The boys and I went over to the boathouse on Friday afternoon. We got a new ice cream freezer and the boys were anxious to sample a Super Cone, a monstrous ice cream cone covered with chocolate and nuts. Ice cream cones bought, we seated ourselves on the bench in front of the boathouse and the kids started eating through the chocolate shell to the ice cream below. Nuts fell like rain to the pavement and Chuy anxiously devoured every little speck that rained down.
A lady came by reining in a high energy Husky. The dog was a light brown, with a white stripe down his face and looked pleasing with one green eye and one blue eye. Chuy stopped eating the nuts and zeroed his attention in on the dog. It looked enough like a wolf to be mesmerizing and Chuy is a magnet for wolf-type dogs. It's like they're going to open up the world for him. Every time he's ever seen a dog that looks like a second generation to a wolf, he goes Ga-Ga over it.
Anyway, I introduced Chuy to the lady and she said the dog's name was Cody and funny enough, both dogs were fifteen months old. Only thing was, Cody outweighed Chuy by sixty pounds, but that didn't bother the young dogs. They immediately went romping at each other: laying their upper bodies and paws out flat and thrusting their heads toward each other, daring the other one to move first, then flinging their bodies upward at the same time. Quickly they'd resume their flattened stance and wait for the other to move first. Amazing to me how dogs presume to know the rituals of play, but they sure do. And this dog was just as adept as Chuy at this new game.
The lady and I watched our dogs (both on leashes, but both playing avidly) with each other for a few minutes. There was never a hint that the bigger Cody would nip at little Chuy, in the two puppies' eyes, they were equals. The boys continued to eat their ice creams, the nuts and chocolate gone now and just the cones and ice cream left. A few nut pieces remained on the ground now that Chuy had met a new friend to romp with.
Charlie finished his cone and licked his sticky fingers. I told him to go inside to wash his face before we continued on our beach walk. Sage handed me his still mostly full of ice cream cone. "I'm done," he stated, and followed his brother inside to clean up.
"Chuy! You want some ice cream?" I asked.
Chuy forgot his new playmate and his game and materialized at my side. Ice cream cones are one of his favorite foods in the whole world. With Bill's and my help, he had discovered Dari Queen on the end of our walks in Superior and was a most obedient licker of ice cream.
"There's too much for you to eat it all," I told him, proceeding to hold the cone out to Chuy. "Would Cody be able to eat a bite or two?" I asked the lady.
"I'm sure he would," she agreed. "He loves ice cream."
Chuy was already taking two or three swipes of the ice cream with his tongue. He's one of those who savor ice cream, taking it lick after satisfying lick. Vicariously, I enjoy the ice cream as I watch it slowly disappear into Chuy's mouth. Man, he can make it look good!
But since Chuy had a new friend to share, after a couple of long licks from Chuy, I took the cone and held it out to Cody. He was right at my side in a moment as well. (Nothing like a good ice cream for getting your dog to obey!) His mouth opened, but instead of a tongue coming out to take a lick, the whole end of the ice cream cone disappeared into the Husky's mouth. "What!" I yelped.
Chuy stood patiently for his next turn, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, ready for his lick.
The ice cream and its cone disappeared down the Husky's throat.
"Oh dear, Chuy, I think your friend finished the cone." Chuy looked over and drew his tongue back into his mouth. I detected some spittle at the side of his mouth. Poor doggie had expected more!
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" the lady apologized. "Cody does love ice cream. Shall I buy you another?"
"Certainly, not," I assured her. "Sage had what he wanted and I didn't want Chuy to have that much." Chuy looked at me as though he would have answered much differently.
The lady turned to her husband. "Go inside and buy us some ice cream. Cody could probably eat some more."
