Category: Uncategorized

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Edgar Mitchell, one of just 12 human beings who walked on the moon, has died. He was 85.

“On behalf of the entire NASA family, I would like to express my condolences to the family and friends of NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. “He believed in exploration, having been drawn to NASA by President Kennedy’s call to send humans to the moon. He is one of the pioneers in space exploration on whose shoulders we now stand.”

Mitchell died Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to NASA. His death occurred on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing, which took place on February 5, 1971.

Mitchell, Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa were the crew of Apollo 14, which launched on January 31, 1971. Mitchell became the sixth man to walk on the lunar surface.

He and Shepard set foot on the moon two separate times during their mission, spending more than nine hours collecting rocks, taking measurements and (in Shepard’s case) hitting a pair of golf balls. Mitchell also took a famous photograph of Shepard standing next to an American flag. All told, the two spent 33 hours on the moon.

Mitchell, who was the lunar module pilot, found the trip to be a profound experience, telling the UK Telegraph in 2014, “Looking at Earth from space and seeing it was a planet in isolation…that was an experience of ecstasy, realizing that every molecule in our bodies is a system of matter created from a star hanging in space. The experience I had was called Samadhi in the ancient Sanskrit, a feeling of overwhelming joy at seeing the Earth from that perspective.”

Fascinated and frustrated by the relationship between religion and science, he was very public about seeking links between the known and unknown, being a firm believer in extraterrestrial activity, and was convinced UFOs had visited Earth.

In one interview, he told Bloomberg Business that the 1947 Roswell incident, which to some people is evidence of an extraterrestrial crash landing, was covered up, saying, “It’s not just military. It’s a cabal of organizations primarily for a profit motive.”

The astronaut was born in Hereford, Texas, in 1930. A Navy pilot, he joined NASA in 1966 as part of the agency’s astronaut corps. He was well-qualified: besides having served as a test pilot and college instructor, he earned a doctorate from MIT in aeronautics and astronautics.

With Mitchell’s death, of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, seven survive: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, David Scott, John W. Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

Many have talked of their missions with joy and wonder. Mitchell went beyond, however: he believed we were all connected—to everything.

“We are not alone in the universe,” he told the Utica Phoenix. “We are just one grain of sand on a huge beach.”

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…who various countries consider the biggest threat to world peace.

BOOM!

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As I have lamented on this blog previously, one of the biggest regrets of my life was that I’ve gotten rid of so many things I wish I’d held on to.

The first of those things being the notebooks I’d amassed that were full of audio manufacturer literature from the 70s and 80s. I don’t actually recall at this point if I intentionally threw them out or if they were inadvertently left in a closet when fleeing an unfortunate roommate situation in 1989, but the fact remains at some point they disappeared.

The second of those things were the multiple notebooks of the floor plan/exterior elevation handouts I’d collected from Hallcraft Homes for the duration of my dad’s employment with the company. I believe I left them in Dad’s care when I first moved out of my folks’ house in the early 80s, with the intent of eventually getting them back at some point. Well, life happened and I’d all but forgotten about them (and the dozens of actual construction blueprints in our possession) until some time after he moved to the Bay Area and I inquired as to their whereabouts. “Oh, I threw all that stuff out after the divorce.”

Well fuck me.

My heart sank. Looking back on it now, I think his tenure at the firm (especially the last few years after they’d been bought out by a Canadian company) became increasingly difficult and when the opportunity presented itself for a purge of all physical reminders of his time there, he went for it—something totally out of character for my dad who seemed to hold onto every other thing in the world.

With the advent of the internet, I’d always fantasized what a great resource having all those handouts would be to current owners of the homes—if only for historical reference, and after his death I’d hoped against all odds that my sister would find a hidden cache in his things. Alas, no such cache was found.

Searching online for already published examples of those handouts has been a lesson in futility—until yesterday. With all the Phoenix history swirling through my brain of late, I did a search for “Hallcraft Showcase of Homes.” This led me to—of all places—the Sunburst Farms HOA page. Sunburst Farms was the first of several Hallcraft subdivisions with one- and two-acre lots. (Ben’s grandfather actually still owns a home in one of the east side developments.) On this HOA page there was a link to “Historic Documents” and on that page were links that sent my heart fluttering: Hallcraft Flyer 1, Hallcraft Home Plans 1, Hallcraft Home Plans 2, Home Elevations, Home Prices…

It wasn’t a treasure trove, but considering I’d previously only possessed three floor plans and an equal number of exterior elevation sheets, being able to add three more was like Christmas to me.

