Local Opinion: Getting an earful from out-of-state friends

After hearing cries of “liar” lobbed at President Biden at the recent State of the Union address, and witnessing other behavior most civilized beings in a not distant past would have considered completely unacceptable, I wondered how long it would take before I’d hear from some of the people I know who love to bust my political chops, in predominantly decent ways that veer both right and left, some of whom have told me outright they should be featured in one of my columns.

And within not too many days after the spectacle at the Capitol, I heard from someone in Minnesota who has spent many a winter vacation at Arizona golf courses. Not as many as he might like, but enough to make him think the Arizona Office of Tourism should engage his promotional services. Or so I thought.

My recent conversation with this person first involved what he considered a totally worthless State of the Union address. Okay. Then came a diatribe about Arizona’s “stupid” move toward a concept many of us have heard too much of, that being the state of being “woke” in a decidedly left and Democratic Party direction.

Wanting to defuse a call I wish I had declined (though I then wouldn’t have this good material to write about), I told this individual I thought being woke meant being awake and alert. And that, as the full-time caregiver of a parent with serious congestive heart failure who spends most of the day sleeping or wanting to head to the Land of Nod, I wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more “wokeness” around my house.

My effort was only partially successful, as I then heard his less-than-coherent dismay that Arizona dared to elect Democrats as governor, attorney general and secretary of state. I asked him if all of this horror meant he couldn’t golf here in March. Oh no. Just that he didn’t feel comfortable spending as much money here anymore. I said, well, tourism is an important part of Arizona’s economy but if you feel you would be supporting woke evil by visiting, I’m sure someone else would be more than happy to take your tee times.

Then another Northerner who inhabits the farthest reaches of the other side of the political divide weighed in on the disgust and lack of basic manners displayed at the State of the Union. I didn’t disagree.

What followed was what I can only call an extended vent that made me think I was seeing the figure in the Edvard Munch painting “The Scream.” I heard about everything this individual felt was wrong with Arizona, from abortion to education to border inhumanity to water issues. Especially water, with particular emphasis on why the hell so many people live here, raising too many water-thirsty crops and “why do you people (I guess that makes me at least a partial Arizonan now that I was called “you people”) think you have any right to Mississippi River or Great Lakes water?”

I asked this person if she was still planning to come to the upcoming Linda McCartney photography exhibit here in Tucson. She said maybe. I said if you do come to such a vile but beautiful land (her words), maybe we can have a more balanced conversation than the one we just had that resembled the bad State of the Union behavior in too many ways.

These discussions made me think about how many other people all over this country are having similar encounters with people who used to be mostly measured with their words, about matters about which they can agree and others about which they are doing as much as they can in their non-elected office ability to address. And my musings made me very sad. Sad but more determined than ever to not yell “liar” or anything worse at anyone with whom I might disagree.

No matter how much they scream about Arizona or anything else.