MEMORIES
To wrap up this series, I wanted to begin by talking about all of the things that have disappeared in the time I’ve lived in Tucson. Because there really are some wonderful ones. I’ve already mentioned the now-defunct Reader’s Oasis, an awesome independent bookstore if there ever was one. Greenfire Books is now Greenfire music and no longer sells books. The Tucson Citizen is kaput. The outdoor move theater closed down. Some great music has disappeared from town–Julean Rai or however he spells it now is gone, and the guy running open mics at Epic is weird. One of my favorite bands, Gypsy Chocolate, left town with Devon who also no longer plays the banjo. Barbara Kingsolver lives in some farm out in the country in the Midwest, and Desert Rat lives in Seattle. When Nate moved away, the tracking club he’d helped set up fizzled and died. Itl is now Cafe Passe and the spelling and definition bee hasn’t happened in years (and plus, Jim moved away). The Muse is either gone or now defunct. There was a great pottery club there which I think also fizzled and died. You can no longer get pie on Mt. Lemmon. Casbah is gone. The awesome Native American art gallery and shop on 4th is gone. The list goes on and on.
ADVOCACY
A lot of other things could be gone in Tucson, too, like our beautiful environment or our civil rights, for example. Luckily the level of volunteerism and advocacy in Tucson is stunning. We’ve got many groups helping the homeless and hungry, including the Community Food Bank (and their awesome farm in Marana) and Primavera. We’ve got some awesome environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity (which is country-wide but has a good local base), Tucson Clean and Beautiful, the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers (eradicating buffelgrass, which I’ve written about), the Sky Island Aliance and more. We’ve got a local freecycle chapter. Wingspan is an award-winning non-profit advocating for Southern Arizona’s gay, bisexual and transgender community by promoting freedom, equality, safety and well-being through community education and an anti-violence program.
The Center Against Sexual Assault is pretty great, too. They provide services for survivors of sexual assault, including 24-hour crisis intervention, advocacy, information and referral services both by phone and at the hospital, walk-in services during business hours and sliding scale therapy for assault survivors and their partners and families. Crisis advocate training for volunteers is also available, and in April they have a Dine Out for Safety event in which local restaurants contribute a percentage of proceeds from a specific day to the Center (and all supporters have a great excuse to go out to eat and get drinks and dessert).
I also wanted to briefly mention Ben’s Bells, a kindness project in memory of Ben, a beautiful boy who died before his time. His parents created this project in his memory where volunteers make and paint beautiful bells and put them up around town for strangers to find. It is really sweet.
The Volunteer Center does a great job of hooking up potential volunteers (especially youth) with projects in a marvelous online directory where you can search by a number of categories.
CLOSE ENOUGH
One of the great things about Tucson is all of the awesome stuff nearby. I’ve recently written about Apple Annie’s Orchard in Wilcox, and in the past have talked about WindSpirit which is near Winkelman and Globe. You can go to Patagonia to harvest passionflower or check out the great birding. Colossal Cave is gorgeous, as are the Chiracahaus. The stunning red rocks of Sedona (and awesome town of Flagstaff) are just four hours away. Bisbee is a neat little town. I’m not a huge fan of Phoenix but it is the home of Arizona Combat Sports, one of the best MMA gyms in the world in my opinion. Safford is a really scary town, but it does have some amazing hot springs. We spent a weekend at Essence of Tranquility and it was awesome. San Xavier Cooperative Extension sells native mesquite flour, tepary beans, roasted wheat flour, roasted corn, corn meal, squash and more. It is neat.
And I’ll leave you off with a couple songs about Tucson. Check out this link to hear Desert Rat’s Tucson, City That I Love (and a bunch of people talking.)
And this is We Got Cactus.
