I want some coffee!

We live in an RV park. The park is located pretty much in the middle of San Pedro Valley, about 50 miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona.  Like most of Southwest Arizona the San Pedro Valley is part of the Sonoran desert and is named for the state of Sonora, Mexico. And why not? This was part of Sonora, Mexico before it was part of the USA. Mostly you'll see wild grasses, mesquite brush, cactus of several varieties even including a few saguaro cactus. The elevation here is about 3,600' which is a little too high for saguaro cactus- they have to be transplanted here. There's very little developed housing here in the valley. The majority of the land is devoted to ranching and, around St David and Pomerene, some farming. Residential housing is primarily found in Benson (a railroad town which our park borders) and Sierra Vista (home to the US Army's Ft. Huachuca). Plus there are a few smaller settlements like St. David & Pomerene (both were settled by Mormons n...

That phrase ought to inspire instantaneous dread. "Oh god... now what?!" Generation of humans have uttered those 4 words of dread every time some old toot starts repeating a familiar event from decades back in their lives. The catalyst on this occasion was "... did your mom ever do any canning or making of jam when you were young?" Well as a matter of fact (not embellished; altered only by faulty recollection)... My mother may have done some canning but I was too young to recall these 85 years later. The good news was she had at least 2 relatives who had a passion for preserving food. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather were into it. Both had access to the raw fruit and veggies and both were the sort of people that were driven to be prepared for the worst. That sort of thinking was no doubt encouraged by having lived through the 'great depression' of the 1930s ( Hmm... is this 'de ja vu' all over again'? ). Here's a tale of 2...

When we don't eat at home we have a select few favorites for a meal out. The Admiral can probably find something to eat at pretty much any restaurant but the Captain is a picky old toot who eats a vegan diet 90% of the time. The exceptions are salmon or some other cold water fish and some butter & certain cheese once in awhile. Fortunately the owner/cook at the local Mi Casa Restaurant (Santa cooks Baja -style Mexican food- not TexMex style; not New Mexico style) is willing to fix things which I can eat that are not on their menu: a vegetarian meal with the occasional portion of salmon or mahi-mahi. Not bad at all. She decides what she's going to fix for me- I don't get a choice: "I'll have whatever Santa says I'm having!" Mi Casa Restaurant. G-Maps says it's at 723 4th St in Benson, AZ but it's actually very near heaven!       Santa at her grill- she's a magician! Carrot cake to die for.   The Admiral's favorite- Piñata Salad     And...

Driving from Stockton to work at the Standard Station in Cordelia Junction was generally boring- sit back and enjoy the farm landscape. But one time was very interesting. On that trip in summer 1957 I had passed through the delta as usual. As I approached Travis AFB just east of Fairfield I spotted a huge B-36 bomber about to land. The B-36 was a post WW-II bomber with 6 engines (I thought the production version had 8 turbo prop engines, not just 6 as this X-version below has... ??). It turned out the one I was watching land had a very special situation. When I looked at the huge rudder (called the vertical stabilizer) I saw that most of it was missing- literally ripped off with shredded metal visible to me over a mile away on Hwy-12! The plane was on final approach and was just about to touch down. Then it was out of view leaving me to speculate. No smoke. No flying parts from a crash. Just... gone. An XB-36 similar to the B-36 I saw. The line I marked indicates where the dam...

More family stories. This one is a little... odd. After finishing active duty in the Marine Corps I found a job at Standard Stations, Inc. in Stockton, California. I was hired on the strength of having worked for a Shell station for a couple years while I was in high school. What I didn't understand when I was hired was that I was going to attend the training school at the station in Stockton, but then I would be assigned to a different station somewhere within  perhaps a 75 mile radius- I thought it would be somewhere around Stockton. Oops! When I completed the 7-10 day instruction I was assigned to a station in Cordelia Junction, California just a few miles beyond Fairfield, California- according to Google Maps the station was about 58 miles from Stockton (blue line which passes thru the San Joaquin River delta). I rented a room from a co-worker but the reality was I wanted to spend time with my friends in Stockton. So, except for perhaps one or two nights, I commuted 116 miles r...

I kept using film cameras for quite awhile after the word 'digital' became attached to cameras. It wasn't that I thought digital imaging was a fad and would go away. On the contrary it seemed like the natural evolution from film. My issue was that I (correctly!) guessed there would be rapid changes in the products and that newer-better-faster would run over the top of tried-and-true. What changed my cautious deliberation was the evening I was at a Country-Western dance event in about 1999. I saw a friend snapping pictures as fast as he could frame a shot. Looked like there was not much thought about composition. 'Getting anything good, John?' John Burton said something to the effect 'I'll weed thru them in awhile- I can just delete the bad ones and keep taking more pictures!' Say what?! He gave me the cheap tour of about 20 seconds. What I remember was a silver, boxy digital camera with a fixed (i.e. non-interchangeable) auto-focus lens (maybe fixed focu...

At some point my parents bought an Exakta 35mm camera for my mother. That went so well they decided maybe I would like to have a newer camera. My mother had an Exakta but they bought an Exa for me- made in the same factory and I'm not familiar with the exact differences between the 2 cameras except that the Exakta supported an interchangeable lens system while ( iirc! ) the Exa had a fixed single lens. My Exa probably looked just like this- a fixed lens reflex camera that shot 35mm film   The Exa was a reflex. And that was a little like moving back to my grandfather's old Brownie box camera I'd used for awhile: you looked down at the top of the camera to see the reflected image of what was in front of the lens. Unlike my Argus C3, however, the Exa showed the image as it was about to be recorded since it had passed thru the camera lens. If the image was out of focus, that's what you saw on the frosted glass screen so you could refocus. My mother's Exakta was similar ...