After 21 years of marriage and two kids, the two divorced and Malone entered the police academy. She worked as a beat cop before becoming a detective, first in sex crimes and then investigating child abuse and neglect cases. Though she loved the job and working with a team, the protective emotional armor the job required was tough to wear.
“I could look at a dead baby and not feel any emotion,” Malone, who has four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, says of her decision to retire. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to lose my soul.’”
It wasn’t easy transitioning into retirement — Malone’s husband jokes that she continued to jot notes when they were out to dinner with friends — but the project with Hupp soon became a full-time job.
The two women would spend days at a time in Mexico, lugging boxes of research materials. “Most people bring beer,” Malone says.
She and Hupp laugh when they recall how they walked around always holding hands for stability. “Those reefs can be ankle-breakers,” Malone says.
Locals assumed the two were a couple.
Though travel warnings have been issued for some parts of Mexico and people may be nervous about traveling south of the border, Malone says people should be sensible and alert, as they should be at home.
“I wouldn’t go out in the dark without a bunch of people. I wouldn’t do that here in Tucson.”
Throughout her travels in Rocky Point and other parts of Sonora, people were nice and so willing to share their culture and what they knew about the creatures calling the tide pools home.
Malone smiles. “It is a very special place.”
