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ARIZONA
CHRONICLE # 6
IT'S
HARD TO DO GOOD THINGS IN TOMBSTONE Last October, I came
"back to my roots" in Arizona. I
LOVED Helldorado, of course! Retired,
I had time to do things that would be fun and also help the community.
After a lifetime of
playing music, I wanted to run a Jam Session.
Since I'm an Arizona Veteran (joined up right here in Cochise County) I
joined the American Legion. Although
their big room sits idle five nights a week, they had no room for a Country Jam. Eventually, I found a place – the Four Deuces, and we (a
group of 10-15 mostly Senior Citizens) have just completed our 30th week of
jamming on Tuesday nights – to SRO crowds.
(It's a small place.) When
it got warm, we moved out to the patio, but it's still pretty crowded when a
bunch of players show up. Always
good music, always fun! One of my most
pleasant experiences in Tombstone has been the Tombstone Cowboy Church, where I
played music for a while. I started
doing some Chuckwagon Cooking for breakfast there. (look here)
When Wyatt Earp
Days came up (May 23-25) it included a Chili Cookoff.
Since I did six Chili Cookoffs in Colorado Springs, I was interested.
WE COULD PUT A TEAM TOGETHER!!
It was very hard to get any details about the cookoff.
The Lions, who put on Wyatt Earp Days, just weren't very well organized.
(Their website, which should be a good source, hadn't been updated since
January.) I tried to get
information from the Lion's club president, a guy named "Chip."
He was gruff, told me that CASI (Chili Appreciation Society
International)
ran the contest. I could find out
all about it the night before the contest.
Well, I spent a bunch of money on meat, spices, hand washing and
dishwashing facilities, got a table from the church and a canopy from Dee, and
we entered the contest. While we were cooking, I met a bunch of CASI
members and really had a good time.
I was already
committed to play in the City Park – to help the Craft Show – so it was a
real trick to get up at 5, get set up for the cookoff, and then, after our
judging sample was turned in at 1, feed a hundred people, and get over to the
park to play music for three hours! At
5PM, exhausted, I went by the Vigilante House to find out if we might have won
anything. NO RESULTS.
"You can read about it in the newspapers!" said Chip, very
gruffly. Well, no… all you have
is a number for results. I'm the
only one who knows what my number is.
"You should have been here at 2:30 when we announced the
results." I explained
that I was busy playing music in the park.
"Look… we don't really do the Chili Cookoff… it's really handled
by CASI." Gruffly. So, every day I
looked in the paper. No results!!
Furthermore, the publicist for the Lions thanked every one in town for
helping with Wyatt Earp Days. Everyone
but CASI. Oh well. So much
for Chili cookoffs. There's another
one coming up, but no thanks. One of my new
friends here is "TJ." He
plays Pedal Steel Guitar, but doesn't own one. But I own one!!.
Now the PSG takes about 30 minutes to set up after you take it out of the
case, and then it takes another 30 minutes to tune.
(10 strings!!!) I started
looking for a place where we could set up my PSG and leave it up.
Tombstone
Firehouse No. 1 is a neat old building.
The Firehouse is now
managed by Tombstone Senior Citizen's, Inc (sic).
But they don't have any activities.
They sell hot dogs for $1 on Tuesdays at noon while they play Bingo, and
have a congregate meal on Saturday. That's
it. TSC, Inc. is actually a private
eating club. They go out to dinner three times a week at local
restaurants. Members get an $8-10
meal for $3 because the program is subsidized by contributions from the Lion's
Club. To be a member, you have to
sign up and pay $12 per year. (I've
never seen a Senior Center where they charge you to come in, but that's the way
it works here.) I jotted down a
variety of activities (over 50 of them) which I might start and lead in this
wonderful facility, and went looking for the president of the club, a man named
Ron. He wouldn't discuss it with me. A
week later he called Wanda, and told her that we could present our ideas to the
Executive Committee. That meeting
was run by <gasp> Chip. I
showed them my list of activities. "We've
tried all of these and no one was interested," they said gruffly. Really!