This morning, while I lay awake at 4 am again, another thought came to me: Craigslist! and I thought, “Fuck It! If I don’t put it out there, it will never happen.”

So now I have a “wanted” ad on the Phoenix Craigslist seeking these handouts; not to buy, but simply to scan or photograph in hopes of getting them all posted online. In the 1970s alone there were about 45 different single-family floor plans, and probably an equal number of townhouse/fourplex plans. The fact that someone kept a few—that I didn’t have—tells me that somewhere in Phoenix, in boxes at the back of closets and garages, my treasure may be lurking.

The images above are from yesterday’s discovery, and that particular plan was actually one of my favorites even though—god forbid as far as my mother was concerned—it didn’t have a separate dining room. That seems silly now, as I could easily see using the “family room” as a separate dining space since I could never understand the need for having a living room and a family room.

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I’ve fallen down an internet rabbit hole. This was prompted by waking from a dream a couple nights ago wherein I was in the studio of the interior designer my mom worked for in the 1960s and then wracking my brain trying to remember exactly where on Central Avenue it had been located. I can only assume that as yet another example of mid-century architecture it was leveled decades ago to make room for one of the new condo complexes that now line the Central Corridor—or more likely for the I-10 deck park tunnel. All I can remember is that it was on the west side of the street and the tall palm trees that used to line both sides of the boulevard were out front. There was also a small grass lawn separating the sidewalk from the studio itself. In case anyone is interested, it was called Kay Baden Decorators.

The last time I was there I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old.  They relocated to a small storefront in Biltmore Fashion Park shortly thereafter. The funny thing is, I can easily remember the smell of the studio more distinctly than recalling anything specifically visual in it—except that the front part of the studio/showroom was a dark labyrinth of furniture, accessories, and stuff—a lot of it completely inaccessible. In short, it was a mess. A fascinating mess for a young person to explore, but a mess nonetheless. (It wasn’t really a showroom; it was used more as a storeroom.)

While I was eventually able to file this unexpected memory and fall back to sleep, the first thing I did upon waking the next morning was to begin Googling for old pictures of North Central Avenue.

I still haven’t found anything that even remotely looks like what I remember, but it led me two two websites that have consumed me for the last couple days. The first is The Rogue Columnist, who is an amazing trove of Phoenix history, and has posted dozens of photos from the time when Phoenix was just a sleepy little desert town (or at least not the car-obsessed asphalt jungle it has become). The second is a discussion forum called How Do You Remember Phoenix? Stories from Long Time Residents. At 850+ pages, it’s going to take me quite some time to wade through it, but it’s already triggered memories of long-gone places that I didn’t even realize were gone until they were pointed out. This has emphasized how much I want to document places around town now—as mundane as some of them may be—to help future residents remember places that are just as likely to be razed in the future as Thomas Mall (just one example) was in the past.

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After we had gotten, in disco parlance, ‘sufficiently cocktailed,’ we’d head way downtown to the trashy gay nightclubs, places with names like Bullwinkle, Hotbods Desert Dance Palace, and our favorite, Sammy’s Steak House—a sleazy toilet that served neither steak nor any other kind of meal. The gay clubs played the best music—a combination of hardcore disco (Lime, Sylvester, The Twins) and dance-punk (New Order, The B-52s, The Thompson Twins) that drove us mad with pleasure. Here, in the ‘bad part of town’ at 2 in the morning, freaking out to DJ Hubert’s obscure Eurotrash mixes, we could forget the suburban strip-mall jobs and junior-college grind that awaited us on Monday. And Tuesday. And, we feared, forever.” ~ Robrt Pela

(I knew Hubert, although not well—and didn’t particularly like him. My most vivid memory of the guy—and one of the main reasons I didn’t care to be around him—was how from his perch in the DJ booth at HisCo. Disco about six feet above the dance floor and very near the club’s entrance, he’d lean over the glass divider and yell “Uterus!” at the female patrons walking in.)

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As a Phoenician, nothing makes me more depressed than endless sunny days.” ~ Jon Talton, The Rogue Columnist

While I haven’t reached that point again yet, I know it will eventually come, and I do remember many, many times before we moved to Denver feeling this way about life in Phoenix. I often remember waking up, looking outside and saying in as deadpan voice as possible, “Oh look, another cloudless sunny day.”