The boys came out and we diverted the ice cream eating Chuy into a Running-After-Boys-On-The-Beach-Dog. Later, the ladies in the boathouse told me they'd sold out of half their ice cream on Friday afternoon. Whether it was the little boys enjoying their cones that drew the customers or the puppies slurping up ice cream cones, that was the big draw for that afternoon.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Forgetful
School has been out for a whopping four days and Sage was watching the Nick channel in the afternoon. A commercial came on for Sylvan, a children's tutoring service, where the little boy gets out of the pool and while he shakes water out of his ear, all the learning he'd done in the past school year falls out as well. Sylvan implores the parents to enroll their child in the summer program so their child won't fall behind.
Sage watched the commercial raptly, then yelped, "Oh... gosh!" in an extremely dismayed tone.
"What's the matter?" I asked, thinking he'd hurt himself.
"I think I've forgotten everything I learned in kindergarten!"
"What?!!" Unaware of what commercial he'd just been watching.
"Oh no, wait a minute...." His little body relaxed. "No, it's okay. I didn't forget. I can remember what I learned."
Oh good! I hate it when I forget a whole year's worth of learning and actvities. That sucks! Have a better day.
Sage watched the commercial raptly, then yelped, "Oh... gosh!" in an extremely dismayed tone.
"What's the matter?" I asked, thinking he'd hurt himself.
"I think I've forgotten everything I learned in kindergarten!"
"What?!!" Unaware of what commercial he'd just been watching.
"Oh no, wait a minute...." His little body relaxed. "No, it's okay. I didn't forget. I can remember what I learned."
Oh good! I hate it when I forget a whole year's worth of learning and actvities. That sucks! Have a better day.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Old Customers
We had a full house at the boat landing this past week-end. The lowest tides of the year, some as low as a minus two foot ran during the week and that resulted in a lot of clammers and abalone divers visiting us. We were real busy in the boathouse renting boats and getting boats launched and tackle sold.
A lady came in to launch her boat and buy fishing licenses with her extended family. We only see her once a year for the low tides. She's been coming close to thirty years and though her face is familiar and I know she only comes once a year, I cannot remember her name. This lady is distinguished in that we'd come to know her as a pain-in-the-ass sort of customer. She would always show up for her boat rental on a busy low tide Saturday. She dithered around with obtaining licenses and copious quantities of saltwater taffy and never had her paperwork in order. It would invariably take us twice as long to take care of her compared to our other customers. Kerry and Pam and I usually tried to pawn this customer off on the other guy as we didn't want to be bothered with her.
This year, our customer had the look of the Cancer Ladies. You're surely familiar with the Look: a little cloche hat or tight scarf tied to their hairless head accompanied by that weary look of too much pain. She was also moving with a cane, quite slowly and looked to be consumed by the disease. But she was stalwartly trying to present a sunny side up disposition to her family. (I have no idea how she fared getting into and out of the boat on the clam beds and moving around on the mud flats with that cane.) She intoned to Pam that this year would be her last. We took it to mean that her cancer was terminal not just that maybe she'd had enough of clam digging after thirty years.
She got her paperwork done eventually and filled her pockets with two bags of taffy which they would consume on the clam beds. But then we proceeded to wait for her son. We always waited for her son. He was always the last to come into the boathouse and would need to fill out his fishing license. It'd been this way ever since he'd turned sixteen and needed a license. He had to be somewhere in his thirties now. He was a fat, selfish young man, thoroughly involved in his own activities. I never saw him pay much attention to his attentive mother. Over the thirty something years we knew her, she doted on him. There was nothing wrong with this fat, greedy boy in her book. When he finally showed up this year, still late, of course, I was a bit gratified to see that he was a bit less fixated on himself and allowed his mother a wee bit of attention, since it would be her last year clam digging.
They departed for the clam beds and I felt depressed. This surely, would be the last time we'd see her and I couldn't even remember her name. It's not like we don't see our old customers die each year. The older we get, the more names we collect each year. It used to be maybe three to five a year we'd lose, now, it's more like one or two dozen! And it depresses me to know they'll just be names we conjure up in our conversations about "The Old Days" and we won't see them anymore. But I guess that's the way it has to be after running this business for fifty one years. Sometimes I think we'll have a bigger crowd of spirits on the Other Side enjoying our area in ghostly form than the physical bodies actually coming out to enjoy. What a crowd we have building!
