But It's A Dry Heat...

We just returned from a glorious two night camping trip at Mount Lemon's Rose Canyon Lake campground. Over 7,000 feet above sea level, this magical spot is less than an hour's drive from our house. Indeed, I spend more time getting our little trailer ready for the trip than I actually do driving it. This trip was spectacular, with a heavy rainstorm washing over our camp for nearly an hour and a half, moisture that those in Tucson some 5,000 feet below can only dream of. The nights were cool and blissfully quiet, too. This oasis from the heat is something we will be using a lot in the coming weeks.

This afternoon it is 107 degrees fahrenheit at our little adobe house on Fort Lowell, and our air conditioner is working mightily to keep us in at least a range of comfort. I remember as a child growing up in Tucson that the summers were hot, but not unbearably so. How things change when one reaches their sixth decade of life. I now dread going outside at midday, and take my morning walks prior to sunrise. Lest you feel that is the "cool" time let me add that often it does not get below 86 degrees in any twenty-four hour period during mid-summer here.

I do not despair of our choice of a retirement home, but I do reserve the right to complain about the grueling heat. I simply lack the stamina to do anything when it is this hot, and spend my days writing, reading, or watching the endless selections available on our streaming internet service. But wait, I can do SOMETHING, and that is hook up our little trailer and make that fifty minute drive up the mountain for a day or two of rest and relief! I know next week we will be doing the exact same thing.

I will leave this entry with a photograph of our little trailer, our mountain cabin that allows us the freedom to escape this inferno for a day or two.

Morning Constitutional

One of the major contributors to both my personal health recovery and the enjoyment of living in Tucson is our home’s close proximity to the Chuck Huckelberry loop. Named after a prominent home-grown Pima County administrator, the loop is a system of 136 miles of paved, shared-use paths, a portion of which follows the Rillito River from its origin at the confluence of the Pantano and Tanque Verde drainages at Craycroft Road all the way to the Santa Cruz river miles and miles to the west. Every morning, either on foot or on bicycle, I access the loop either by walking through nearby Fort Lowell Park or by traveling north through a small subdivision on the other side of our road. Either way, this morning ritual has become such an important part of my life that I cannot help but to feel my gratitude for living in a community that would make such a recreational investment. Here, in the middle of a very large city, I can walk along quiet pathways where the sounds of traffic are only a distant hum, and encounters with coyotes, birds, rabbits, and other wildlife are a daily occurrence.

My walks have been modest since my illness. I gradually worked my way up to a path of slightly more than three miles in the last few months, and sometimes I have walked more than four and a half. When bicycling, I have gone as far as twelve miles round trip, which is only accomplished by taking periodic rests (not for my leg muscles, but for my aching posterior). The map at the right shows the section I usually walk, and although not to scale the distance between the left and right sides of the image is about six miles.

Although I usually carry my cell phone during these morning walks/rides, I rarely take photographs. The few I have show the normally dry washes of the Pantano, Tanque Verde, and Rillito “rivers” filled with water after some pretty heavy rainstorms last summer. A streamside stroll in the desert is unusual enough to record, I think. My wildlife photos are pathetic. Usually by the time I spot a coyote and struggle to get out my cell phone, he is long gone or the glare of the sunlight prevents me from seeing the screen of the device well enough to focus the shot. Below are two "wet" images and one of some livestock that I pass each morning.

Overall I feel pretty thankful to be living in a community enlightened enough to fund this paved pathway through the city. It allows me to feel as if I am living in a rural setting, even though I am near the center of a city of at least a half million people. I will continue my morning walks as long as I am able, and perhaps some day in the future I may be able to get a photograph of some actual wildlife.

Respite and Recovery

I have been at home now for about four weeks, and every day my stamina and thought processes seem to improve. The insurance company arranged for a weekly home nurse visit and a physical therapist twice a week which has vastly improved my condition. I can now walk about 200 yards, and I no longer feel dizzy each time I stand, although I periodically have moments when I do feel a bit light headed, especially when I leave out the front door for my walks around the yard. Somehow gazing out at the spectacular Catalina Mountains to the north disorients me somewhat and it takes a moment to steady myself.

All this time I have only left the house once, to visit my primary care doctor about three days after I was discharged from the hospital. This was not as difficult as it seemed since the clinic arranged for an Uber driver and, once the visit was over, the nurses themselves gave me a ride back home. How’s that for service! The rest of the time I have spent doing the many exercises that the physical therapist has taught me, watching television, and reading. Lately I have felt well enough to help with some household chores like the dishes and taking out the trash, too.