That being said, even when that inevitable day returns, after having spent four years in Denver, it will still be preferable to looking outside first thing in the morning and seeing that Mother Nature had dumped eight inches of snow overnight.

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US government policies on device encryption should be decided by the public and Congress, not companies like Apple, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in an interview at the World Economic Forum being held this week in Davos, Switzerland.

Well of course he did. AT&T, probably more than any other company in US history has not only bent over for government spying, but actually spread their ass cheeks and lubed up for it.

And that, my friends, is why I will never buy services from AT&T.

And good luck getting Congress to listen to anything “the public” has to say. “The public” doesn’t own them the way AT&T does, after all.

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We’ve been watching this little place undergo a major renovation since shortly after we got back to Phoenix. It’s a couple blocks from our favorite coffeehouse, so we drive past it often. At one point it was gutted down to the studs (which was probably needed for a house of this vintage), but it’s now in the final stretch of being finished. I love everything about it—from the basic 40s-era design and the choice of colors to the walled front patio and the garage-turned-guesthouse in back—without even having seen the inside.

Ben and I would love to buy a place like this, or failing that at some point talk the current owners of our rental into selling us the place. I would love to do a makeover on it like the one above.

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It’s official. Apple has become Microsoft.

One of the things I really appreciated about Apple’s OS is that you didn’t have to reinstall it multiple times a year because something got screwed up. Apparently with their new all-encompassing focus on iDevices, no one in Cupertino really gives a rat’s ass about OS X any more—beyond giving it a shiny new coat of paint once a year so Tim Cook & Company can waltz out on stage and tell the faithful how magical it’s become.

Since upgrading to El Capitan some time ago, I’ve been having nothing but trouble with Apple Mail—to the point where I got Apple itself involved trying to troubleshoot why syncing wasn’t working with any regularity between the cloud and my Mac.

As mysteriously as the problem started, after several weeks it just disappeared, only to be replaced with Apple Mail using ridiculous amounts of CPU cycles and sending the laptop’s fans into overdrive while sitting idle. Fed up with these ongoing issues (and in no hurry to give up my iCloud email address because my life is tied to it),  I opted back into Apple’s public beta program, hoping against all odds that maybe this issue had been addressed and corrected in the latest beta since apparently I wasn’t the only one experiencing it.

Thankfully, after updating to OS X beta 10.11.3, Mail’s CPU gorging disappeared. I was a happy camper.

Then, about a week or so ago, I woke one morning to discover that an OS update had automatically downloaded, installed, and was prompting me to restart the computer. WTF?

Somehow, the developer (not the public beta, which to my knowledge still isn’t out) version of 10.11.4 had decided it was going to install itself on my Mac. I am not in the developer program, and after installation there was no record of it installing, other than the version number changed in “About This Mac.” AND NO WAY TO UNINSTALL IT.

It didn’t seem to break anything, so I just accepted this and resolved to live with it until 10.11.4 was officially released.

Well, lately my Mac has been randomly locking up—to the point where it requires a hard power cycle. I realize that using beta software comes with risks like this, but this particular beta I never signed up for.

When 10.11.3 was officially released last week, I attempted to install it over this bastard 10.11.4. Apple was having none of that. Apparently you can’t go backward unless you wipe everything and reinstall from scratch—which is exactly what I find myself doing this morning.

Thanks, Microsoft Apple.

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I believe in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in Nate Silver and Neil deGrasse Tyson and Christopher Hitchens, although I do admit he can be a kind of an asshole. I cannot get behind some supreme being who weighs in on the Tony Awards while a million people get whacked with machetes. I don’t believe a billion Indians are going to hell. I don’t think we get cancer to learn life lessons, and I don’t believe that people die young because God needs another angel. I think it’s just bullshit, and on some level, I think we all know that. I mean, don’t you? 

Look, I understand that religion makes it easier to deal with all of the random shitty things that happen to us, and I wish I could get on that ride; I’m sure I would be happier, but I just can’t. Feelings aren’t enough. I need it to be real.” ~ Piper Chapman, Orange is the New Black

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As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that lot of weird stuff goes through my head when I’m laying awake in bed at 4 am; stuff that wouldn’t have pinged my consciousness when I was younger. This morning, while still pondering the joint loss of David Bowie and Alan Rickman, I remembered reading somewhere that within 300 years of your death—unless you’re someone notable like Bowie or Einstein or Neil Armstrong—you will have been completely forgotten since anyone who knew you directly will have long since passed on as well.

I personally put that time frame at half that—or even less. Think about your grandparents. Now think about your great grandparents. How much do you actually know about them and their lives?