A lady came in to launch her boat and buy fishing licenses with her extended family. We only see her once a year for the low tides. She's been coming close to thirty years and though her face is familiar and I know she only comes once a year, I cannot remember her name. This lady is distinguished in that we'd come to know her as a pain-in-the-ass sort of customer. She would always show up for her boat rental on a busy low tide Saturday. She dithered around with obtaining licenses and copious quantities of saltwater taffy and never had her paperwork in order. It would invariably take us twice as long to take care of her compared to our other customers. Kerry and Pam and I usually tried to pawn this customer off on the other guy as we didn't want to be bothered with her.
This year, our customer had the look of the Cancer Ladies. You're surely familiar with the Look: a little cloche hat or tight scarf tied to their hairless head accompanied by that weary look of too much pain. She was also moving with a cane, quite slowly and looked to be consumed by the disease. But she was stalwartly trying to present a sunny side up disposition to her family. (I have no idea how she fared getting into and out of the boat on the clam beds and moving around on the mud flats with that cane.) She intoned to Pam that this year would be her last. We took it to mean that her cancer was terminal not just that maybe she'd had enough of clam digging after thirty years.
She got her paperwork done eventually and filled her pockets with two bags of taffy which they would consume on the clam beds. But then we proceeded to wait for her son. We always waited for her son. He was always the last to come into the boathouse and would need to fill out his fishing license. It'd been this way ever since he'd turned sixteen and needed a license. He had to be somewhere in his thirties now. He was a fat, selfish young man, thoroughly involved in his own activities. I never saw him pay much attention to his attentive mother. Over the thirty something years we knew her, she doted on him. There was nothing wrong with this fat, greedy boy in her book. When he finally showed up this year, still late, of course, I was a bit gratified to see that he was a bit less fixated on himself and allowed his mother a wee bit of attention, since it would be her last year clam digging.
They departed for the clam beds and I felt depressed. This surely, would be the last time we'd see her and I couldn't even remember her name. It's not like we don't see our old customers die each year. The older we get, the more names we collect each year. It used to be maybe three to five a year we'd lose, now, it's more like one or two dozen! And it depresses me to know they'll just be names we conjure up in our conversations about "The Old Days" and we won't see them anymore. But I guess that's the way it has to be after running this business for fifty one years. Sometimes I think we'll have a bigger crowd of spirits on the Other Side enjoying our area in ghostly form than the physical bodies actually coming out to enjoy. What a crowd we have building!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Shafted Again
Did anybody catch that made for TV movie, "The Andromeda Strain" on the Biography Channel over the Memorial Day week-end? They're still airing it, in case you didn't see it. I didn't watch the whole thing. But I was watching the commercials.
On May 1st, at the Superior Town Council meeting, the businessman who owns the bar/restaurant that is never open appeared before the council and asked permission for a commercial for Ford be filmed in town. It would take part of Friday afternoon and most of the day on Saturday and involve closing portions of Main Street for filming. In his words, this Ford commercial would be aired during the release of the remake of "The Andromeda Strain" and would look something like this: A couple would be traveling on a long journey and come through our town, taking a careful look at Main Street and be so intrigued with it, then go about their business and wind up at a big casino (presumably Vegas) but remember our town longingly with the end result being Superior's Main Street superimposed with the Manhattan skyline in the background. The gist of the commercial would be that the journey is more fun than the destination. (Sounds like Harley Davidson's advertising, huh?)
So the Mayor and the Town Council gave their approval and the Ford people gave the council a measly $750. for the recreation fund. (Let me tell you, Superior, the Going Rate for commercials up here in Marin County is WAY more than $750! You could have held out for more!)
