It isn’t too difficult to see America as if through the eyes of a foreign tourist. In a way, I am a stranger here myself. And I can’t imagine why any sane tourist would drive across Texas. Even at 85 mph (140 km/hr) it took us a day and a half from Houston to the Arizona border with nothing of note to see. Connie quips that if you included only the good parts, Texas would be the size of Rhode Island.
At first glance, Arizona is more of the same – not the stuff we used to look at in Arizona Highways magazine. It wasn’t until we arrived at Paul’s house that the scenery improved. Saguaro cactus replaced scrub bushes, the mountains shimmered and yellow poppies glowed along the roadside. Paul and Norrine have been spending winters away from snowy New England for several years and invited us for a couple of days. College friends, Mack and Beth, were also visiting but Paul and I go all the way back to kindergarten. We were on the same Little League teams, shared a tent in Boy Scouts and played soccer and ran track together. We even serially dated the same girls.
A Greek monastery in Arizona?
Bobby, Paul and John, circa 1957
There is more of Paul today and the red hair is mostly a memory. But he is still the same Ritchie Cunningham clone he was back then, one of the nicest people I have ever met. We don’t see Norrine and him often, every few years or so, but it is always a pleasure. They always seem to find interesting places to show us in their adopted state. This time it was a Greek Orthodox monastery right in the heart of Arizona. Go figure. They even arranged to score extra tickets to the Arizona Oprey so we could sit with them and Mack and Beth. This is one of the few times that we were some of the youngest folks in the audience. Talk about the graying of America. The Age of Aquarius has given way to the Age of the Boomers.
