Letters From The Loft

Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton

Scottsdale Journal - circa 1997

"The Sun, the hearth of affection and life, pours burning love on the delighted earth."
---
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet

Welcome to the "What we did for our summer vacation" newsletter from the Thornton family. This letter has yet to achieve "cherished tradition" status, but I've only been releasing them for a couple of decades, and look how long it took for It's A Wonderful Life to really catch on, so I'm confident that someday soon I'll be getting those long-awaited notes of gratitude for sharing our family's adventures, and eventually they'll outnumber the restraining orders.

   We try to alert everyone when the latest newsletter is out, and every year it seems that someone new gets added to our mailing list and becomes a part of our close-knit, “form letter” community.  It’s not so much that our circle of family and friends is expanding… it’s just that in our fast-paced, highly mobile society, people change addresses frequently.  You’d be surprised how many intended recipients of our family newsletter have apparently relocated without leaving even a hint of a forwarding address, in spite of the efforts of the best private investigation firms we could afford.  Fortunately, there are new recipients to replace these dropouts; complete strangers who now know about this letter simply because fate has placed them at an address where the former occupants were targeted.  It’s sort of like The Circle Of Life, or the lottery, or something equally poetic.

   To bring you newbies up to speed, a quick explanation is in order.  Every year I and my wife and our two boys take some sort of vacation.  Sometimes the purpose is to sightsee, sometimes it’s to experience the great outdoors, sometimes it’s just to get away from the everyday grind.  But mostly it’s so we’ll have something to write about and then share with our dear family, close friends, and treasured strangers.  We do that with these newsletters, sent out annually and indiscriminately.  We call them “form” letters because, obviously, all of you are looking at exactly the same document. If I took the time to learn the “mail-merge” function on our computer and could afford the postage, I could actually mail this letter and give it the appearance of being directed specifically to each one of you simply by having the computer drop individual names into designated strategic positions.  But you’re all too sharp to fall for that, and besides, if I took the time to master those kind of advanced cyber-skills, I wouldn’t have any time to write this letter and then what would be the point? (I’m sure many of you have already asked that same question).

   Well, let’s not keep you in suspense any longer.  This year we went to… Scottsdale!

   Scottsdale is located north of Phoenix in one of those dry, sandy states in the southwest.  I can’t remember exactly which one because the map we used didn’t show state borders.  It did, however, designate the location of every Stuckey’s on Interstate 10, and had some great coupons for nut logs and date shakes.

   We arrived in Scottsdale on Friday afternoon, June 19.  The very first thing that impressed us about the area was the balmy weather, which in June compares favorably with the climate on the surface of the sun.  Every place in Scottsdale has air-conditioning... giant, heavy-duty units that are generally bigger than the structures they are attached to , and are constantly running. The entire city fairly hums with refrigeration, and everywhere is the refreshing scent of freon.

   Although it may be hot, it must be noted that it is a dry heat.  This means that any time you venture out of a climate-controlled dwelling, every drop of moisture in your body is sucked into the atmosphere to be transformed into rain in some other, more fortunate part of the country.  To deal with this problem, Scottsdale has strategically placed mini-marts in 20 foot increments along every street.  These markets pump Gatorade like gasoline.  You can buy large sodas that you tow behind your vehicle.  People come to Scottsdale from all over the country to tone up their flabby kidneys.

   My employer had graciously provided us with a week’s free lodging at a time-share, so after unpacking, we decided to check out the accommodations.  The pool seemed to be the most popular spot, so we put on our suits and tried it out.  At first we thought it was a heated pool, and I suppose it was, but only in the sense that the entire piece of real estate was being microwaved.  In fact, we soon noticed that it was only due to the diligent efforts of the resort staff, who were continuously dumping wheelbarrows full of ice into the deep end, that the pool was being maintained at a low simmer.

   After doing our best impression of tea bags at poolside, we decided to take a short drive around town just to get an impression of the area.  What immediately impressed us was the large number of golf courses.  That they existed was not such a surprise; we figured that during the winter months the weather was probably tolerable enough to support a golfing industry.  But we were aghast to see people playing on these courses in the middle of June.  The heat made it a challenge to simply draw a breath, much less participate in a sport where, by the third hole, your club was fast turning into something other than a solid.  We figured that the same mental affliction that causes people to play golf in the first place probably makes them oblivious to atmospheric conditions (and could be responsible for the way they dress).

   We drove around till it felt like the tires were starting to stick to the pavement, then retreated to our room to map out our strategy for the rest of our vacation.  This strategy turned out to be the same as that of your average vampire: avoid the sun (we also shun garlic, but that’ pretty much a year-round family policy).  We decided to stick to indoor activities as much as possible: movies, malls, video arcades, museums… any place where Mother Nature was thwarted by an air conditioner cranking out thousands of BTU’s.

   There was an exception: Sue (my wife) had heard about an ancient Native American cliff-dwelling that was located about a hundred miles north of Scottsdale, so one day we decided to take a look.  It was quite something to see.  Into the recesses of the face of a cliff, these people had built what I would describe as a primitive apartment building (“primitive” because it didn’t have any air-conditioning).  It was a monument to man’s ingenuity, perseverance, and unending quest for shade.

   According to the brochure that a ranger dispensed through a slot from the shelter of his refrigerated booth, the people who built this magnificent cliff structure mysteriously abandoned it.  I guess we’ll never know for sure why they left, but I can think of a few likely scenarios.  I’m sure they probably entertained guests from time to time who told them that there were other places in the country where your arrows wouldn’t burst into flame before they hit their target, and you could perform rain dances with a straight face.  Most likely, I figure that one day they just couldn’t remember what had ever possessed them to build a house into the side of a cliff, and, demonstrating more sense than your average Malibu resident, moved on.  I’m sure that, just like most of my home projects, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up involving too many trips to Home Depot.

   Anyway, we left that day with a fuller understanding of why we don’t understand ancient cultures.  On the way back, we stopped at one of those big factory-outlet malls which, coincidentally, are also structures mysteriously erected in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason.

   The week just seemed to zoom by.  Before we knew it, it was time to race home and make sure the video recorder had captured all our shows from the preceding week.  And, of course, we had to sit right down and write to all of you who need to know what we’ve been doing this summer.  Don’t worry… Christmas will be here before you know it, and with it will come the annual “Year in Review” form letter.  So until then, love and kisses and we miss you terribly… whoever you are.