Tucson: Hard to Hate

There are a lot of places in America that feel fallen, dystopic, but Tucson ain't one of them.. I could make fun of Arizona for feeling like the last stand of the angry white man, legislatively and otherwise, but Tucson never gives that vibe...

I am not going to argue it's Disneyland, but it's hard to hate.. there's nothing much wrong with it.. commercial signs don't block the view, and life flows easy. Somehow the people here manage to shave off the rough edges of life... I won't pretend it has a small town feel, but it has a medium sized town feel, which is a feat, because it's a large town.. Tucsonians manage to make things their own.. they live in just enough isolation, and with just enough forethought, to do a nice job of living just well enough. I have noticed the Yuppies here aren't that painful, and the counter cultural folks here are neither that interesting nor pissed off, the culture war is stunted by a lack of distance between the opposing forces.. there's a common appreciation of doing things better if they can, and no one group pretends they corner the market on that.. the problems are in Phoenix, or across the border, and people don't honk their horns or act in a hurry or too important.. again, Scottsdale for all that... It's a military town, but it's Air Force, it leads to science geeks and pretty wives at the clubs downtown, not rowdy fights and food stamp enlisted men twitching with PTSD (not that I am blaming them, trust me..), and it's a university town, but it's Arizona, the pretension is to a dull roar, and the rewards are apparent.. Tucsonians might not be too worldly, but they all seem to appreciate what they do have, and are willing to invest to make it better, and they don't try to compete with nature.. there is no schitz there, no fear, no white man overdrive... just living...

I could get into the nuts and bolts of Dark Sky respect, and the Bone Yard and telescopes and Bill Gates, the newest neighbor, but what matters in Tucson is that you can ride into town from some directions and still feel like you are in a place one tenth the size, any town in the American West that still has some of it's soul, not Sedonaized (new age insanity) or Havasuized (white man's bulldozed paradise in the sun) and it's 1972, but not in a bad way, not in a backwards way.. time doesn't seem to be ahead or behind in Tucson, it's right here, calmly right now, and thats pretty healthy...