Aaron Ewer

If you think about the John Wayne movies and have to define the Wild West, where would it be? Would you think about the gunfight at the OK Corral? Or the gold mines? Follow the railroad to California? What about Texas and the Alamo?

To me, there’s still the West in Wyoming and Montana, and a totally different West in Arizona and New Mexico. All of them invoke mental images of cowboys and Indians, but the terrain is significantly different and the way of life, the quality of life, and the daily lives of people living there varies greatly.

I’ve always wanted to live in New Mexico or Arizona. I have driven through both states numerous times and tried to vary my routes so I can take in as much of the area as possible. The one place I’ve not yet been is Tucson and that’s at the top of my list for the next trip West.

A good friend of mine used to live in Tucson for several years and has agreed to go out there with me if he can take the time off work. It would be great to go with someone who already knows the area. If he can’t go, I think I’ll call around and find a Tucson realtor to meet me while I’m there and show me around the different neighborhoods with the thought of buying my retirement home in Tucson. Unless Tucson is completely different from what I’ve read and been told, it sounds like the perfect retirement spot for me. Finding a good realtor in Tucson is easy when you search one out using Clicksmart. I’ve had Clicksmart saved to my bookmarks for months.

I’m not opposed to buying a home out there now while the market is soft and renting it out for a few years so that I can be paying off the mortgage with someone else’s money. Then when I’m ready to hang it up here, I can load up a truck and drive west to sit on my own front porch and watch those gorgeous desert sunsets.

This summer has been really buggy. I have seen bugs and critters in my daily life that I have either never seen before EVER or some that it’s been years since I’ve seen them in the wild.

Last night a weird little creature landed on the yard swing for a few minutes and contemplated its next landing zone. It looked like a combination of a dragon fly and a bumble bee. I have never seen anything quite like it. And have no idea what it was. It flew off across the yard before I could think to pick up the cell phone and snap a photo of it.

Saturday night I was at a vending machine busy dropping quarters into the coin slot and noticed something moving at the rear of the machine. In a moment a creature slowly emerged, climbing the wall of the building behind the vending machine. It slowly crept upward and as it emerged from it’s hiding place I realized that it was a praying mantis. Now folks, I have not seen a praying mantis in the wild - EVER and the only one I’ve seen in my whole life was in my high school Biology class.

Now we are having issues with fleas on my dogs. We have not had fleas in the house or on the dogs for years. I don’t know why all of a sudden all of the dogs are digging and scratching and fighting fleas. we gave them all a bath with flea shampoo last night and tomorrow I’m going to have to stop by the vet and pick up a better flea fighter for them.

My dogs are never allowed out of the house without being on a leash. I take their safety and the safety of passersby very seriously. Although my dogs have never bit anyone, they aren’t very sociable and I don’t want them or humans hurt for any reason if there is anything that I can reasonably do to prevent it.

I like the retractable leash that goes about 20 ft. out. This way the dogs can run a bit and get their exercise rather than just keeping pace with me. I used to buy retractable cord leashes, but evidently they aren’t being made any more and the long ones are a tape leash. The only problem with the tape is that is is extremely easy to chew through it. The cord leash has a leader piece of thick fabric that is durable and much needed on the tape leash. I’m going to have to figure out something to put over the end of the tape lease so they can’t chew it. That’s my current project.

So far, the kids in the neighborhood have enjoyed fireworks for three straight nights. On Wednesday some of the anxious ones started lighting off fireworks in their backyards and driveways. My lawn is littered with spent bottle rockets from the guys across the street. Thanks guys.

On Thursday the amusement park across the lake shot off a huge fireworks display. It lasted at least 20 minutes and had lots of loud bangs, which drove my dogs nuts the whole show. We couldn’t see anything from our own yard because of all the trees. That would have taken away a little of the sting of 20 minutes of barking hysteria. But no.

Then on Friday, the chamber of commerce sponsored their own big show downtown. We watched that on TV, as I am sick to death of crowds and drunk rednecks. It might have been a great show if you saw it live, but on TV it kinda stunk.

I am sure that we will have more neighborhood fireworks on Saturday night. Whoopee.

Last night I covered a carrier route for someone who had an emergency and couldn’t report to work. It was an interesting experience to be driving around the neighborhoods in the “Land of Excess.” I have to say that you can learn quite a bit about people by observing their homes at 4:00 am when they are sleeping or away.

This time of year one of the hard parts of a carrier’s job is keeping track of who has gone away on vacation and who has come back. I had to start a chart on a white board to keep up with all these wealthy travelers.

The hardest part of this job for someone new to the route is hunting and finding the right houses and driveways. Even in this “Land of Excess” there are people who use the cheapest stick on numbers they can find to put their house number on their mailbox, and it is interesting to see over the course of a few weeks which numbers fall off and which homeowners care not to replace the numbers.

Many mailboxes, the primary way to determine a home’s address, have vines and flowers growing up and over the the post and the box which completely cover or obstruct the numbers. Some boxes have no numbers at all - the homeowner has chosen to nail individual brass or painted numbers onto their garage door or adjacent to the entrance door. Try finding those numbers from the street in the dark and in the rain!

The state needs to pass a law requiring all buildings to be located on a named street or road (not just a highway route number) and to display their numbered address in a manner that will be visible from the road, in the dark and in the rain. The numbers need to be large, bright, reflective and easy to see by a driver coming from both directions of the road. In case of an emergency, this could easily save lives.