By Doris
In moving to Arizona, we were part of a large group of “senior citizens” migrating to “over 55” communities, a phenomenon that was developed when Del Webb opened the first Sun City in Arizona in 1960. We chose Saddlebrooke, outside Tucson, at the foothills of the Catalina mountains. It was a beautiful setting in the desert, a new community with residents from many other places. It was easy to make friends through many activities, including golf.
The golf course was beautiful and I often went for walks along the paths when nobody was playing. Since Don was working, I joined the Ladies Nine Holers group, where golf was fun and lunch afterwards was more fun! One of the ladies insisted she knew me from somewhere, and when we compared places we had lived, it turned out she had worked in our vet’s office in New Orleans. As soon as she mentioned that, I remembered her. She and her husband became good friends. Don played golf with her husband and one summer we visited them at their summer place at Pine Top, which was a nice cool change when it was 100 degrees. Golf is a pretty safe sport but I managed to fall out of Martha’s golf cart and fracture my skull one day when she made a quick turn. There were no seat belts in golf carts, like there weren’t any in volkswagens in Bermuda. Our friendship continued when Martha insisted I had to receive an insurance settlement for my injury. Yes, there is golf cart insurance!
The lot surrounding our house was like a canvas for Don to create an oasis, and what a beautiful job he did. In order to get some native cactus plants we put on some dark clothes, got in our golf cart one night and went cactus napping in the desert. Kind of like taking pine branches from the National Forest in Colorado!
I was good at digging holes and moving stones, used instead of grass. We actually picked out the colored stones we wanted, kind of like picking out carpet from samples! I did not have a green thumb which one of my neighbors, Ruth, learned when she asked me to water her 100+ plants when she was out of town. Or maybe I lacked focus. When she returned, we were chatting about her trip when she casually asked “So, when did the petunias die?” Whoops! I guess I missed those. For awhile, I was known in the neighborhood as “Petunia.”
Grandma and Grandpa Lidke were now living in a retirement home in Tucson and we would see them frequently. Jennifer, Keith and now Kelly visited us from Colorado, and Grandma and Grandpa were so happy to be able to see and play with their first great granddaughter. On another trip, when Kelly was now walking, they visited Mae and Rudy at their apartment, where they could show her off to the residents. Unfortunately they never had the opportunity to know Laurie, whom they would have also bragged about!
One year over the Fourth of July, Jennifer, Keith, Kelly and now Laurie, came for a memorable visit. Our challenge was to make a place for Kelly and Laurie to sleep. Grandpa to the rescue! We had a very large space which was designed for a washer and dryer, but ours lived in the garage, so Grandpa constructed bunk beds for them in the closet, a very cozy arrangement without doors.
We went to see our local fireworks at Saddlebrooke and had some Fourth of July decorations and placemats for our picnic supper, and we had Kelly for our waitress, as she had been for other meals, taking orders for drinks and food, with help from Laurie. I believe it was this trip when we went to the zoo on a day that a baby giraffe had been born and watched it struggling to stand. It was truly exciting, especially for the zookeepers because the gestation period for a giraffe is 15 months! Grandpa took the girls, as they soon became known, for a ride in the golf cart where they came upon a family of javelinas, Arizona’s wild pigs. Pretty exciting. A local author wrote a book about “the three little javelinas.” We used our community pool for a cool dip and visited a local park that had ducks, and every day was more fun than the last. I think it was during this visit that I became the “laughing grandma.” Laurie made me laugh one day when she made an observation about clothes. I hadn’t noticed, but apparently Kelly had been wearing shorts every day and Laurie was wearing dresses. Laurie’s question was “How come Kelly never wears a dress?” She was three years old and I didn’t have an answer! It was several years later that we moved to Florida so we wouldn’t miss these special every day moments!
Our neighborhood had a monthly ladies lunch group and we would pick a different local restaurant in the area. One of the most interesting ones was the tea room at Tohono Chul, which was in a beautiful botanical garden covering several acres in Tucson. It was a delightful oasis with wonderful food and a unique bookstore, The Haunted Book Shop. I was puzzled about the name, thinking maybe they only carried ghost stories. It turned out it was from a quote from a poet who was “haunted by the books he hadn’t read.” I could identify with that!
On a historic note, we lived several miles from Biosphere 2 that was developed with the idea of testing humans for future colonization of Mars. The biospherans were a group of scientists who agreed to live inside the biosphere, which looked like huge greenhouses, growing their own food and being self sufficient. There was an ocean and a rainforest. They were dependent upon the sun to support the growth of food, and the first year was difficult because there were far fewer sunny days than usual. They remained sealed inside for two years, survived on the food grown, and even wrote a cookbook. It was a matter of great public curiosity. It is now operated and controlled by the University of Arizona and is open for public tours.
During our years in Arizona, Kent would visit on leave from the Navy, and we made a trip up to Mt. Lemmon with the Barbers once. Mt. Lemmon was high enough to be cool and it had its own small ski area. It always felt good to be among the pine trees, a change from the desert.
Kent in Antarctica
Kent first became interested in computer animation when he wanted to preserve some video and photos from his tour in Antarctica. It was during this tour, where the Navy flew helicopters in support of the National Science Foundation, that he became acquainted with penguins, fascinating creatures. He worked hard at learning animation, some of it on leave in Arizona. While still in the Navy he did the Flying Bubbas, his version of the Blue Angels, starring helicopter pilots.
Along with our new friends and neighbors at Saddlebrooke, our old friends Jerry and Rosemary lived nearby, and we played a lot of golf with them. On one occasion we went to Phoenix with them to see Jim and Jody Peterson, other friends from Breckenridge, where we played golf when the temperature was 110 degrees. Mad dogs and golfers go out in the noonday sun!
There are so many memories and stories from those years, but I will close with one about Jerry and Rosemary. They had five children. Rosemary worked in an office near her home. Rosemary was a very compassionate person. One of their sons was visiting at the time of an approaching wedding anniversary and Jerry and Dan planned a “surprise” for Rosemary. Their other four children were coming from Colorado. Jerry and Dan went to pick up Rosemary from work and as they were driving her home, they came upon a group of ragged looking people holding a sign that said, “Will work for food,” and Rosemary says “Oh, look at those poor homeless people.” They got a little closer and here was Rosemary’s “surprise,” her “homeless” kids were there to celebrate with her!
We were now going to “retire” for a third time. We loved the mountains, enjoyed the desert, and now it was time to go to the beach in Florida! I have always loved the beach!