Take Me to the Fair
In April 1991, my friend Greg and I took a weeklong road trip through Arizona. It was bittersweet for me since I was leaving the following month, headed to Seattle to start my post-collegial life. I had grown quite fond of the southwest during the five (yes, five) years I was a student at the University of Arizona. Tucson and its surrounding environs were so incredibly different than New England, where I grew up - with its awesome thunderstorms and drenching monsoon rains, its scorching summer heat and pervasive high-noon light that washed away the colors of everything and anything unprotected by shade. The nectar scent of citrus blooms in late spring was like nothing I’d smelled back East, the adobe row houses of the Barrio at architectural odds with the shingled colonials of my own Connecticut neighborhood. And out amongst the saguaros, perched atop Gates Pass, I witnessed sunsets that made my very existence seem no more consequential than that of the canyon wren whose mournful call echoed off the Tucson Mountains as red and orange exploded across the sky. Initially I may have been merely infatuated with its novelty. But over time, as I peeled back its layers in true love fashion, Tucson entwined itself around the pumping fibers of my heart. Indeed, I fell hard for the desert.
Greg was from Manhattan and was as charmed by the southwest as I was. It was his idea to spend spring break cruising a route that would take us from Phoenix to Sedona, Flagstaff to the Painted Desert, up and west across southern Utah to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area before looping back towards the Old Pueblo. He told me to bring a bathing suit, thinking we’d dip in the waters of Natural Bridges National Monument, a plan quickly abolished by an unexpected snowfall we awoke to outside the Petrified Forest, our rental car covered in two inches of white. Clearly, 80 degree temperatures in Tucson were not indicative of those across the rest of the state.
Our journey was full of other small surprises: Stumbling upon the Brazilian metal band Sepultura shooting a video at the red rock ruins of Wupatki National Monument, lip-syncing to a song blaring from a cheap cassette player; witnessing two women dressed in traditional Native American garb rise mystically over the ridge of Canyon de Chelly, their furrowed faces mirroring the crevasse of the canyon itself; and listening to the news delivered in the tonally-steady and consonant-rich Navajo tongue - the only radio station we picked up while traversing the geological wonder of Monument Valley, the perfect sonic accompaniment to the ancient and majestic scene surrounding us.
And then there was that night in Prescott.
A former mining town situated 212 miles northwest of Tucson in a valley encircled by Ponderosa Pine-topped ridges, Prescott was small, quaint and charming with a population of approximately 26,455, per the 1990 US Census. Arriving around dinner time, Greg and I hungrily found a string of bars on a street referred to as “Whiskey Row”, settling into one offering burgers, beer and pool. While we chalked our cues, a young man lean as a fence post wearing a pristine pair of Wranglers, crisp white shirt, and a rich brown brass-buckled belt which matched his boots to a T, asked if he could join us for a game of cutthroat. He introduced himself with a self-assured smile and a firm grip. For the next few hours, we learned about his upbringing on a cattle ranch just outside of town, about his earnest intent to continue in the family business, find a wife, a solid plot of land, have a few kids and start the whole cycle again.
His aspirations were truly ‘local’. They could spring from no other soil but that found in Prescott, in this exact climate, this exact elevation. He was as integral a part of the biome as it was of him. Neither would be what they were without the other, their symbiosis expressed in his accent, his lexicon, his swaggering walk. And pride from being a part of this town. His town. This is why I love to travel - the discovery not only of new ‘places’, but of the beautiful human beings who call them ‘home’.
I wish I remembered his name.
Eight years later, my sister and I took my mom to see the Grand Canyon. We flew into Phoenix from our respective home bases then drove north, following the same path Greg and I had taken. I was excited to relive my prior adventure because I had nothing but the best memories from that earlier trip - memories which lifted my spirits on many a rainy and gray Seattle day when I needed an, albeit ‘visualized’, desert fix (my romance with the Pacific Northwest being more of a slow simmer than a quick boil). At the beginning of our drive, I felt a tingling familiarity, as if I was visiting an old friend. But the further we went up I-17, I noticed subtle changes - more houses, more gas stations, and a neon-blaring motel where a lovely expanse of chaparral had been. When we reached Prescott, my heart sank. Gone was the tucked away, hidden gem of a town that I remembered. It had been overtaken by strip malls and casinos and condominium complexes; by Circle K’s, Taco Bells and Kentucky Fried Chickens, purveyors of ubiquity.
