Tucson Notes

Looking Back

Happy Birthday to Me!

I understand it's a matter of profound indifference to most of you who stumble on The Data Port in Lefty Blogs, but I’m 79 years old today. There is no particular virtue in being old; no wisdom bestowed by age that recommends what is written here. Still, the memory of those years does much to inform what I believe and write about. Getting clear about all that is what these occasional Looking Back pieces will be about as I sweep into my Eightieth year.

I have lived, in accord with an old Chinese curse, in interesting times. I actually remember events that many (or perhaps most?) of the inhabitants of this small slice of the blogosphere know only as 'history.'

My life is bracketed by two great financial collapses: the stock market crash of 1929, and our current financial system disaster. I was only a month old on Black Monday, October 28. The next day, Black Tuesday, a record 16.4 million shares were traded and at one point the ticker tape fell two and a half hours behind. While I was asleep in my crib the Great Depression had begun.

Annexation
I had meant to comment about the information meeting on possible annexation by Tucson of a parcel of land north of River Road. Other stuff came up. I think the city officials knew that dog wasn’t going to hunt, but they had to respond to a request made by a resident in the area.

Foothills people fear over-building, which they believe city zoning will make inevitable. Ironically, as soon as the CC&Rs on granddad's three and a half acres expire the folks up here tend to break the property into smaller parcels and build houses.

Downtown Saturday Night
I went. I’ll probably go again. It seemed thin.