HO, HUM AND EASY STREET

Life in the hot desert country

Brian loved Scottsdale. |
know our kids would be
delighted with the place. It's
big, clean, airy, sunny and
cheap. You can get a huge
breakfast for under $2. Steak
and lobster is advertised in
chain-type houses for $5.95.

Just because I was un-
derwhelmed with Scottsdale
doesn’t mean that you won't
like it.

If we were going to return,
I'd look for a condominium
to rent. Motels are fine for
those who want to leave
cooking and  bed-making
behind them but not for me.
Ever try to order a boiled
egg on toast for breakfast?
Oh, forget it!

Grocery prices are
uniquely low — turkey was
on sale for 49¢ a pound,
fresh vegetables were choice
and cheap - 29¢ a pound for

trayel-
wise

b Barba ra
McCreadie
Pe

tomatoes,
The variety was
boggling.

When I saw beef ten-
derloin for $4 a pound, I quit
looking!

Liquor prices seemed to
me to be in the “give-away”
range. Canadian Club rye
was cheaper there than at
the duty free shop in
Vancouver airport. Brian
fancies liquers and found
Irish Cream for $10 a bottle.
A little of that goes a long
way. Vodka? A quart of
Smirnoff for $5. Here again,
we were looking, not buying.
Canada Customs isn’t im-
pressed with excess bargains
that you couldn't resist.

One day we went for a
long drive. Our destination
was the retirement town of
CAREFREE, via the scenic
Desert Foothills drive. The
drive begins nine miles south

mind-

Hard soilhelps a liar

BURLINGTON, Wis. (UPI)

The clay soil in Dale C.
Carlson's backyard is so hard
he had to rent a gasoline-
powered post-hole digger to
loosen it up a bit.

“But it was still difficult to
dig because of the large
number of stones un-
derground which caused the
digger to bind,” he said.

“AH of a sudden I got the
thing stuck so bad it turned
my whole lot around and
now my house faces west
instead of east and my front
yard is the back and the back
yard is in the front.”

The yarn won Carlson the
tide as the Burlington Liars’
Clubd’s 198! World Cham-
pion.

John Soeth, the president
of the club that has been
around -- minus a two-year
period when it was
disbanded -- for more than
50 years, said the number of
entries was down this year.
but the quality of the hes was
more than up to snuff

Don W. Carey II.
Warrensburg. Mo. got an
honorable mention for his
story on how to grow huge
potatoes

“What Ido.” he said. “is to

plant omons between the
hills of spuds The omons
cause the cyes of — the

potatoes to water which in
tum keeps the potato plants
watered ”

Jim Kubath. Burlington,

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said sailors are noted for
drinking a lot of coffee.

“One time we were an-
chored off the coast of San
Francisco for four days. The
Navy had to hire four tug
boats just to pull us off the
coffee grounds ” he said.

Paul D. Gasser, Salina,
Kan., won an_ honorable
mentior for telling how he
planted a field of wheat with
a horse-drawn pianter.

“The weed was so potent |
had to drive the horses at a
gallop so the seed would be
in the ground before it
sprouted,” he said.

William A. Carpenter,
Upland. Pa., told of roofing
his neighbor's house when a
dense fog came up.

“We kept right on roofing

and when the fog cleared we
found we had shingled six
feet beyond the peak of the
roof,” he said.

And then there was the
one told by James Hetzel of
Carbondale, Ill,, who said
two summers ago he painted
a picture of a fireplace
glowing with embers. He
hung it on the living room
wall.

“During the winter. I
noticed the room (felt
considerably warmer than
the other rooms in the
house.

“So the next summer, |
painted similar pictures and
hung them in each room.
The entire house remained
so comfortable throughout
the winter I no longer have
to pay fuel bills,” he said.

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of Carefree and it's worth a
visit. Drive slowly — all the
cacti and shrubs are named
and you can stop and ad-
mire.

During the winter months
you can do this in com-
parative safety — all the
little nasties (rattlers, side-
winders, gila monsters and
scorpions) are asleep for the
season.

Carefree is an interesting
place to visit but I wouldn't
want to live there. Who
needs to walk down “Easy
Street” to the corner of “Ho”
and “Hum”? Just a bit too
consciously cute for my
taste. Sleepy? You could
shoot a cannon down the
main street and aside from
not hitting even a stray dog,
the population seems to have
all hearing-aids turned to
“off. .

We prowled through a few
stores — modern adobe —
and high priced. Lunchtime
found us at the Spanish
Galleon — just past the
corner of Ho and Hum, good
Mexican food at the bar.

Dick Van Dyke has a
home there — up on the hill
somewhere. Must near drive
him crazy. Lots of
retirement homes and I hear

C7 - Sunday-News, January 24, 1982

that there is a wild time to be
had at the golf club. Maybe
they race their golf carts.
Another stop was at the
tourist trap “Rawhide”, 16
miles north of Scottsdale.
We'd intended to stop there
on our way to Carefree but
the place is closed until 5
p.m. weekdays. (Open noon
till midnight on weekends).
No admission. charge,
which is a good thing. Kids
might like it — there's a
reconstruction of a wagon
train, circled for the night
with a recorded dialogue.
Rawhide is a re-construction

of a pioneer village, with all
the shops selling souvenirs.
You can eat there, if you've
nothing better to do.

Go — once — but, if
you're anything like me, pass
on the second round.

We drove home at twilight
— and that is the highlight of
the day. Nothing is more
lovely than a desert sunset,
low mountains and cacti
bathed in pink and purple.
All it needed was an Apache
on horseback, silhouetted on
the edge of a cliff. Oh hell,
he'd probably be hired right
out of Central Casting!

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