John Wise

Six months ago this house would have sold in less than thirty minutes as everything put on the Phoenix real estate market was snatched up within minutes of listing – not anymore. The boom is over and house prices are slowly starting to return to normal. This home though is slowly being taken over by vandalism as it sits empty. Allowing it to be gutted and having to spend the thirty-thousand to remove it would be a waste of money as this house is not that far from ‘The Square’. The square as it is known is an area stretching from Cave Creek Road to 32nd Street and Bell Road to Greenway Parkway and is the highest crime area in our state of Arizona. Welcome to the future of all those areas of Phoenix where people with the means are baling out of older homes and moving further and further away into the disappearing desert and the growing McMansion neighborhoods behind gates and walls.

Today was the last scheduled delivery of fresh organic veggies from The Little Farm in Gilbert. We subscribed last year to receive a weekly bag of mixed fruits and veggies with no idea what might be in the bag from week to week and loved the variety of fresh salad greens, beets, carrots, parsnips, chard, eggplant, basil, spinach, and everything else that kept us eating more fresh vegetables than I think we would have eaten otherwise. This last bag of the season was the icing on the cake; the tomatoes you are looking at are the real thing. They are not factory-farmed, picked green, flavorless red orbs, these are sweet, tangy, incredible tomatoes. The potatoes are the most potato-ie spuds we have had the opportunity to cook up.

Next season, which begins in November will be Lauren’s last year operating a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where about 45 of us valley residents subscribe and pay $64 a month for the luxury of receiving a weekly surprise package. Sadly, Lauren’s Little Farm in Gilbert is the second in a year to give in to our local government and land developers who are putting more value on property taxes and profits than the quality of life. I am certain all of us who have benefited from her and her volunteers’ hard work will sorely miss her but at the same time be awful darn grateful that we were lucky enough to have been supporters.

Too many sunsets, flowers, pretty pictures ’round here, time for some ugly. Following up on yesterday’s broken door I present you with…….The Trash Can. I suppose if this were Oscar’s home, this would be his McMansion and he wouldn’t have to live on Sesame Street alone in his little can. He could invite enough muppets to have lavish parties in this joint, I think there’d even be enough room for Barney. Heck, MTV Cribs might want to check out the bling in this posh joint on prime land in tony Scottsdale, yo yo yo.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and then resort to a crowbar to pry your door open. This is the unfortunate lock that was attacked by an idiot. What could be of such great value in an electrical room to deserve the rage of the moron who with obvious futility went berzerk trying to rip open this heavy-duty steal locked door? Too bad the wanna-be criminal didn’t apply such determination to his education.

Streetside newspaper machines, you have got to wonder just how much longer will these continue to exist as fewer and fewer of us read the daily paper. This K-Jack model from 1988 appears to have weathered the ravages of street life and vandalism with just a small amount of rust starting to show on the edges. Not so strange is that this was made in America, amazingly though – they still are! I’d be willing to bet most everyone has seen and could recognize the familiar USA Today newspaper machine, well that is the KJ-25 model, I never once before today wondered from where do these lowly mechanical boxes come from. Now I know, a small company in Gardena, California.