How Phoenix takes advantage of wealthy Californians


If you're a resident of the Phoenix, Arizona area, you know that, roughly speaking, there are two types of winter visitors - thrifty midwesterners, and spendy Californians. They bring in much-needed revenue to the Phoenix area, and have been doing so for many generations, but they're treated differently by some of the less-than-scrupulous people of Phoenix. I'll see if I can explain.

Since I grew up in the midwest, and lived for about ten years in California, I have a pretty good idea of their respective points of view. The culture that I grew up in, in Minneapolis, was either wise and thrifty or so darned cheap that someone wouldn't read the newspaper because they didn't want to wear out their eyeglasses. In California, it's as opposite as you can get. To me, I saw it as a very wasteful world, where "conspicuous consumption" was the norm. Clipping coupons, and waiting for sales, was seen as positively egregious behavior, which could get you shunned by just about everyone who considered themselves a true Californian.

If you follow me here, when these people visit Phoenix their behavior shows. Midwesterners, like my parents, would get bargains, and my California friends would be seen, please excuse the expression, as suckers.

Many years ago I saw an extreme example happen when I visited one of my favorite restaurants here in Phoenix with my wealthy California friends who were in for the classic car shows. And don't picture them with tuxedos and top hats, they looked as scruffy as could be. And maybe that was a clue?

Anyway, the waiter must have identified them as Californias, and the inexpensive meal that I usually got turned into a massive bill filled with a la cart items, and extras that my friends were too polite to refuse. When it was all over the tab was ridiculously high, and while my California friends could well afford it, they resented being treated like suckers.

How exactly the waiter was able to identify them as spendthrift Californians I really have no idea. Maybe he had just learned over the years. Of course, when I've dined with my parents (from Minnesota) they would have coupons, and ask what the specials were, and would get excellent service at the best possible price. They would look carefully at the bill and catch if an entree had been listed twice, something that my California friends would never dream of - that would be gauche.

Speaking for myself, I can see both sides. I never really had enough money to be a spendthrift, but I know the California culture, and what is, and isn't, polite. But there's still enough of a midwesterner in me to applaud someone who is wise enough to use an app to get a discount, or at least know when happy hour is.

Image at the top of this post: The California Highway in 1920 (Buckeye Road)
If you liked this article, and would like to see more in the future, along with a LOT of cool old photos of Phoenix, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! Your pledge makes this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!

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