What is your favorite Arizona memory from 20 years ago?


I was talking to the administrator of the Facebook page "Arizona Memories", who told me that lately young people have been joining the group, but then dropping out, presumably because there's nothing that catches their attention. Most of the posts there go waaaaay back, like to the twentieth century, and if you're thirty or younger, those may be either hazy memories, or maybe you weren't yet even alive back then. But if you were alive twenty years ago, and you have an Arizona memory that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it.

As they say on TikTok, I'll go first. It's January of 2021 as I write this, so I'll my fondest memory of twenty years ago was my brand new Mercury Cougar. That's me up there in the parking lot of my parents' trailer park - oops, I mean mobile home community (they were very strict about that!) in Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix. And by the way, twenty years ago there was no connotation to the word "cougar", the way there is now. It was just the name of a big cat.

In 2001 I was no longer young enough to drive a little sports car anymore, as it would just look like "mid-life crisis", so I was pleased with the Cougar. It was sporty, and fast, but it wasn't a tiny little car like the cars I'd owned before, which included a Saturn SC, a 5.0 Mustang, a Saab Sonett, and an MG Midget. The Cougar seemed age-appropriate for me, and it brought me into the 21st Century with style.

It was a great car, although it got terrible gas mileage, but I liked it. The doors were very long and very heavy, and I remember that they always seemed to attack my girlfriend. But otherwise it was a comfortable car, with great A/C (very important in Phoenix!) and out on the road it tracked like a laser beam. I drove that car until 2006, which I actually did get a mid-life crisis car, a Saturn Sky.

OK, I could go on and on, and I probably will, but now it's your turn - tell me about twenty years ago in Arizona! I'm listening. Twenty years ago, no more, no less.

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