Is there a reason we few, we happy few, live in Phoenix, better known as Dante's Fifth Level of Hell, during the summer? Huh?
We Phoenicians cheat and go to places like San Diego or Los Angeles, anywhere close to the ocean for a week or two during the summer. However, the vast majority of us are here for the greater part of the summer, moving the hose from one location of our dried-out lawn to another and scalding our collective mouths on water that is hot enough to boil an egg emanating from the 'Cold' water tap.
I remember my mom talking about moving to Phoenix after she met and married my dad. She met him while she was employed at the Alameda Naval Air Station in San Fransisco while he and his squadron were stationed there just after the Big One. She moved, like a dutiful wife, following her husband to where he was born, on the banks of the flowing Salt River in the middle of a wide beautiful valley-in the late fall, early winter. Warm, yet cool, and full of sun, unlike her hometown which had a little reputation for fog and cool-always. Then winter rolled to spring, which lasted about two days waking her to the start of an Central Arizona summer; introducing her to the hell to come. Oh, by the way, there was no such thing as 'air-conditioning' in homes then. That was reserved only for large department stores like Hanny's which would advertise their store with a sign which simply read 'air-cooled.' Evaporative coolers were in full effect and actually worked until late June when Dante's demons rolled in to town on vacation and invoked charms and chants and burnt incense raising their brethren demons of the underworld to come lay out in this god-forsaken heat.
Every year-I swear it gets worse. Although I don't think its the weather as much as my sorry ass is just getting older. Now, I think mom cried every night during the summer time. I know I would have. I never saw her do so, but she was 35 by the time she had me. By the time I was 7, mom and dad were frankly just tired. She probably got tired of weeping uncontrollably after years of repressed despair. I never saw her cry about missing the beautiful weather of the bay, cool breezes, fog, dark days, no sun, and the smell of stale ocean water. To a Phoenician, a 'true' Phoenician defined as one who was born/stranded/abandoned/left for dead here, maybe has a generation or two or, in my case, five generations worth of idiots who never took the train out, the smell of stale ocean and endless cloudy, cool days this time of year is like offering crack to any of the people living under the Seventh Avenue Bridge. I am salivating just sitting here thinking about it!
The idea of getting up in the morning in a place, such as the one my mother left, and doing something such as going out for your morning run, you actually get to sleep in. Ya see, in Phoenix, in order for anyone to exercise during the summer, you have to wake up and be outside before the sun comes up. That's about 4:30. Sure, its still 96 decrees at that time in the morning, but the advantage is you don't die as quickly from heat exhaustion in the pre-dawn hours. Anything after the sun rises, the simple fact is, you're dead-simple. They will find you under a neighbor's tree with your eyes rolled back in your head and your tongue swollen. If you awakened for a run in the morning in San Fransisco, you don't want to go out before dawn. You want the sun to be up or at least behind the clouds above the horizon. The neighborhood coffee shops aren't open until then. The only thing up at that time are the fishing boats getting ready to go out into the bay to catch something you could eat that night. The only thing in Phoenix you could get up and go catch at a pre-dawn hour is a STD.
Look, I like living here. I know you don't believe me and frankly, you'd be right. Except for my roots going way down and having actually touched Dante's fifth level, I am in too deep to move. Our kids are here and they show no signs of moving. Sure, mom could have married a dad who could have been born on the Olympic Peninsula, or New Hampshire, but she could have married a guy from Buffalo, New York where they 26 inches of lake effect snow in one day in the winter. That would-well, that would be bad.
There is a great advantage to living here. Living here weeds out the weak. This is God's farm where He thins the herd. We are hearty souls who make a living here, we few. My son, Travis, is in El Paso, gearing up for another tour of the beautiful Middle East and I talked to him yesterday. They spent 17 hours in the sun and soldiers were dropping like flies, except for his team. They were all from Phoenix. Just another day at the pool for them. You don't find any French people here in the summer. Italians are missing too. The Germans are in the hotels and delis and the Scotch and Irish are, you guessed it, in the bars. Don't believe me? Go hang out at one of our malls. We have a bunch of them. They're marked with signs that say 'air cooled.'