I know more about my material grandparents than my paternal. Even then, that knowledge is woefully lacking, and since Mom was an only child, once my sister and I pass on, that knowledge will vanish as well. I believe my grandfather was a chemical engineer. I know he worked in a white collar capacity at a paper mill for the majority of his life, and was recognized by the company for coming up with a new way of folding napkins for use in fast-food restaurants. Beyond that, I haven’t really got a clue. Was he in the army? Did he fight in World War I? How did he and my grandmother meet? Those are some of the things I probably should’ve asked Mom about when she was alive, but they were also those things that when you’re younger you really don’t care about. I have no idea if my grandmother ever worked—or if she did, what exactly her profession had been. As far as I know, she was a homemaker for her entire life (as was pretty common for women of that generation).

Going back another generation, I have no knowledge of my great grandparents beyond what I’ve seen in old photographs. If you even ask me their names I couldn’t tell you without having to look it up somewhere. My great-grandfather (or perhaps it was his father) fled Germany because—as family legend has it—he shot a deer in the Kaiser’s forest and the penalty if he’d been caught was death.

I know even less about my paternal grandparents. I think my dad’s father was a cabinet maker and owned his own business for many years in Safford, Arizona. I have no idea if my grandmother did anything outside the home. Their parents? No clue whatsoever.

About thirty years ago I realized how woefully inadequate my knowledge of even my own parents’ lives had been, so I asked them both to write short autobiographies. Dad took to the assignment like a fish to water; Mom never did come through with her story. Dad’s revelations and secrets were enlightening and helped explain many major and minor mysteries of his life, but like so many things, his written story has gone missing and I’m left with only my own memories of what he’d transcribed.

I think this lack of proper passing-on-of-the-family-story explains both my folks’ interest in genealogy as they grew older. Curiously, at least at this point in my life I do not share that interest. Since my sister never had children, when she and I are gone it will be the end of the line for this particular branch of the family and no one will be asking who my folks—or their folks—were or what they did during their lives.

And also since I have no children, I’ve pretty much resolved myself to knowing that at some point after I’m gone—like so many people who have come before—all my photographs, art, and possessions will end up at the bottom of a landfill or as curiosities in second-hand stores, offering some rare personal glimpses into life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

That’s why the here and now is so important. It’s all we’ve got.

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Once upon a time, any audiophile worth his salt owned (or at least wanted) one of these beasts. The thought being that a graphic equalizer allowed control over the entire audio spectrum instead of just at the ends, as the more common bass and treble controls afforded. In theory it allowed you to tweak specific ranges of frequencies to achieve the desired “flat” (i.e. uncolored) response from your audio source. Alternately, you could use the equalizer to boost or reduce frequencies intentionally for effect.

It wasn’t until the early 2000s that I actually had an equalizer in my system, although not nearly as impressive as the one above. And you know, I found it to be a complete waste of money. Maybe it was my already-aging ears deceiving me, but I found nothing really needed a degree of tweaking that couldn’t be accomplished with the bass and treble controls on my receiver.

Funny, that.

Anyhow, I was thinking the other night how I wish there was some sort of equalizer for life; something that allowed you to fine tune those areas that needed a little help. Increase employment or employment satisfaction, boost income, decrease fear and anxiety.

Sadly, no such device exists, not even in the darkest recesses of eBay.

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Honeybear’s, here we come!

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First Bowie, and now Rickman.

There truly is less magic in the world today.

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All I wanted to do was buy Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk and listen to it on my phone while I napped this afternoon.

But nooooooo! As is becoming more and more common, Apple was having none of it. The album was purchased and showing as downloaded on the phone, but where? It was nowhere; not under “recently added” or—god forbid—even under “Fleetwood Mac.”

This led me to say “FUCK IT,” and I got out of bed, giving up all thoughts of a nap.

On my Mac, Tusk was shown as available for download. So I downloaded it and plugged in my phone to sync.

Tusk still didn’t show up on the phone after the sync.  If that weren’t enough, for whatever fucking reason, all the album artwork on the phone disappeared as well—as has been happening with increasing regularity of late—and I’m getting really tired of it.

Because…

The only way to fix the missing artwork is to delete all the music from the phone (75GB worth) and then resync it. Do you know how long it takes to transfer 75GB over a USB connection?

Fuck, Apple…with each passing day you’re turning more and more into everything I hated about Microsoft, and it’s obvious you don’t give a shit. You’ve got more money than god and can live off the interest for the next thousand years, so why should you even?

