Event of the Month

Event of the Month Leisurely Is the mood of Festivals at Arizona City

Arizona City is a diffuse, spread-out community of some 2,500 souls, located three miles south of Interstate 10, about halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. It started some 30 years ago, the developers envisioning a desert city with a population of 11,000 mainly retirees by 1980. What did happen was the slow comfortable growth of a town with more young people than retirees. Everybody knows just about everybody else. People are downright neighborly. The livin' is if not easy easier than in big cities.

So every year in March, Arizona City celebrates what it likes to call Arizona City Days. The event used to be known as Bonanza Days. But, says Shelly Mince, last year's chairperson, nobody could explain why it was called that. "The committee decided we'd like to name it after our town our community... because

WHEN YOU GO

that's what we're celebrating. It's a chance for the people to get out and visit with each other and get to know their neighbors and see what we're all about. And we love to have visitors."

It's not a big celebration, because, after all, this isn't a big town. There's a parade at 8 A.M. to kick things off, although, of course, not a big one ("you blink your eye, and it's gone," admitted the proprietress of the local coffee shop). There are wheelbarrow races, a kids' tug-of-war, a dart contest, a beard contest (if enough beards show up), shuffleboard, a raffle, bingo, booths selling the usual gewgaws. All to the accompaniment of daylong fiddle-guitar-andaccordion music. The celebration is a leisurely sort of thing, as befits a leisurely sort of community, which leaves you time to look around. You'll find no tract houses. Everything is individually designed. As one of the local volunteer firemen, Mort Erickson, puts it, "You don't live next door to a house that's exactly like yours."

There's an 18-hole golf course. There's also a 48-acre lake with an interesting story. Where the lake is now used to be the airport. The town developers used it to bring in sales prospects. One very hot day, a rather large plane full of prospects arrived. Later, when the plane attempted to take off, it got stuck in the melted tar of the landing strip. The airport was abandoned and the lake put in.

There's not much in the way of employment opportunity at Arizona City: a small textile plant, a bakery, several stores, real estate offices, three restaurants. Young folks commute to jobs in nearby towns. Some commute all the way to Phoenix or Tucson. One couple I heard of commutes to both Phoenix and Tucson, he to the former, she to the latter. That's two hundred miles per day for the two of them. Why live so far away in Arizona City? Because the livin' is good. "It's just a nice place to be," says Shelly Mince. "You know your neighbor by name. You know who the person down the street is." And, adds Sharon Erickson, wife of the volunteer fireman, herself a teacher at nearby Toltec: "I'm known here. I'm on the chamber of commerce board. I'm in the Women of the Moose Lodge. I have an identity. I'd be swallowed up in the big city."

By Joseph Stocker

This will be the fifth consecutive year folks here celebrate not being swallowed up at Arizona City. If you can make it out of the big-city traffic, they'd welcome you warmly, like good neighbors.

This year's family-oriented Arizona City Days will take place from 8 A.M. till 4 P.M., Saturday, March 26, at the community center on the town's main street. In addition to the parade, races, contests, raffle, game booths, and other diversions, there'll probably be a dinner dance in the evening. There will be a charge for some activities.

To get to Arizona City from Phoenix or Tucson, take Interstate 10 to Exit 200 (Sunland Gin Road) and head south.

To confirm date and for additional information, contact the chamber of commerce, P.O. Box 5, Arizona City, AZ 85223; (602) 466-5141, weekdays, 9 A.M. to 2 P.M.