One thing a serious illness will teach its victims, I would hope, is a sense of gratitude for things we often take for granted. The beauty of a fall morning in the desert, the night sky with its bright moon and stars, the loving concern of friends and family are all things I now hold so dear. Jayne’s careful nursing of my shattered body has been a godsend, and she monitors my medication with a careful eye. My brother has helped take Jayne to her own doctor appointments and grocery store runs, and our good friends have also pitched in to help with these things. It is quite humbling to consider how dependent we are on such freely given mercies, and again, gratitude is an overpowering emotion when considering our good fortune in this regard.

My brain is working again. I am able to read, which is something during the early days was impossible, and I can follow conversations with ease. This new found clarity has allowed me to reach out to old friends on the telephone and either inform them of what happened to me, or to give them an update. I suppose that is what I am doing with this entry to the blog as well, and I am very glad to be able to compose and post what I feel is a milestone on my way to full recovery.

A Near Death Experience

In early October, I had a dress rehearsal for the final days of my life, and I didn’t like it. A lowly mosquito caused this event, having bitten me after feeding off of some bird that carried the West Nile Virus. Within days, I was suffering muscle aches and pains, headaches, and eventually, complete paralysis which resulted in Jayne’s call to 911 and a visit from the sturdy fellows of the Tucson Fire Department. They stabilized me, called an ambulance, and I took a $1,600 ride to the Tucson Medical Center a mere five blocks from my house.

For the next three days, all became blurred and confused. I lay on an uncomfortable hospital bed with more tubes coming and going from my by then useless body that I care to remember. When at last the fog cleared, there followed more than a week of languishing in that bed, alternately vomiting and feeling the room spin about. Eventually it was complications with my digestion that delayed my discharge home, but once here I find I am so weakened and my brain in such a confused state that I sometimes despair of every fully recovering.

During those first days in the hospital I, along with my family, wondered if I would live, and I was asked by the staff if I wanted to be resuscitated. I said yes, but at the time I almost felt like giving up. I am writing these lines under some pretty severe strain and will stop, but I wanted to at least pass on what I have learned these past four weeks. The mosquito is the most deadly animal on planet Earth, and each one of you needs to take notice. Do not, do not, do not get bit, and take all precautions to prevent it. Believe me, your life may depend on it.

On The Move to On The Road

There are two metropolitan areas of considerable size in Arizona that should not exist. Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States, is one of them. Spread out over a vast desert adjacent to the intersection of the mostly dry Salt and Gila rivers, Phoenix has to import much of its water from the Colorado River to sustain its massive population.

Tucson is the second metro area that should not exist, growing from a small Indian village along the banks of the Santa Cruz River in pre-Columbian times to a metro area that spreads out below the Catalina and Rincon mountain ranges to accommodate nearly a million residents. The reason it should not exist is that the Santa Cruz River stopped flowing years ago, and until the Central Arizona Project brought the same Colorado River water to Tucson in 1993 it was the largest city in the United States that depended entirely on ground water. The simple truth is that more water has been pumped out of the ground in Tucson than can ever be replaced, and it is only a matter of time before the desert reclaims its own.

It is this place we have chosen for a home, and in the last four months we have lived here I have often wondered why. We left Bisbee in rather a hurry last April when we were lucky enough to find a cash buyer from our home. Neighbor disputes, an unstable rock wall behind our house, and the steady erosion caused by the drainage subway in front of the place all convinced us that we needed to bail on this little town. Another factor in our decision to leave was the deteriorating infrastructure of Bisbee. There are simply not enough people paying enough taxes to maintain the roads, sewage lines, water lines, and electrical grid. The slow decline of these public necessities would be depressing for anyone considering Bisbee as a home, but I must admit the climate is enough to seduce the most hardened skeptic into giving it a try. Unfortunately for us, the beautiful year-round weather was little comfort during the year we spent in quarantined isolation.

And so we came to Tucson. We found a really nice old adobe home, built in 1947, with red concrete floors and the old fashioned crank-out vertical windows. This historic home is somewhat famous, having been described by author Jack Kerouac in his novel On The Road. This house was owned by a "beat" writer named

Alan Harrington when Kerouac visited in 1949 and he subsequently wrote about it in On The Road. The property came with a wall completely surrounding the house, and a nice little courtyard in the back where we quickly established our shade structures and outdoor shower facility. We live right next to the ruins of Fort Lowell, a military post active during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century. Since it is a historic district, no houses can be built that do not conform to certain design standards and the neighborhood looks like an old Mexican barrio, which it is. We are less than a mile from a supermarket and pharmacy, and to the south of us stands the largest hospital/medical complex in southern Arizona, Tucson Medical Center. Even with all these things so near by, the feel of the place is one of rural living, almost like being way out in the uninhabited desert.