I used to look forward to going to an Apple Store or receiving OS upgrades. Now I dread both experiences because I know at the store I’ll be met with attitude at best or insouciance at worst and OS Upgrades have become a question of “What is this going to BREAK?” (Much like it became with Windows.) Hell, I used to want to work for Apple, but no more!

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…from Cassini to get your mind off today’s sadness.

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Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You’ve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare
“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you “Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.”

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Traveler, by Simon Brown.

The problem with these shorts is they leave you wanting MORE!

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I ran across this online today while searching for something else. I had to pass it on.

You Lived in Phoenix in the 60s, 70s, and 80s If…

You remember when Bell Road (especially through Glendale) was the considered edge of civilization. There was nothing there but tumbleweeds and prairie dogs. Now, it’s where you go to run all your errands. Or if you were traveling eastbound on Bell Rd. the sign that said “Scottsdale- 21 miles.”

You needed to pack a lunch to drive to Sun City.

Your parents took you to Legend City, the only theme park in Phoenix.

Afternoons were spent watching The Wallace and Ladmo Show.*

You remember when Beardsley Road was a seldom traveled, two-lane blacktop. Now, it’s the eastbound frontage road for the Loop 101 freeway.

Before there was Target, there was Gemco. Now, most of the old Gemco stores are Targets.

You remember the original Cine Capri theater at 24th Street and Camelback. You also waited for hours in a line that wrapped around the building to see the original Star Wars there.

You remember stores like Yellow Front, Woolco, Newberry’s, McCrory’s, TG&Y, Fedmart, Sprouse Reitz, Wards and Yates.

You remember when Metrocenter Mall had an underground ice skating rink. Watching skaters from the overlook above was the best way to escape the summer heat.

Metrocenter also had a Farrell’s ice cream parlor. No Farrell’s trip was complete without getting to see two waiters run though the restaurant with a sundae resting on a stretcher, while lights and sirens whirred in the background. Sometimes, the ice cream would fall off the stretcher. Don’t forget the trip thru their candy store.

You were bummed when Farrell’s closed. The space was later occupied by ‘Round the Corner, a burger and sandwich place similar to Red Robin.

You saw a concert at Compton Terrace when it was attached to Legend City.

Your folks subscribed to the Phoenix Gazette (afternoon newspaper) and the Arizona Republic on Sunday.

You remember when the Brass Armadillo antique mall was Angel’s—a building supply warehouse similar to Home Depot.

You remember when you got your building supplies from O’Malley’s, Entz-White or Payless Cashways.

You remember when the Phoenix Suns were the only professional sports team in the state, and they played their games at Phoenix Memorial Coliseum.

Your groceries came from Alpha Beta, AJ Bayless, Basha’s, Lucky’s, Neb’s Market or Smitty’s. Smitty’s even had a little coffee shop attached to it. Smitty’s sold everything.

A night out consisted of family dinner at the Lunt Avenue Marble Club. Their French Onion Soup and deep fried mushrooms were the best. (I’m here to witness, let me tell you!)

You remember when eastbound I-10 ended at Dysart Road. In order to continue east, you had to take McDowell or Thomas Road 15 miles to I-17 and head south. I-10 started up again somewhere east of downtown.

You remember when the Chili’s at 20th Street and Camelback (recently demolished) was The Jolly Roger.

You ate breakfast at Sambo’s or Bob’s Big Boy.

You drove to Central and Thomas to have strawberry pie at Big Boy’s because it was a car hop and they brought it to your car.

You remember when most houses were built with carports instead of garages. Roofs were covered with wood shakes or asphalt shingles instead of stone tiles.

You remember home builder’s billboards that advertised interest rates of 5%.

Your aspirin and cough syrup came from Skagg’s, SuperX, Revco, Thrifty’s, or Drug Emporium.

Your shoes came from Buster Brown.

For cafeteria-style French Food, you went to Café Casino at 24th Street & Camelback.

For some of the best Mexican food in town, you went to La Cucaracha at 7th Street and Indian School.

You remember when CBS was on Channel 10, ABC was on channel 3, and channels 5 and 15 were independent. Now, CBS is on Channel 5, FOX is on Channel 10, ABC is on Channel 15, and Channel 3 no longer has a network affiliation. NBC and PBS are the only ones that stayed on their original stations (channel 12 and 8, respectively).

