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.

A Cautionary Tale on Super Tuesday

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” This quote has been attributed to Sinclair Lewis, but no one knows for sure. The only sure thing is that the quote has become all too accurate.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

After a lengthy hiatus from this blog it is high time I returned to the practice of sending out digital dispatches to the void. Much has happened since I last took keyboard in hand including a holiday vacation to New York City and Washington D.C. I included the latter town in our Christmas plans because I wanted Jayne and Benjamin to see the place, and I was hoping to meet with the Orange Idiot to encourage his resignation. Unfortunately he heard I was coming and left to hide at Mar-A-Lago the day before we arrived.

But I have not reappeared to rehash what was a wonderful journey that also resulted in a beautiful Ganesh head tattoo on my right forearm. No, I am here for a more important reason: to complain about the aggressive fauna of Southern Arizona.

The citizens of Bisbee enjoy trash service twice a week, and the backup beeping of the garbage truck is always a comforting sound issuing from the end of our driveway on Monday mornings. Generally speaking, I try to bag up our rubbish on Sunday night and, in an attempt to avoid attacks by domestic dogs or rampaging coatimundis, I often place the bag in the back of my car to sit overnight. I followed this regimen earlier this week, but disaster struck anyway.

Sleep has become difficult for me in my advanced years and some mornings, like last Monday, I get up far too early. In this case it was shortly after 4:00 am when I gave up the effort of attempting to fall back into the welcoming arms of Morpheus. I listed to the radio and had my breakfast while waiting for the dawn to come which would allow me to start on my morning walk up to the Mule Pass Divide. It was still dark at 6:00 am, although the eastern horizon had started to become visible and I decided it was safe to retrieve the trash bag from the car and place it at the end of the driveway. Then, after another cup of coffee and getting dressed for the walk, I left the front door. I could not believe my eyes. There, at the end of the driveway, were two very large javelinas rooting through my trash like Republicans at a fundraising dinner. My temper got the better of my discretion as I ran towards them yelling “Get out of here you mangy pigs!” They did not challenge me but took off up the mountainside like goats, leaving me to clean up their mess.

I make this complaint because just the previous week we entertained our out of town friends, Bill and Barb Wood, by taking them on several walks around town. Bill, a talented photographer, snapped this photograph of a mural just a few blocks from our house. At the time we had a chuckle, but I little realized this was nothing less than a prophecy in paint!

Books, Bytes, and Biblioposers

As readers of my other blog “True Archives” know, I am not the most enthusiastic booster of academic libraries and librarians. I have long recognized the threat of university librarians and their fanatical embrace of everything digital to destroy the printed legacy of mankind, and in my retirement from serving on the margins of their profession I have seen little to change my mind. During my morning walk today I recalled a criticism leveled at me during my final years of employment that I “had not kept up with the latest trends in the profession.” The specific example cited of this perceived personal failure was my inability to understand exactly what is meant by “digital humanities.” I still don’t understand what that term means, but I find it amusing the accusation of my ignorance came from those who had NEVER published in the humanities (digitally or otherwise) while my own modest contribution to history totals nearly fifty journal articles and three books. I guess my humanities understanding is limited to the actual practice of scholarship rather than the application of zeros and ones to the discipline of history. Guilty as charged.

I only bring this up today because I have had occasion to interact regularly with the professional, courteous, and friendly staff of Bisbee’s Copper Queen Library and I am overjoyed to discover their own dedication to print. Unlike their academic colleagues, the public librarians of Bisbee recognize and value books, and their collection, while small, is bolstered by an efficient interlibrary loan system that insures a steady flow of volumes I am interested in reading. Their public programming is outstanding as well, sponsoring a weekly lecture series, regular showing of interesting films at our local theater, and operating an annex in the San Jose neighborhood that is entirely staffed by volunteers. I am certainly not the only one who recognizes the Copper Queen Library as the gem of our town; Library Journal has honored the place with its annual award as the best small library in America for 2019. Imagine, a library that honors and promotes book reading! This is quite heartening in this age of darkness wrought by computers and their tireless boosters.

Random Rants

It is time to divert from the biographical trajectory of this blog and get right down to the problems with modern American life (aside from our idiot President). Here, in no particular order, are my most recent complaints:

1) Why do they advertise the evening news on the evening news? I mean, are you not already watching it?

