Of Mountain Lions, Sharks and Golf in Phoenix

I was asked yesterday whether I’d ever been to Arizona, which I have.  I was asked where in Arizona I had been and it led to my conjuring up memories of spending time in both Arizona and New Mexico over the course of my life.

Most recently, I spent a few weeks in Glendale, just outside Phoenix, in the middle of a moisture-sucking hot July (not that there are any other kinds of July in Phoenix).  A friend of my dad’s offered to take John golfing one day.  John figured that since the man was of a certain age, they’d start early, play 9 holes and be home before the relentless sun baked them to a grease spot.  Sure enough, Jerry picked up John at about 7 and off they went.  I sat in our little extended stay apartment with the kids and watched daytime TV for a while.  Took the kids for a swim, then returned to watch some news.  Apparently children on the outskirts of town were being taken from their backyards by mountain lions.  Good grief!  Yet so many Americans have told me that someday  they’d “love to visit Australia” but they didn’t want to “get eaten by sharks, or be bitten by deadly spiders or snakes.”  I pondered the unlikely event of one of my children being taken by a shark from their own backyard.  Spiders are easily controlled with a good dose of bug spray.  I’ve never seen that many snakes - and of those I have seen, at least a third were rattlesnakes - in the US.  Discovery Channel has a lot to answer for where Australian tourism is concerned.

But I digress...

Lunchtime came and went.  I figured they’d stopped for lunch or some refreshment somewhere.  Finally, around mid-afternoon, there  was a feeble fumbling at the door and it fell open to reveal what remained of my husband.  His face was a ghastly shade of purple with disconcerting white patches in the regions of his cheeks.  His eyes were bloodshot and wild.  His hair looked decidedly crispy.  His lips moved but no sound issued forth.  He moved into the apartment far enough to flop onto the couch.  I backed toward the fridge and mechanically prepared a cold drink, rarely stopping to break my gaze of fascination for the sun-baked horror that was John.

When he was sufficiently revived to speak, John recounted a summary of his day.  He said it started out quite bearable.  The sun rose higher and got hotter, and by the time they were about 5 holes in, John was starting to feel like it was getting a bit much;  however, there were only 4 holes to go and they’d be finished playing by lunch time.  John swung and putted his way toward that final 9th hole, finished it, and then watched Jerry happily start trekking toward the 10th.  They were doing the whole 18.  John braced himself and soldiered on.  If the old guy could do it, so could he. Ah, male pride.  So undaunted.  So deadly.

But I have other memories from Arizona - and New Mexico too.  I remember Tucson because we stayed with friends there first when I was a kid and we went out to Old Tucson. That was before the fire. I thought it was an amazing place, with its old West feel, the stagecoach, the gun fights in the street, the cool dark saloon, and the tales of familiar Westerns that had been filmed there.   

I remember going to Tombstone too. My dad was a big cowboy fan from way back when he was a boy watching Westerns at the local cinema in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and my mum was a history buff, so it all really resonated and stuck. It wasn’t just stories on the screen any more.  Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and that whole OK Corral business - real people in a real place.  Amazing!   

The Grand Canyon!  I adore the Grand Canyon. Magnificent, majestic, monumental - adjectives such as these were surely coined for this incredible place.  There's nothing like walking up to the edge and seeing the earth fall away beneath your feet. It just sucks the breath from my body every time. Last time I went it was snowing. So beautiful.

As for New Mexico, we’d  had "adoptive" grandparents just outside Santa Fe when I was a kid. They had an adobe ranch house and Grandpa built those corner Navajo fireplaces for a living. It was a splendid, cool house, with a tiled floor on the edge of a reservation. On the hearth was a huge old smelting pot from a gold mine, with gold still drizzled down the outside. Must have been worth a fortune. At the back of the house was a trading post and the local native people would come and trade jewellery, baskets, paintings and rugs for staples. I spent hours looking at the beautiful things in that store. Outside the store was a huge, old cottonwood. The last time I visited (some years ago) the cottonwood was dying and the shamans from the local pueblo had come and put all kinds of things on the tree and were doing ceremonies to honour the spirit of the tree.  I don’t think I ever looked at any tree quite the same way after that.   As children, my sister and I used to dig around the property there and find arrowheads and old shards of pottery. I still have a small bag of them in my dresser drawer. I always felt that it was kind of magical on that property.  You could feel the heartbeat of an ancient people right under your feet and see it in the undulation of the land and the pueblos baking in the heat.

I recall staying with friends in Albuquerque when I was about 11.  Their backyard was separated from a large empty lot by a high wooden fence.  I remember playing out there one morning and suddenly hearing the strangest, loud hissing noise coming from the other side of the fence.  There were no footholds that would have enabled me to see over the fence, so I just stood there, staring at that fence and hearing that noise, until suddenly, over the top of the fence, I began to see colourful domes begin to edge ever higher.  Turned out I had ringside seats to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.   That was a very exciting surprise for a child who had only ever seen hot air balloons on TV!

So many memories of such a fortunate life, really.  Writing about them has really brought that home to me.  Oddly, the further I get into writing this blog, the more guilty I feel about not sharing my experiences of Australia, as if I’m betraying her with my shameless love for another country.  At some point, my wide, brown land is going to need her own blog.  In the meantime, however, I will continue to revel, here, in my love for America.  My America.