We’re in Phoenix, which is a megalopolis. You can drive in a straight line in the Phoenix metropolitan area for two solid hours and never run out of metropolitan area.
But much of Arizona is not just rural but virtually devoid of people. Scrub desert, dry as dust, where a very few hard-scrabble folks try to scratch out a hard-scrabble living.
You can be on a lonely old road at night and not see a car in either direction. There are no street lights, since someone would have to build, pay for and maintain them. There are no lights at all, and you will never know what it feels like to be shipwrecked or stranded alone on the moon until you look in vain in every direction for any sign of the works of man.
And then, far off in the distance, there’s a light. Just a glint at first, but it seems to grow brighter as you draw nearer. You can drive toward a light like that for half an hour, so thick is the darkness. And then you’re upon it. And then, just like that, you’re past it.
What was it? An electric sign. For what? A lonely little cowboy roadhouse. And what did the sign say? “Dancing, Saturday Nights.”
That’s real life in the real desert.
Here’s a Reason.TV story about authorities in Pinal County trying to shut down a little desert road house — for the crime of allowing its patrons to dance outdoors.
There’s a bit of speculation in the video that calls to mind the Lincoln County War — but that’s a different desert in a different state…
Hat tip: Thomas Johnson.
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
Loren Nason says:
What a bunch a typical government lackeys. Picking on the Small Biz owner with some old law.
Greg, I bet you either read http://www.coyoteblog.com or if you don’t you probably will like it.
Loren
January 21, 2008 — 10:46 am
Greg Swann says:
> Greg, I bet you either read http://www.coyoteblog.com or if you don’t you probably will like it.
I’ve been there, but hadn’t subscribed — a defect just corrected. Thank you for goading my on-going self-improvement!
January 21, 2008 — 10:52 am
Greg Cremia says:
My guess is somewhere, not far away, is a restaurant that has seen a decline in business since this place opened up.
January 21, 2008 — 11:30 am
Teri L says:
Sounds like a good place for a BHB Unchained road trip. I’ll bring my dancin’ shoes- woo hoo! 😀
January 21, 2008 — 2:45 pm
Doug Quance says:
Reminds me of a club I opened back in the 80’s.
We were getting citations for noise – even on days that we weren’t open. (That ended when we hired off-duty cops for security.)
Not only did the county want us to get a dance permit – but there was two of them. One that was good until 11PM… and one that was good until 4AM.
Well since the county had picked our pockets clean up to that point… we decided that there would be no dancing – and we invented a mascot “Tadd”… which was the acronym for “The Anti-Dance Dude”.
Sometimes, the government you allow to grow… is the government you hate to know.
January 21, 2008 — 7:41 pm
Brian Brady says:
The place ought to be preserved as a State Landmark. Anyone who remember the old Greasewood Flats, in Pinnacle Peak? What a place it was before the resorts went in.
Cowboy roadhouses (real or manufactured) are a part of Arizona’s history. I watched the video. If families huddling round an open fire and dancing to some C&W music threatens the public peace, than Arizona is a poorer place.
What’s next? No rodeo?
Barry Goldwater is spinning in his grave.
January 21, 2008 — 7:42 pm
Thomas Johnson says:
Greg: Just thinking:
Didn’t you post about dancing on bridges?
Does Pinal County have outdoor high school football fields? With football players (they dance in the end zone) and cheerleaders and marching bands? This should be fun. Are Native Americans in Pinal County banned from their cultural heritage? I don’t think San Tan Flat (the Official Bloodhound UnChained dancin’/watering hole?) has much to worry about.
January 22, 2008 — 2:46 pm