This is a bit of a departure from my usual blogging, but a long-time friend sent me something that made me reminisce. With some license taken, please allow me to indulge the moment and write of other times and places.
In the northeastern Sonoran Desert Basin, where the high chaparral grasslands meet the oak, sycamore and cottonwood-heavy foothills of the Sky Island mountain ranges that straddle the Arizona-Mexico border at 5,000 feet, there have lived very different types of people who are different in different ways. People like Geronimo and Cochise, bandidos, pony express riders, train and stagecoach robbers, cowboys and cattle rustlers, US calvary, hunters, gatherers, ranchers and farmers, vigilantes and fugitives, later hippies, cultists, off-road meatheads and the occasional writer, painter or poet. Although there are no saguaro cactus at this altitude, here the Sonoran landscapes are lush and varied, with skies, especially at dawn and dusk, that are shades of pink, orange, yellow and white set against hues of blue as broad as the eye can see, and nightscapes that are a psychadelic kaldeoscope of stars, planets, meteors and nebula. Wildlife abounds, from the elusive jaguar to the playful coatamundi, with bear, puma, bobcats, fox, wolves, badgers, antelope, deer and other mammals sharing space with hundreds of bird, snake, insect and anthropod species, some only to be found in this part of Earth. It is truly Nature’s Paradise.
Among the people who have passed through this space, in the 1990s there was a trio of wayward travelers, “ruffians” at best, “trouble makers” to some and “riff-raff” as they were affectionately known by their kin. Before they arrived in the Sonoita-Patagonia area on the southeast end of the Santa Rita Mountains, they had traveled far and wide abroad in pursuit of knowledge and adventure, cultural enrichment and earthly pleasures. The accumulated wisdom beyond their years, dodged a few (figurative and literal) bullets, consumed way too much mind-altering substances and worked to re-define themselves in light of their individual and shared experiences. They earned advanced degrees but did not flaunt them. Two studied traditional cultures and one studied comparative politics. All wrote about social organizations. They spoke other languages and listened to jazz, Norteno and borderland blues on KXCI FM. Two drove old American pick-up trucks and all rode fast bikes. They were not feminine and supported feminists. They understood risk but were not always averse to it. They played with sharp objects. They were comfortable with weapons. They could cook for others. They liked dogs.
This was before Alpha became a pronoun or “woke” meant anything other than rising from slumber. They were Keto before 30-30-40 diets were a thing. They did not need testosterone boosters. The liked their wine dry and their beer cold, sometimes with a shot on the side.They were cool, calm and cordial on first impression but warm and affectionate to others when the occasion warranted. They shared their opinions and could spin a yarn but listened as much as they spoke. They behaved in a mannerly fashion around women and kids, and confronted ne’er do wells when other options were exhausted. They did not start fights but knew what causes were worth fighting for and what not to back away from. They looked out for each other.
I like to call them “Adobe Canyon Men” because of a certain location near the 32nd North/111th West parallels where they congregated from time to time to discuss the finer things of life as well as the state of current affairs. Alas, those days could not last and the centrifugal pull of other adventures carried them away to other climes and a new millenium. But one record of their passage in that special space remains, and it is this:
Adobe Canyon, circa 1993.