Well, I persisted. Since I have taught computer topics all
over the world, I thought I could help Tombstone seniors learn about computers
and use them more fully.
"No – we tried that, and no one was interested."
We don't have any computers any more.
(They actually had at least three – I saw them.)
I
suggested that Bill Gates was trying to give away 33 Billion dollars and maybe I
could get some of that money for a computer program. "Would
you get paid?" asked Chip, gruffly. I allowed as how a director might be paid from those funds, and he picked that up and decided that we were in this for the money. (So, as we discovered, is the TSC, Inc.) I
persisted with my activities list. How
about a Music program? – which I already had going at the 4 Deuces?
"No – they're just a bunch of drunks and they'll mess up our
beautiful floor"
As I went thru fun activities, I was repeatedly met
with… "90-year-old
women wouldn't be interested in that."
(Sounds silly, doesn't it? I
thought so.) When I
suggested that there is a world of baby boomers turning into Seniors, they told
me: "They are outsiders.
We're not in business (sic) to help them" I
thought it might be nice to have a program here in Tombstone so dynamic that the
snow birds who come down here for
the winter would go back up north and say "Boy, they sure have a wonderful Senior Center in Tombstone." Well, obviously, we
were wasting our time with the activities.
We quit that, I joined the club, paid $12, and they voted to let me in.
(How about that!!??) and
left. They cancelled all the rest
of their meetings for the summer. We got a copy of TSC
Inc's lease with the city. They
were supposed to be doing 20 hours a week of activities in the club.
Wanda and I chatted with Dusty, the Mayor, and he suggested that we get
older folks around town to sign a petition asking that the Senior Center become
a real Senior Center. Dusty told
TSC, Inc. that they should be open and busy.
We got over 50 signatures on a petition to "do something at the
Senior Center." Well, TSC, Inc. members, one at a time, started
sitting in the club, alone, with the door open, for 20 hours a week! Disgusted, we went
to a City Council meeting and asked the city to take over management of the
Center – turn it into a real Senior Center. Wanda and I would do it – as volunteers – no charge. The City Attorney
called a meeting for all of us in his office in Sierra Vista.
At the onset, I was optimistic, but the meeting was very one-sided.
(I think the Attorney's agenda was "Keep the City out of
this!") He bullied and
grilled Wanda, had her in tears. He
threatened to throw me out if I said anything.
We established that we could come into the center as a separate
organization, but we had to use our own equipment and take it with us when we
left. He shook hands with Chip when he left. Chip began walling
off the TSC, Inc. office inside the Firehouse so that they could safeguard their
secrets. Earlier, during the
Executive Council meeting, Chip had repeatedly told me that we would have to
have $5 million in Liability Insurance to bring in outsiders.
That was not true. Eventually we got a copy of an insurance advice sent to the
City. It said that, as a separate
organization, we needed $1 million of insurance. Wanda thought about it and realized that since I was a
member, I should be covered by THEIR insurance if I ran a music program.
I decided to do that. I
wrote a letter to the mayor advising him of that fact, and copied Ron and Chip. The next day, we
went by the Firehouse to check on progress of the wall and think about a cabinet
to store my PSG and some computers that we would bring in.
Ron,
holding my letter, was having a meeting with two other board members!
(Chip was out of town.) "REQUEST
DENIED" he shouted. "It
wasn't a request," I told him… "I was sharing my plan with
you." "I WON'T DISCUSS IT." We
left.
Last
Friday (July 31) the City Marshal served a court order on us, enjoining us from a)
Going in the Firehouse b)
Talking to any executive board members without an attorney present. I wrote a long
article for The Tombstone Gazette – relating the same events I just
described to you here. They
wouldn't print it. I guess the Lord has
closed the Firehouse door, huh? Rick
Zahniser (AKA Rick Jolley, Senor Reek)
PS:
I guess I better get my $12 back, huh? |
This page and all pages on this website are Copyright, Sr_Ric, 2009. 2010. All Rights Reserved. |
