Katarina to Catalina

That is no volcano. It is a hump of granite pushed up from below,
alongside a fault line; its neighbor sinking at the same time.

We live on the sink, on materials sloughed off from our risen neighbor.

It is a quiet neighborhood now; rarely an earthquake. Tram drivers ferrying us up into Sabino Canyon--one of the creases in the mountain range east of town--like to tell about a big earthquake centered in Mexico, in 1887, tumbled rocks down into the canyon. It was just one of the little, left-over shivers from what essentially stopped happening millions of years ago.

On early maps, published in German, what is now the Santa Catalinas was called Santa Katarina, perhaps named for Father Kino's sister's patron Saint.

There is a lost city under the Santa Catalinas, you know, a spectacular mine opened by the Spanish, where gold could be chopped out with a hatchet, where the church bells were solid gold, and which was sealed up by an iron door and rock. Mari and Jao and I had lunch at the Iron Door Restaurant atop Mt. Lemmon, but I am quite certain--lunch prices aside--that the lost city of gold is not to be found there, but hope digs eternal.

There may not be precisely a city of gold beneath the mountain, but there is a grass, bush, and forest fire worrying its way toward Mt. Lemmon. The road up the mountain was closed yesterday to all except residents at Summerhaven, who pay attention to such things.

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