We Phoenicians cheat and go to places like San Diego or Los Angeles, anywhere close to the ocean for a week or two during the summer. However, the vast majority of us are here for the greater part of the summer, moving the hose from one location of our dried-out lawn to another and scalding our collective mouths on water that is hot enough to boil an egg emanating from the 'Cold' water tap.
I remember my mom talking about moving to Phoenix after she met and married my dad. She met him while she was employed at the Alameda Naval Air Station in San Fransisco while he and his squadron were stationed there just after the Big One. She moved, like a dutiful wife, following her husband to where he was born, on the banks of the flowing Salt River in the middle of a wide beautiful valley-in the late fall, early winter. Warm, yet cool, and full of sun, unlike her hometown which had a little reputation for fog and cool-always. Then winter rolled to spring, which lasted about two days waking her to the start of an Central Arizona summer; introducing her to the hell to come. Oh, by the way, there was no such thing as 'air-conditioning' in homes then. That was reserved only for large department stores like Hanny's which would advertise their store with a sign which simply read 'air-cooled.' Evaporative coolers were in full effect and actually worked until late June when Dante's demons rolled in to town on vacation and invoked charms and chants and burnt incense raising their brethren demons of the underworld to come lay out in this god-forsaken heat.
Every year-I swear it gets worse. Although I don't think its the weather as much as my sorry ass is just getting older. Now, I think mom cried every night during the summer time. I know I would have. I never saw her do so, but she was 35 by the time she had me. By the time I was 7, mom and dad were frankly just tired. She probably got tired of weeping uncontrollably after years of repressed despair. I never saw her cry about missing the beautiful weather of the bay, cool breezes, fog, dark days, no sun, and the smell of stale ocean water. To a Phoenician, a 'true' Phoenician defined as one who was born/stranded/abandoned/left for dead here, maybe has a generation or two or, in my case, five generations worth of idiots who never took the train out, the smell of stale ocean and endless cloudy, cool days this time of year is like offering crack to any of the people living under the Seventh Avenue Bridge. I am salivating just sitting here thinking about it!
The idea of getting up in the morning in a place, such as the one my mother left, and doing something such as going out for your morning run, you actually get to sleep in. Ya see, in Phoenix, in order for anyone to exercise during the summer, you have to wake up and be outside before the sun comes up. That's about 4:30. Sure, its still 96 decrees at that time in the morning, but the advantage is you don't die as quickly from heat exhaustion in the pre-dawn hours. Anything after the sun rises, the simple fact is, you're dead-simple. They will find you under a neighbor's tree with your eyes rolled back in your head and your tongue swollen. If you awakened for a run in the morning in San Fransisco, you don't want to go out before dawn. You want the sun to be up or at least behind the clouds above the horizon. The neighborhood coffee shops aren't open until then. The only thing up at that time are the fishing boats getting ready to go out into the bay to catch something you could eat that night. The only thing in Phoenix you could get up and go catch at a pre-dawn hour is a STD.
Look, I like living here. I know you don't believe me and frankly, you'd be right. Except for my roots going way down and having actually touched Dante's fifth level, I am in too deep to move. Our kids are here and they show no signs of moving. Sure, mom could have married a dad who could have been born on the Olympic Peninsula, or New Hampshire, but she could have married a guy from Buffalo, New York where they 26 inches of lake effect snow in one day in the winter. That would-well, that would be bad.
There is a great advantage to living here. Living here weeds out the weak. This is God's farm where He thins the herd. We are hearty souls who make a living here, we few. My son, Travis, is in El Paso, gearing up for another tour of the beautiful Middle East and I talked to him yesterday. They spent 17 hours in the sun and soldiers were dropping like flies, except for his team. They were all from Phoenix. Just another day at the pool for them. You don't find any French people here in the summer. Italians are missing too. The Germans are in the hotels and delis and the Scotch and Irish are, you guessed it, in the bars. Don't believe me? Go hang out at one of our malls. We have a bunch of them. They're marked with signs that say 'air cooled.'
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