Anyway, I wanted to watch the movie to see how they portrayed our town. Goodness knows, Superior has been having some Hard Times lately getting the ball rolling economically and maybe this would add some impetus to it. HARDLY! The ad I saw showed an attractive young couple drive into Main Street and park and get out. The montage quickly showed shot after shot of our decaying downtown buildings, notably the ones owned by the professor in Tempe who buys up all the Main Street business buildings and then waits and lets them rot away... (the why? hasn't been made clear to me yet). The girl looks to the guy, pulling her jacket closer around her (obviously the commercial made it look like it was real cold that day, instead of the ninety five degrees it really was when they filmed) and she whines, "This is spooky! Let's get outa here!" And they jump in the pretty Ford Focus and speed out of town and arrive breathlessly seconds later at a rockin' rollin' casino with lots of neon and scantily dressed young people falling out of it.
I was astounded and upset over it! Once again, Big Business had set about to show our pretty little town in a bad light. Will they never stop? What is about the purity and simplicity of Superior that we all love that makes business and society yank it down and mess it up? I think next time a commercial is made in Superior, the Council and the Mayor better be asking some more detailed questions and ask to see a storyboard before agreeing to what one man's version of the commercial will be. ... And ask for more than $750, why don't you? If the movie people are that hot to use our town, the least we could do is ask for $1,500!
On May 1st, at the Superior Town Council meeting, the businessman who owns the bar/restaurant that is never open appeared before the council and asked permission for a commercial for Ford be filmed in town. It would take part of Friday afternoon and most of the day on Saturday and involve closing portions of Main Street for filming. In his words, this Ford commercial would be aired during the release of the remake of "The Andromeda Strain" and would look something like this: A couple would be traveling on a long journey and come through our town, taking a careful look at Main Street and be so intrigued with it, then go about their business and wind up at a big casino (presumably Vegas) but remember our town longingly with the end result being Superior's Main Street superimposed with the Manhattan skyline in the background. The gist of the commercial would be that the journey is more fun than the destination. (Sounds like Harley Davidson's advertising, huh?)
So the Mayor and the Town Council gave their approval and the Ford people gave the council a measly $750. for the recreation fund. (Let me tell you, Superior, the Going Rate for commercials up here in Marin County is WAY more than $750! You could have held out for more!)
Anyway, I wanted to watch the movie to see how they portrayed our town. Goodness knows, Superior has been having some Hard Times lately getting the ball rolling economically and maybe this would add some impetus to it. HARDLY! The ad I saw showed an attractive young couple drive into Main Street and park and get out. The montage quickly showed shot after shot of our decaying downtown buildings, notably the ones owned by the professor in Tempe who buys up all the Main Street business buildings and then waits and lets them rot away... (the why? hasn't been made clear to me yet). The girl looks to the guy, pulling her jacket closer around her (obviously the commercial made it look like it was real cold that day, instead of the ninety five degrees it really was when they filmed) and she whines, "This is spooky! Let's get outa here!" And they jump in the pretty Ford Focus and speed out of town and arrive breathlessly seconds later at a rockin' rollin' casino with lots of neon and scantily dressed young people falling out of it.
I was astounded and upset over it! Once again, Big Business had set about to show our pretty little town in a bad light. Will they never stop? What is about the purity and simplicity of Superior that we all love that makes business and society yank it down and mess it up? I think next time a commercial is made in Superior, the Council and the Mayor better be asking some more detailed questions and ask to see a storyboard before agreeing to what one man's version of the commercial will be. ... And ask for more than $750, why don't you? If the movie people are that hot to use our town, the least we could do is ask for $1,500!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Grandma Duty
Oh, it's good to resume Grandma-Duty again now that I've returned to Dillon Beach. I was unprepared for how many unanswered questions the children have been storing up for me, or the adventures they have planned for the summer. In their eyes, I'm still a peer-aged playmate, not some doddy old woman looking at getting older. They're looking to me to help supply them with a Sun-Filled-Action-Packed-Summer-of-Fun! (Goodness, what a big order!)
