San Agustín del Tucson

Retirement is not all it is cracked up to be: sometimes it is more.

Sometimes it is lunch together, just because we want to. This time--today--it was at San Agustin Kitchen, more or less on the spot where Native Americans seem first to have settled in what is now Tucson, there where once upon a time, and sometimes even now, there is water at the foot of a black mountain.

Today--in spite of the rain last night--there is no water in the Santa Cruz, but no matter, no water, there is wine and beer!

Mercado San Agustin is a courtyard, with several shops, and with an open farmer's market once a week. We ate at the namesake restaurant, and have every intention of going back again and again!

It is an elegant little corner of a traditional open courtyard; half quiet, dark wood, and half bright bar. Out in the courtyard, people gather as people do where the sun shines, sometimes to have a drink, or maybe a taco; perhaps to get off the bicycle after having gone over and back Gates Pass. Any excuse will do.

There is fine pottery, and fine clothes, and a bakery, as well as ice cream and permission to sit and do nothing at all.

Last time, when we came with Jao, he discovered that the chairs outside had trampoline straps, and that the straw bales were not just to lean bicycles up against.

It was in 1692 that Farther Kino discovered an Indian village here, although Native Americans prefer to say that it was in 1692 they they discovered Father Kino wandering around in the desert. Now, thanks to Kathy and Ivy, Mari and I know where the streetcar line ends, close enough to downtown to walk, but walking is dangerous: who knows, what if it rains again, someday? What if the river floods?

But not yet! There is still wine. And we have promises to keep.

Comments

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. Even when all they wanted to do w

SmokeSound

Search This Blog