“Another Beautiful Day in Arizona…

“…Leave us all enjoy it!”

LOL! That was the buzz-phrase of a long-time local radio personality here. He had a morning show, and every day he opened with that little theme-phrase.

“Beautiful” is not the word I’d use today…especially if you have to go outdoors in it! Yes, it’s clear and sunny. Yes, at this hour it’s pretty quiet. But… ugh!

It is soo humid!!! Wet and hot.

Back in the Day, most of the mornings were “beautiful days.” Not so much anymore. The place is no longer semi-rural: it’s all built up with commercial strips and vast oceans of ticky-tacky houses. Every one of those structures runs large air-conditioning systems that suck in the air, drain the moisture out of it, and emit it back into the atmosphere as hot, dry, stinky exhaust. This makes the developed areas even hotter (by far!) than they would have been in the absence of humanity.

It was sort of a pleasant place to live, back in the day. Now…?  Well…ick. If you like Southern California — crowds, noise, heat, insane traffic, smog — you’ll love this place. If you prefer a quieter mode of living…hmmmm…

Where would I go if I could escape?  Well…hmmm indeed…..

• Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Berkeley, California
• Certain suburbs of Tucson, Arizona
• San Francisco
• Paris
• Parts of Rome

Ohhhh well.

Ruby and I walked by our old (literally: elderly) friend Garnett’s place this morning. She’s long gone. The classic old ranch house is vacant, and has stood vacant for several months.

This morning we walked up and peered in the windows: looks like they’ve finally removed the furniture.

She told me she wanted to leave the house to her son — and so I expect she did. But he clearly has exactly ZERO interest in moving to Arizona. Certainly not in living a block from one of the busiest, loudest main drags in the city.

She loved that house. Loved the neighborhood. He? Not so much. He’d made his escape to California years ago. And clearly he has no desire to move into his mother’s manse.

Why he hasn’t sold it escapes me. I imagine she must still be living, locked up in one of those horrible old-folkeries. He’s probably waiting until she passes to get rid of her beloved home.

Either that or he’s too damn lazy to get off his duff and do something with the real estate she left him.

Who knows?

If I manage to hang onto this house until I croak over, my son will get the place. It will be a handy asset for him: either a pleasant venue to live in a fairly decent, in-town neighborhood, or something he can sell for a half-million bucks. Whichever he selects, he’ll profit nicely.

These days I feel like I must be the New Garnett of the ‘Hood: traipsing through the upscale realms behind a cute little dawg, every morning. Saying hello to the passers-by. A conspicuous landmark, hm?

But I’m not as friendly as Garnett was. At heart, I don’t like people, having been mistreated royally during the ten years we lived in Saudi Arabia. God, how I hated that place! And how I hated the kids and the idiot teachers and my father’s cruelty and the institutionalized ignorance…just about everything there.

It was in the nick of time when my parents decided to come back to the States. I had become almost hopelessly misanthropic by the end of the fifth grade, and come the sixth grade, simply hated people. Especially people in their “kid” phase. That changed when we got to San Francisco, where the new classmates didn’t know they were supposed to scorn me, and the teachers — some of them, anyway — possessed measurable IQ’s.

Heh! I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if we’d stayed out there even another year. Not that I would have brought a machine gun to school and shot up the place — though similar antics crossed my little mind. But that another year with no friends, another year as the butt of all the other little darlins’ scorn and hate, another year with a teacher who measured her IQ in the single digits…Jayzuz! If a kid could have a nervous breakdown, I sure would have.

😮