Also, I need to apologize for taking so long to resume the Blog. I hadn't realized how integral good wireless connections were to the Blog and though I've supposedly 'reconnected' with the wireless company we used to have here in Dillon Beach, they tell me it will be another two to three weeks before I'm 'wired up', so that leaves a crackly phone line connection for the time being, and some days it just plain doesn't work!
Okay, so that's my excuse, now on with the Grandma Thing. Charlie, still, calls me Mackey. He probably always will. It was his special name for me when he was about eighteen or twenty months old and it doesn't matter if he'll turn nine in the fall, he'll probably still be calling me Mackey when he's thirty. Sage, though, well, he was loathe at some point to call me "Mackey" and this past year he is very pointedly calling me, "Grandma", every sound and syllable firmly intact. Sage has just completed a semester of speech training in kindergarten and delights in pronouncing some old 'hard' words, like "yellow" and "railroad" with exquisite clarity. The time was right for the training and the little guy's sweet little lisp and inability to pronouce "r's" are now a thing of the past. (Doggone it! It was pretty cute!) The speech training seemingly opened up worlds for Sage to talk about as well. There was a time when he was two and a half that I worried he'd ever be a talker. His brother interpreted most of his wants and I worried that he'd ever fully express himself. I needn't have. He is expressing himself wonderfully well.
I celebrated my birthday last week and for my present, I have invited my sons and their families out to a family fun center for an evening of raucous fun, particularly water bumper boats and Indie car rides, Laser tag and the multitudinous video arcade. Sage is wildly excited and hopes he has grown tall enough to partake in some of the activities that were closed to him last year.
I was resting on the couch, trying to read a book when he climbed up behind me and hung over the back of the couch. "I wonder if they still have the pinball game, Grandma. I hope they do! Do you think I'll be tall enough to play that pinball game this year?"
"I don't know, Sage. I hope you will be..."
"Well, I HOPE I'm tall enough to play that pinball game. I have grown this year. Last year, let's see.... it was about to here on me and I couldn't see to play it. But you know, I've grown a lot taller now so I hope I'm tall enough to play that pinball game."
"I hope so!" I agreed, (trying to find the place in my book again).
"Well, I might be tall enough. And if I'm not, do you think they'd have a stool I could stand on to play the game? Or a chair! I could just drag a chair over and stand on that. Then I could play that game!"
"I doubt they would let you stand on a chair, Sage," I warned, (my place in the book permanently lost again).
"Well, the pinball game I want to play is right against that wall and there were chairs right there! I bet I could stand on one of them."
"We'll see..."
"I sure hope I'm tall enough. I certainly would like to play that pinball game!"
Tonight's the night for the Big Event. I'll have to blog about the outcome in a few days. Stay tuned!
Also, I need to apologize for taking so long to resume the Blog. I hadn't realized how integral good wireless connections were to the Blog and though I've supposedly 'reconnected' with the wireless company we used to have here in Dillon Beach, they tell me it will be another two to three weeks before I'm 'wired up', so that leaves a crackly phone line connection for the time being, and some days it just plain doesn't work!
Okay, so that's my excuse, now on with the Grandma Thing. Charlie, still, calls me Mackey. He probably always will. It was his special name for me when he was about eighteen or twenty months old and it doesn't matter if he'll turn nine in the fall, he'll probably still be calling me Mackey when he's thirty. Sage, though, well, he was loathe at some point to call me "Mackey" and this past year he is very pointedly calling me, "Grandma", every sound and syllable firmly intact. Sage has just completed a semester of speech training in kindergarten and delights in pronouncing some old 'hard' words, like "yellow" and "railroad" with exquisite clarity. The time was right for the training and the little guy's sweet little lisp and inability to pronouce "r's" are now a thing of the past. (Doggone it! It was pretty cute!) The speech training seemingly opened up worlds for Sage to talk about as well. There was a time when he was two and a half that I worried he'd ever be a talker. His brother interpreted most of his wants and I worried that he'd ever fully express himself. I needn't have. He is expressing himself wonderfully well.
