How about a Good Old Days zoning code?

Fairy and I have a friend in Tucson whose home backs up to a shopping center with a restaurant/sports bar. We sometimes stay with her when business takes us to the Old Pueblo, as Arizona's second-largest city is lovingly called.

Well, you're thinking wrong if you think that if the mood behooves us some evening we can saunter over to that eatery behind her house for an Italian sausage sandwich, garlic fries and cold brew.

Her residential neighborhood, you see, is walled off from the business side of life. The two don't seem to co-mingle in modern America. While it's technically possible for us to make the trek from one to the other, it's sure as hell not feasible.

One route, I figure, would take us down winding dark alleys, strewn with garbage cans and lord knows what else lurking in the shadows.

There's another way, out along the traffic-choked six-lane roads (eight if you count the turn-lanes). It's probably safer in the alleys.

So, let's drive. Oh, boy! For starters, you have to go in the wrong direction to get there. The residential streets wind and divert into cul de sacs. Those that don't divert, wind some more, and eventually you find your way to a through-street, approximately three-quarters of a mile from where you want to go, which is only a few dozen yards from where you started.

City planners and politicians are responsible for this idiocy. In many places, such as Tucson, they have shredded the fabric of America.

Fairy: Adjusting to life in the slow lane

O-kee-doe-kee Harry, dear. I don’t intentionally annoy you. That is simply the result of me expressing myself.

I’m glad you don’t hate “Fogyville”. I don’t either. It’s a very attractive place to live. I think I would be very happy here when I’m in my 80s or 90s…if I’m incapacitated.

If I continue to live here, I will not live to be in my 80s. I will die from isolation and social deprivation if heat stroke doesn’t get me first.

Whose fault is that? Yours!!

You thought I was going to say “Mine” didn’t you?

Harry: Off to fogy-ville

So, I lug in this big armful of juniper for Old Smokey’s next feeding.

“Nothing like wood heat,” I say with a wheeze, peering through the haze at Fairy.

We’re in our cozy cabin in Arizona high country this wintry day and I’m busy talking myself out of shoveling the driveway. Wind will just blow it back in, I tell myself. Snowplow will be by in a matter of hours and just push it all back in anyway. It’ll be warmer tomorrow. Damn, I’m easy to convince.

It was about then that Fairy calls me over to the computer screen to show me this house we might be interested in. She’s been looking for some time. That’s what she does.

This one is down in Arizona’s low country, home of the Flatlanders as we proud mountain people call them. The house is in a new development, not too far from places with names such as Valley of the Sun. Paradise Valley. Sun Lakes. Carefree. Green Valley. You get the idea. Warm. Nesting places galore for snowbirds.

The way the sun glitters off the icicles hanging from the eaves helps me see the light. Fairy may be on to something.

Right off the bat, though, I see one potential problem with Fairy’s warm-weather retreat. This house she’s looking at is in a 55-or-older age-restricted community. It’s not that we’re unqualified in that department. We’re over-qualified actually.  But surrounded by geezers? Fogies? Us? Ruled by a home-owners’ association?

Just who are Harry and Fairy?

Harry is a man: Strong, tall, dark, and handsome with big brown eyes. He is a husband, a father and a grandfather. He is gentle, kind, patient, smart, and witty. Professionally, he is a seeker of knowledge, a writer, an artist, and an entrepreneur. Harry is Yin. Harry is from Mars. Harry is an “afternoon” person. He is comfortable in hot, dry weather. His dream vacation is camping in Death Valley in August when there is no one else there.

Fairy is a woman: Rather round, short, fair-complected, blue-eyed natural blonde with white hair. She is a wife, a mother and a grandmother. She is an energetic optimist, her mind races with ideas and she talks too much. She also eats too much. She is a  “foodie”. Professionally, she is also a seeker of knowledge, a homemaker, a teacher, a real estate broker and an entrepreneur. Fairy is yang. Fairy is from Venus. Fairy is a morning person. She is most comfortable in cold, rainy or snowy weather. Her dream vacation is to be on an Alaskan Cruise and get dropped off for the winter with a fat wallet in a remote village with a good diner.

We hope to entertain, enlighten, and educate you with our differences of opinion and accumulated knowledge on a vast array of topics as we continue our search to find middle ground.