Arizona, what has happened to you? No, I'm not a native, but I've lived in this beautiful state off and on for the greater parts of my life, so I pretty much feel like one. I know its history, its scenic wonders, its good and bad. I first came here from dreary Michigan in the early 70s, and fell in love with the place. It was different then, in so many ways. I think the reason I still defend Arizona is because of my own history here -- I know what it was, and there are glimpses of that nearly every day, from people to places, amid the clutter and awfulness of what Arizona sounds and looks like today.
Two of my children still live here, interestingly enough, the two who were born here, so there may be something to that sense of place thing. The younger three, however, having had to endure the hellhole that was Scottsdale's Saguaro High School, have run like sensible rabbits back to the Northwest, and LA, admittedly now better places to live, if minus the sun most of the time in the former. Their memories obviously are not mine, and as much I may have waxed poetic about the good old days, that is exactly what that are: old days and not the Arizona that exists today, especially in the Phoenix metro area. But, just for a minute, let me tell you what it was.
Scottsdale pretty much stopped at Shea Blvd., and between Lincoln and Shea there wasn't much except open land and houses set back from the road. The Rocking R Dude Ranch behind my house was a tourist destination, tourists who wanted to ride horses and have barbecues, polite people, mostly, and locals and tourists alike rode their horses pretty much anywhere then, along the canals, down to the Sugar Bowl to have ice cream, or Mag's for a sandwich and beer (you could tie your horse up at the hitching posts on Scottsdale Road, and then visit an art gallery or two before riding home). There wasn't much traffic and a lot of the roads were still dirt and gravel.
In the spring, you could take in a baseball game for free and get a preview of the season, at the Scottsdale ball field, now the Civic Center and paved over, alas, and the ball field has become a new place further down the street where it now costs you up to $50 to watch a game. After that, go to the Pink Pony and mingle with the ballplayers, or the Old Corral, where you could have great Mexican food, sitting around a firepit outside. Not any more. Few of the old restaurants still exist, except for the venerable Grapevine.
When the monsoons came, Hayden Road flooded, and it was impossible sometimes to get to Tempe, unless you went around through Phoenix or Mesa, but now the US Corps of Engineers has fixed that pesky problem. Admittedly, there's advantages to that, but it was interesting, to say the least, to watch trees, rattlesnakes, and debris from the higher country float down the newmade river to the south now and then, and it never lasted long.
Tempe itself was a pretty small town then, too, except for ASU, and Mill Avenue was a great place of quirky bars, stores and restaurants frequented by students and locals alike. Now it's a corporate behemoth of Gordon James Brewery type joints and high rise apartments, a Friday night destination to take in the freaks and geeks, with permanent panhandlers/meth addicts staking their sidewalk spots. Progress? Ah, no.
So what happened was this: nobody kept their mouth shut and people started moving here. In droves. They didn't care about this state except that it had sun, they didn't have to shovel snow, and subdivisions starting popping everywhere. Goodbye, open land, orange groves, lettuce farms, horse corrals, small ranches, and laidback lifestyle. Hello easterners and midwesterners with attitude, lawns, entitled kids, allergies, love for Yorkshire terriers and hate for horses and cactus, complaints, prejudices and all their baggage that didn't really have a place in this desert. Hello polluted air, traffic gridlock, concrete, suburban sprawl,strip malls and corporate fast food, and ten degree higher temperatures thanks to all of it.
Yep, you came, you saw, you fucked it up. The only thing that distinguishes the Valley of the Sun from Detroit on some days is an occasional palm tree. Oh, yeah, and those charming tile-roofed McMansions of dubious Mediterranean descent that litter the Valley floor by the tens of thousands, and their SUV-driving inhabitants. Presumably for going to Basha's to get groceries in and driving the brats to soccer, since none of them have ever seen a real desert road.
So that's the changed atmosphere, physically. But the politics? Well, that's another story. Arizonans have always been quirky, -- Barry Goldwater, Sandra Day O'Conner for example. But now, we have the lock on crazy/stupid/tea partyesque morons, most of whom are new arrivals, and their descendants. Take a look at Jan Brewer, a governor that's a joke: Scottsdale PTA mom with $ and white like me prejudices from California with little education; Russell Pearce, state senator and Mesa Mormon (always troublesome for this state) whose racist right wing politics and lies are over the top, running rampant in the so-called legislature. Between SB 1070 and the birther bill, these two and their vile cronies have made this state a national laughingstock.
A little history lesson to them and most of the newcomers to this state might be a wake-up call, i.e., the Indians and Mexicans were here long before you and your ilk were, and it is their cultures, not yours, that helped make this state a diverse great place to live long before you showed up. There ought to be a bill about arresting stupid white people who don't know anything about the desert they moved to but the jails would be overwhelmed as would the state budget, feeding these dolts burritos before they could be transported back to wherever they came from. Cincinnati? Get out. There is no place for you here, and you can't make it like the place you came from, although you've tried and made a mess of it.
So, I shoulder on, here for now, enjoying myself most of the time in spite of it all, but still wishing and hoping for the impossible: that Arizona could reclaim itself to what it was, that the population of transplanted dumbasses would tire of the summer heat and leave once and for all, and that the Easter bunny is real. Yes, some of us Arizonans have brains and memories, but we are few anymore. Cochise, Geronimo, if only you were immortal and still ran wild here, armed with more than arrows.
And lest you think I'm a hypocrite, since I came here myself, I'll say this: I came for the desert, the mountains, the cactus, the burros, the culture, the sun, horses, the history, and the diversity. I didn't want to make it like the place I left. Most of the rest of you so-called Arizonans? Take your SUVs, sunscreen, shopping malls, golf courses, lawns, seas of subdivisions, attitudes, politics, plastic surgery, franchises, bratty type kids and yappy type dogs and get the fuck out. I'd like to ride my horse again over the graves of your flattened mansions.Hope springs eternal.