I celebrated my birthday last week and for my present, I have invited my sons and their families out to a family fun center for an evening of raucous fun, particularly water bumper boats and Indie car rides, Laser tag and the multitudinous video arcade. Sage is wildly excited and hopes he has grown tall enough to partake in some of the activities that were closed to him last year.
I was resting on the couch, trying to read a book when he climbed up behind me and hung over the back of the couch. "I wonder if they still have the pinball game, Grandma. I hope they do! Do you think I'll be tall enough to play that pinball game this year?"
"I don't know, Sage. I hope you will be..."
"Well, I HOPE I'm tall enough to play that pinball game. I have grown this year. Last year, let's see.... it was about to here on me and I couldn't see to play it. But you know, I've grown a lot taller now so I hope I'm tall enough to play that pinball game."
"I hope so!" I agreed, (trying to find the place in my book again).
"Well, I might be tall enough. And if I'm not, do you think they'd have a stool I could stand on to play the game? Or a chair! I could just drag a chair over and stand on that. Then I could play that game!"
"I doubt they would let you stand on a chair, Sage," I warned, (my place in the book permanently lost again).
"Well, the pinball game I want to play is right against that wall and there were chairs right there! I bet I could stand on one of them."
"We'll see..."
"I sure hope I'm tall enough. I certainly would like to play that pinball game!"
Tonight's the night for the Big Event. I'll have to blog about the outcome in a few days. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Headin' Back
My five month 'vacation' from Lawson's Landing has come to an end and today I find myself heading back for the summer to help with the vacationing crowd. I have my two macaws caged up in big carriers in the back of the Explorer. Sacks of bird seed and cat food is safely tucked behind them. In the back seat are the two cats, Spooky and Kickers, also tucked into their traveling cages. They meow plaintively for the first hour, then settle back hopelessly for the rest of the seventeen hour trip. Next to me on the front seat is my African Parrot, Sam in a smaller traveling cage. He's much the happier of all the five pets, whistling short bits of stage tunes or spicing up the silence with "Hello!" "How are ya?" When the going gets too long for him, or the traffic gets heavy, he senses my mood and begins a loud anxious barking. I think it's just to get me to yell back at him.
Bill is leading the pack in his Trooper. He will have the uncaged, squirmy puppy, Chuy riding with him. Chuy has his own sheepskin pad on the front seat that he should sleep on, but invariably feels more at peace, curling up in Bill's lap and resting his head on the arm rest.
So that's what we're doing today. I'm going to miss our little casa, maybe not these hundred and ten degree days so much, but the town and our house. It is finally feeling like home to me. I can walk along the street and folks will greet me with a wave and smile or a greeting and certain friends will toot their horn when they see us walking and they pass by in a car. That's what I like about the little town. For the most part, everyone has been real sweet and welcoming and I don't feel like a Newcomer so much.
No, I didn't get to do all the things I had planned to do this winter/spring. There's a pile of books left unread I haven't gotten to yet. The garden is only about a third finished and I've plans for more. The furniture I was going to refinish? Not a speck of it started! And there's lots more areas we didn't get to explore in the desert. But that's okay, because I'll be back in the fall and then I'm hoping to discover even more things about this fascinating little town that I am calling "Home"!
Bill is leading the pack in his Trooper. He will have the uncaged, squirmy puppy, Chuy riding with him. Chuy has his own sheepskin pad on the front seat that he should sleep on, but invariably feels more at peace, curling up in Bill's lap and resting his head on the arm rest.
So that's what we're doing today. I'm going to miss our little casa, maybe not these hundred and ten degree days so much, but the town and our house. It is finally feeling like home to me. I can walk along the street and folks will greet me with a wave and smile or a greeting and certain friends will toot their horn when they see us walking and they pass by in a car. That's what I like about the little town. For the most part, everyone has been real sweet and welcoming and I don't feel like a Newcomer so much.