You accompanied your dad to the True Value Hardware store in Westown in hopes of getting to stop at Baskin Robbins afterward.

You shopped at Valley West Mall before it became a ghost town, and was ultimately torn down.

You shopped at Phoenix Spectrum Mall when it was known as Chris-Town. Broadway was on the east end and Montgomery Wards was on the west. In the 80s, the mall was extended south at the west end and Bullocks anchored the southwest end. The movie theater was on the second floor of the east end of the mall.

You remember when Park Central was actually a full-fledged mall. You bought clothes at Goldwaters and Diamond’s.

You woke up to Bruce Kelly in the morning on KZZP. Before that—Jonathon Brandmeier and his ‘loons!’

You remember Phoenix’s only real rock and roll stations were KRIZ and KRUX in the 1960s.

You rode the ‘Tico’ to Park Central.

You remember quality local programming like Open House with Rita Davenport or Sun Spots with Jan DiAtri.

You accompanied your dad to the LaBelle’s catalog showroom to buy your mom’s Christmas present and where you drooled over hi-fi equipment.

Before he was governor, you remember Evan Mecham as the owner of a Pontiac dealership in Glendale.

You remember when Castles-n-Coasters was known as Golf-n-Stuff.

You remember when the entire state of Arizona only had one area code. Now, there are three in the Phoenix area alone.

You remember when Scottsdale Fashion Square was an outdoor mall with Goldwater’s, Bullocks and Leonard’s luggage being the only stores.

You remember when Goldwater’s was bought out by Robinson May who was then bought out by Macy’s.

You remember when Diamonds was bought out by Dillards.

You remember when Diamonds box office was the only place to buy concert tickets.

You remember when it hit 99℉ and that was considered HOT.

You remember when Big Surf water park was the place to go to beat the heat. Then hitting the drive in theater to see movie across the street.

You remember when best ice cream was found at Thrifty’s Drug Store, where $0.85 cents would get you three scoops.

You remember when you wrote all your information down on a piece of paper and then your drivers license was mailed to you. It was very easy to change the 1968 to 1965 (because it was still in your hand writing) so that you could go to Devil House drinking because the drinking age was 19 years old.

You remember when you could go to Devil House for dancing after hours which was from 1am – 3am.

You remember going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight on Mill Ave.

You remember when 44th Street and Thomas was Thomas Mall.

You remember when 40th Street and Thomas was Tower Plaza, and there were a few people that climbed to the top and threaten to jump.

You remember when there was a canal at 48th.

If you are of a certain sexual orientation, you remember Miss Matty’s Attic, Maggies/HisCo Disco, The Connection, The Forum, and Hotbods.

You remember when driving up Pima Road and you could see for miles and miles because there was nothing east or north of Shea Blvd. And it was very dark and scary.

You remember when the only way to get to Shea Blvd. was thru Dreamy Draw Park and there weren’t any streetlights. Squaw Peak was the name of a mountain, not a highway.

You remember going to concerts at Graham Central Station because the band was not popular enough to fill Mesa Amphitheater.

You bought vinyl at Odyssey Records and Circles Records & Tapes. At circles you had to pass through what seemed like a hermetically sealed passageway to get to the classical section.

You lusted over high-end audio at Jerry’s Audio and Bruce’s World of Sound.

You remember Terminal 1 at Sky Harbor.

You remember Sky Harbor before it was Sky Harbor International.

You remember being able to go out on the observation deck above Terminal 2 to watch planes arrive.

You ate lunch at McDonalds on Central under actual golden arches (one of the original designs). A Big Mac cost 55 cents.

You got your hair cut at Long Hair Inc. and maintained it with Conceived By Nature Shampoo, Creme Rinse and Conditioner.

You and your family ate at Sirloin Stockade, Guggy’s, or Hobo Joes. If it was a very special occasion, you went to Beefeaters on Camelback.

The smell of orange blossoms permeating the air everywhere in the spring.

You bought model kits at Webster’s Hobby Shop and ate lunch at the lunch counter of McCrory’s in Uptown Plaza.

You remember KXTC Disco 92 and their silver mylar bumper stickers.

You remember when the Colonade was an actual enclosed mall, with Sears on the east end and Rhodes Department Store on the West.

You shopped at West Plaza. You bought your pool and backyard fun supplies at Paddock. You bought plastic models from Hobby Lobby (no affiliation to the current behemoth).

*My sister and I were actually on the show one afternoon after our names had been selected from cards we’d mailed in.

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Reminds me of James Wolk…

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