A Californian in Phoenix


I was talking with a friend of mine who grew up in Phoenix, and has always lived there, yesterday outside on a patio of a restaurant, and as usual I was reminded of weird I am. I'm a Californian in Phoenix.

Oddly enough though, I didn't live very long in California, but it has strongly influenced me. I moved there was I was 25, after I graduated from ASU, and returned to Phoenix when I was 31. And I grew up in Minneapolis, so you would think that I would be more Phoenician, or Minneapolitan?

Of course, I don't notice my weirdness until I'm around normal people, like my friend. And one of the weirdest things that I do is to sit outside on patios. In Phoenix this really makes no sense. The buildings in Phoenix are comfortable and air conditioned. And while it isn't blazing hot all year long in Phoenix, it is most of the time. And I don't mean pleasantly warm, I mean "fry an egg on the sidewalk" hot. And of course in Minneapolis it's the same, except at the other extreme end of the temperature scale (unless it's summer and humid with mosquitos). And so in a very short span of time I became addicted to sitting outside, in the beautiful weather of Southern California, especially Santa Barbara.

If you've always lived in Phoenix, I understand that you go from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building, unless you're one of the people who has to work outside (how do you DO that?!). And so sitting outside, on a restaurant patio, has got to be the weirdest behavior imaginable. And it gets worse.

Outside patios in Phoenix are smoking areas. I'm a non-smoker myself, so when I see people outside, aside from trying to stay away from the smoke, I sympathize. Many years ago these people were allowed to smoke indoors. Now they have to go outside. I see a lot of these people, and most of them look as if they're waiting for the firing squad. Again, I sympathize. But they must look at me and wonder why I'm outside since I'm not smoking? Sometimes people ask me, as if to say, "Why are you outside?"

I sat on a patio yesterday in Phoenix (it's February) and it was glorious. When I lived in California I spent as much time outdoors as I could. I fell in love with the feeling of an ocean breeze, which I can still kinda feel in Phoenix (I have a good imagination!). I will sit outside when it's too cold, wearing a sweatshirt, I will sit outside when it's too hot, huddled in the shade (well, not in August in Phoenix!).

Luckily, my Phoenix friends humor me. If I try to explain, it seems to just make less sense. I like sitting outside. I'm a Californian in Phoenix.

Image at the top of this post: Selfie at Encanto Park, 11th Avenue and Encanto Boulevard, Phoenix, Arizona. South of Thomas Road.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more