2) The costumes worn by bicyclists are among the most stupid of any sport. Even the most fit athletes have a problem with spandex.

3) I do not understand those who complain that people seeking healthcare in Canada must wait weeks for an appointment. When was the last time you tried to get an appointment with a dermatologist in the United States? I am sure they saw you right away...

4) Why does our government retain the penny? It costs more than a penny to make a penny!

"Iuventus stultorum magister"

Ringo. The name has (forgive me) a certain “ring” that has echoed throughout the twentieth century. It hardly echoed through the nineteenth century, the time when Johnny Ringo actually lived, because he was simply not that famous. The legend of the alcoholic, educated gunslinger was invented in 1927 by writer Walter Noble Burns in his colorful fable Tombstone, An Illiad of the Southwest. Burns added Ringo to his blood and thunder epic about Wyatt Earp to give a dash of mysterious menace to the cowboy faction of Cochise County that the Earp brothers battled in Tombstone, a sort of counterbalance to the story of Doc Holiday, another alcoholic, educated gunslinger. As a result, both men became legends long after their own time, and the number of bad guys in western movies named Ringo are almost beyond counting. One of the best cinematic portrayals of this legend was turned in by actor Michael Biehn in the 1994 film Tombstone. (The title of this essay comes from the exchange of threats in Latin between Biehn and Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday in that movie. It translates as "Youth is the teacher of fools.")

But the real John Ringo was not a gunfighter, accoring to his biographer John Burrows, but instead a vicious drunk who may (or may not) have shot a couple of men in the back during his short tenure on earth. Burrows biography sifts through what little is known of Ringo from primary sources, and devotes a chapter to the man’s mysterious death on the banks of Turkey Creek

in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona. Ringo was found seated in the forks of a blackjack Oak tree, bootless and with a bullet hole in his right temple, ostensibly from the discharged revolver in his right hand. In spite of a coroner’s verdict of suicide claims of a few men, including Wyatt Earp, to have actually shot Ringo persist to this day.

Jayne and I went camping in the Chiricahua Mountains last week, a beautiful spot along the splashing brook that is Turkey Creek. Although we were a bit on edge pondering the very real twenty-first century danger of drug mules known to traverse this area, we enjoyed our time immensely, and finished our trip by stopping at the gravesite of the “gunfighter who never was.” Requiescet in pace, Johnny.

The Price of Boredom

The bumper sticker is really an inside joke. I saw it on a car yesterday and had to reflect on the slogan: “Keep Warren Boring.” Locals will recognize Warren as the large Bisbee neighborhood which splays out south of the Lavender Pit, a place where the “nice” people lived in the early years of the twentieth century. It is still home to our community hospital, our lone elementary school,

and a few second hand shops, but almost all of the businesses that used to line Arizona Avenue were shuttered years ago. There remains a quiet residential area with some pretty nice looking homes in various stages of deterioration and a strip-designed city park that hosts our weekly farmer’s market. Overall a sleepy, quiet place and one overlooked by the tourists who frequent Old Bisbee every weekend to carouse in the many saloons. So, yes, Warren is boring and it looks likely to stay that way.

Keeping a place boring requires that residents look elsewhere for commerce and entertainment. For Bisbee citizens, that means a drive to Sierra Vista for almost everything other than groceries. With a population that exceeds Bozeman, Montana, “Sorry Vista” is a vast area of strip malls and franchises such as Outback and McDonald’s. It is a city without a core, lacking a downtown area

in favor of sprawling development that guarantees the necessity of driving some sort of vehicle to shop, worship, or eat. It resembles the worst of Tucson’s development where older ugly temporary buildings are periodically bulldozed to throw up newer ugly ones, and where directions are generally given by using chain restaurants as geographic waypoints.

We can indeed glory that Warren is “boring” (or even the rest of Bisbee) because Sierra Vista offers us the luxury of keeping it that way. We drove over to the big city yesterday for a doctor’s appoinment and had a wonderful lunch, but it is always somewhat stressful to deal with busy intersections and traffic lights. We have neither in Old Bisbee, and I hope it remains that way (even if it is boring.