We stopped to fill the tank. As my mom and sister went inside to pay, I smoked a cigarette on the edge of the parking lot, head swiveling and eyes wide, unable to reconcile what I was seeing in that moment with the Prescott imprinted in the gray matter of my brain. The cozy elation I felt earlier was replaced by a gnawing sadness, similar to how I felt when I learned that the woods behind my childhood home had been cleared to make room for a cluster of townhouses. Not only did I mourn the loss of those trees (some of which had names bestowed upon them by us neighborhood kids who spent more amongst them than in our own beds), I mourned the loss of my past self whose ghost gleefully haunted those woods as long as they existed. With their decimation came the erasure of my own personal history, as if they were the scaffolding my memory required to hold any nostalgic shape.
I stamped out my cigarette, noticing a credit card on the ground, the plastic baked brittle by the sun for God knows how long. I picked it up. The name, number and expiration date were barely discernible. I considered bringing it to the station cashier on the rare chance its owner might return. Then I thought of the young cattle rancher. Maybe this was his card, flung over his shoulder on his exit out, a good-riddance to the encroaching development that had swallowed his dreams, concrete bite after concrete bite.
A dust devil roared across the lot just then, scattering wrappers and other detritus. I was surprised there was so much trash. Splaying my fingers, I let the card fall where I’d found it. The owner wasn’t coming back.
The ‘90s were a major period of population growth for Arizona, particularly in the middle of the decade. Even my beloved Tucson was impacted, swaths of pristine desert gone forever as housing needs fueled consumer desires, with plenty of eager capitalists ready to fill the gaps. People from colder, cloudier climates descended in search of cheap real estate and clear skies, bringing the distinctive flavors (and grassy lawns) of their former home states, slowly diluting what made Arizona,… well, ‘Arizona’.
With one exception: The lone stalwart that is the Pima County Fair - microcosm of southwestern culture, replete with huge livestock auction, Sonoran hot dogs, and rodeo feats performed by real cowboys.
The first Pima Country Fair was held in 1911 - before Arizona was even an official state. Although mainly focused on the promotion of poultry, the fair was wildly successful, initiating the annual event that descends upon the desert southeast of Tucson to this very day (and still has a hefty share of chickens).
When I was a student at the U of A, going to the fair was like stepping into another world. While the saguaro-laden landscape presented the physical traits of the American Southwest in all its glory, the fair displayed the region’s cultural distinctions. I saw things at the Pima County Fair that I’d never see at the North Haven Fair in Connecticut such as bolo ties and turquoise, Indian fry bread and barrel racing, Stetson’s and spurs.
Localness grows from place - its why there are cattle ranchers in Arizona and fishermen in Washington state, and not the other way around. Our human behaviors formed in relation to the land and what was readily available for survival. Vast pastures = cattle ranching; vast waters = fishing. But as technology advanced, it enabled us to modify the landscape in impressive ways - and in no place is this as apparent as in the southwest, where we dammed the mightiest of rivers - the Colorado - creating lakes for our own recreational enjoyment, steering the flow to golf courses and almond orchards (each nut requiring a gallon of water to produce), and thirsty cities whose light pollution dims the brilliance of the desert night sky. Our behavior is no longer dictated by locality - locality is dictated by us. We are eager little gods.
After moving to Seattle, I returned to Tucson whenever I needed my ‘desert fix’. I firmly believe that, like people, places can be ‘soul mates’. Tucson is mine. And like any good intimate companion, years can pass but when we reunite, we pick up exactly where we left off, as if our deep connection defies space and time. And once I met my wife, it was thrilling to share this part of my personal history with her, to introduce the person I loved the most to the city I loved more than any other.
Over the course of these visits, I watched the Old Pueblo evolve (or devolve - you decide) into new forms, new shapes. Now, I’m not against change but I am sentimental, and like my childhood woods, I can’t help but feel a bit melancholic as “This is where…” becomes replaced by “Here there was…”.
In 2017, my wife and I escaped the infamous Seattle Gloom by trekking to Tucson for a long weekend. It had been several years since our last visit and in that relatively short period of time, an economic upswing had converted downtown into a thriving commercial district seemingly overnight. The sidewalks were crowded and boisterous. There were waiting lists. Even 4th Avenue - once a bastion of arty laid-backness replete with Pride flags, vintage clothing stores, and a folksy food co-op - was bustling with pedestrians eager to spend their money in a plethora of shiny bars and restaurants. Like Prescott, I struggled to find the familiar in this strange new land.
It was April, when the Pima County Fair was happening. We decided to go. The weather was perfect - sunny, upper-70’s. We started off at the livestock auction which was held in an exhibition hall with American flags draped from the rafters above an arena in which stood a boy, maybe eleven or twelve years old, wearing a black cowboy hat, leather cowboy boots and a plaid shirt, his belt buckle as big as his fist. He looked like he had sprouted from the dusty ground, as if he belonged to this place as much as it belonged to him. And I smiled, so happy to see him, as I would an old friend.
Me at Gates Pass in 1987, watching the sun go down.