We live in a city that should not be here and adapt as best we can. We make our water work twice: shower runoff goes directly to the trees in the courtyard; dishwater from the kitchen sink gets dumped on the cactus in the front yard, and rinse water from the washing machine is piped via the hose to various plants that look as if they need it. If Tucson is truly doomed, it will likely not happen in our lifetimes and, by being responsible stewards of the water we currently have, we can contribute to the delay of the inevitable.

Living in a Bubble

Although many things have changed since I retired from academia, one aspect of our lives has remained the same. Most of my working life was spent surrounded by political progressives, both in the workplace and in the neighborhood where we lived. Now we are still living in a "liberal" bubble where most of our fellow Bisbeeans share our outrageously radical views like gun registration is a good idea, people who cross the international border looking for work should not have their children taken from them, and that a president who is beholden to Moscow is not a good thing. These modest beliefs are not widely shared outside the Bisbee city limits, though.

A drive to nearby Sierra Vista will reveal clusters of Trump campaign signs and compounds of rusting RVs tucked away in the desert defiantly waving their "Don't Tread On Me" and MAGA flags. There is more than a little menace in these displays. After all, one must ask about the motivation of some people in shouting to the world their anger and defiance. Persuasion? Hardly.

Now that the dust has settled over the election fight, I find myself wondering about the safety of our bubble. There are more than a few people in Arizona whose sense of outrage finds expression in chest-thumping firearms display. A Hispanic female reporter for Telemundo who was broadcasting an election night vote count in Phoenix was surrounded by a group of gun bearing goons who wore no covid masks as they shouted insults at her. Rumors of a violent militia movement in Pinetop have also reached our ears. Even the campground host at our Parker Canyon Lake retreat opined that we would soon be under the rule of "President Harrison" because Joe Biden will resign in six months. (I called bullshit on that one; the host was unarmed at the time of this pronouncement.)

But this insular community we have joined can also be dangerous. Living in a bubble can definitely contribute to cultural myopia, a lack of empathy for anyone who feels differently than those we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. (Witness my reaction to the campground host.) All the same, how someone can clutch an assault rifle and shout Second Amendment slogans while simultaneously opposing abortion because it is "murder" is difficult to fathom. (As John Prine once said, "Now Jesus don't like killin' no matter what the reason's for.") However, if we are ever to heal this nation while moving forward from the Orange years, we must try to listen, and understand, the other side. For most Americans, the real test will be around the Thanksgiving table this year. Hopefully, love will prevail.

Groundhog Day

Over a year ago when I first retired I imagined the possibility that all the coming days would seem the same and, as if to manifest that fever dream, the pandemic restrictions arrived this spring to make sure every new day in Bisbee would be like yesterday, weather permitting. A rather lukewarm response to the spreading sickness on the state and local level in February was followed with a more heated lukewarm response in March featuring the closing of businesses and a suggestion that we all stay at home for the entire month of April, limiting trips outside the home to get groceries or exercise.. From what I have observed I would estimate about two thirds of my fellow Bisbeeites have followed this suggestion, with a visible one third laughing at the restrictions and carrying on as if there were no danger at all.

I find myself doing very little to vary my routine: walking miles every morning, eating a late home made lunch, throwing darts with a steadily increasing accuracy,and filling my evenings by binge watching English murder mysteries on Amazon Prime. This repetition is not particularly onerous, although one does miss eating out in restaurants, bending the elbow in the local pub, and gathering with friends. The biggest loss for me personally is the inability to visit the Copper Queen Library and replenishing the limited supply of reading material I have on hand. In my desperation to find some sort of literary escape I actually submitted myself to finishing Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose, a boring 569 page slog whose ultimate conclusion seems to be the surprising revelation that most marriages require compromises. (Who knew?) My next unread tome is Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, and while it, too, exceeds 500 pages (my edition is 831, not counting the preface) I believe I will find more sympathetic characters within its covers than Stegner’s irritating roster of complaining, snobby prigs. I have heard the library will allow curbside pickup in another week, but since their collection of Dickens is pretty limited, and inter-library loan services are still closed, I will either have to purchase volumes online or simply wait if I want to continue my acquaintance with one of the greatest writers of the English language.

One thing that varies a routine existence of repetition are the terrifying forays to the local Safeway where, jostling among the masked and the unmasked, shoppers take their lives in their hands just to see if toilet paper has returned to the shelves. I used to enjoy grocery shopping, lingering in the aisles as I debated the costs between generic and name brands and impulse purchasing many delicacies that we could easily do without. Now my hands sweat inside the gloves I wear while my eyeglasses fog from the desperate breaths I gulp while trying to avoid other shoppers. It is an ordeal, not a pleasure.

I don’t know if society will ever return to “normal.” If this is the “normal” I should expect for the remaining years of my life I will need more than Charles Dickens to help me through.