No, I didn't get to do all the things I had planned to do this winter/spring. There's a pile of books left unread I haven't gotten to yet. The garden is only about a third finished and I've plans for more. The furniture I was going to refinish? Not a speck of it started! And there's lots more areas we didn't get to explore in the desert. But that's okay, because I'll be back in the fall and then I'm hoping to discover even more things about this fascinating little town that I am calling "Home"!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Land Exchange Bill
Time marches on and debate still rages or at least continues on the controversial "Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act" otherwise known as S.1862. Currently, the bill is before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the Senate. It has until November or December of this year (end of the year recess) to pass or not. And according to the Washington D.C.'s watch on bills, S.1862 is currently 62% Against and 38% For.
I know that our Mayor of Superior is going to the Senate sometime this month or perhaps in June, whenever the bill comes up for a hearing in that committee. He is speaking FOR the passage of the bill, with reservations. The reservations are that there must be some provisions for environmental factors in the land exchange, so that Resolution Copper won't just be given the sacred Apache Leap area all free and clear with no oversight on how the best way to get the millions of gallons of heavy mineral water out of the mountain without polluting the water supply of northeast Pinal County.
There is still no dialogue between the Apache Nation and Resolution Copper, something that is required in the Land Exchange. The copper company says succinctly that the Native Americans refuse to talk with them. And that's right, because the Apache Nation says their heads of state will speak with the U.S. government's heads of state, not some international conglomerate company. So right there, is a major stumbling block, I would think. But you know elected officials: if it's something they want, they'll sail right through and ignore their own laws.
The fact of the Mine then still lays like a big boulder in the future of Superior's Main Street. You can't deal with it, without stumbling over it someway or another. The Yes People are right: yes, it would create some jobs; get Superior back on the track that it's been derailed on since 1982 when Magma Copper closed; and give the town the impetus to get moving again. The No People are right too: no, because if the environmental rules are not followed it will create a serious health catastrophe for all the people of Superior and right down to Florence with heavy metals polluting the waters; no, because our federal government gave a promise to the Apache Nation in 1956 that Apache Leap Mountain area would not be touched for development or industry; and no, because if the claims of such a rich strain of copper is found at Apache Leap then shouldn't it be used for U.S. gain rather than a foreign entity?
Man, these are Big Questions and Big Debates. I don't know that any of our elected officials are up to dealing with them fairly.
I know that our Mayor of Superior is going to the Senate sometime this month or perhaps in June, whenever the bill comes up for a hearing in that committee. He is speaking FOR the passage of the bill, with reservations. The reservations are that there must be some provisions for environmental factors in the land exchange, so that Resolution Copper won't just be given the sacred Apache Leap area all free and clear with no oversight on how the best way to get the millions of gallons of heavy mineral water out of the mountain without polluting the water supply of northeast Pinal County.
There is still no dialogue between the Apache Nation and Resolution Copper, something that is required in the Land Exchange. The copper company says succinctly that the Native Americans refuse to talk with them. And that's right, because the Apache Nation says their heads of state will speak with the U.S. government's heads of state, not some international conglomerate company. So right there, is a major stumbling block, I would think. But you know elected officials: if it's something they want, they'll sail right through and ignore their own laws.
The fact of the Mine then still lays like a big boulder in the future of Superior's Main Street. You can't deal with it, without stumbling over it someway or another. The Yes People are right: yes, it would create some jobs; get Superior back on the track that it's been derailed on since 1982 when Magma Copper closed; and give the town the impetus to get moving again. The No People are right too: no, because if the environmental rules are not followed it will create a serious health catastrophe for all the people of Superior and right down to Florence with heavy metals polluting the waters; no, because our federal government gave a promise to the Apache Nation in 1956 that Apache Leap Mountain area would not be touched for development or industry; and no, because if the claims of such a rich strain of copper is found at Apache Leap then shouldn't it be used for U.S. gain rather than a foreign entity?
Man, these are Big Questions and Big Debates. I don't know that any of our elected officials are up to dealing with them fairly.
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