Urban I'm Not

I was born and raised in the city of Saint Paul but couldn’t wait to ‘get out of Dodge’ after my discharge from the Army. Old Saint Paul was no place for me or my future. I wanted my space and eventually got it. Yet, surprisingly along the way, I developed a strong interest in urban living, the sprawling suburbs and that place we all call ‘our home.’

Fast forward 50 years and my grandchildren are growing up just five blocks from where I was raised and I love going back into the city to see them. Despite the fact that I’ve spent the bulk of my life in the suburbs, city living still intrigues me. We’ve only owned two homes in our fifty-one years of togetherness, both in the suburbs. The first was a tiny (built on a slab) rambler in Reisterstown, Maryland near my work.

Our second home, where we still live today, is a tract rambler built around 1968 in a third ring suburb called Apple Valley. A little after we moved back to Minnesota, Time Magazine declared that ‘Minnesota was a great place to live.’ I couldn’t agree more.

Despite spending the bulk of my life in the suburbs, I’ve always been interested in real estate from an urban perspective.

Most of my real estate investments were in an urban setting. Owning a couple of apartment buildings in the city made me acutely aware of the policies, procedures, restrictions, and lifestyle choices of my tenants. Over the years I’ve gravitated toward books on architecture, housing, city-living and suburban sprawl.

Now with my favorite source of reading material (Better World Books), I’ve been reading a lot of books about the multitude of changes happening in cities nationwide and worldwide.

Selling the suburbs is nothing new. Back around the turn of the century, major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston were advertising outlying townships away from the grim and chaos of the city. California was one of the first to paint this beatific picture of suburban living.

Over time, that attitude of suburban tranquility has gradually changed and a new attitude of better living in the city has emerged. The literature followed.

Palm Springs has been following the trend of many medium-size communities in re-imagining its downtown core. Over the last several years, new retail, commercial, dining and hospitality spots have sprung up and flourished downtown.

A new central business district in Apple Valley is following much the same trend in reshaping the suburb of old into something more pedestrian friendly and upping its talk-ability features.

This propensity for creating a downtown core is nothing new for the suburbs. While trying to replicate a real downtown is a challenge, the idea of a central gathering spot for its residents is an admirable goal to strive toward.

In a real sense, I’ve got the best of both worlds. I live in the suburbs but can still enjoy city-living and all the amenities that the city has to offer.

Once in a Great City

Like any living, breathing organism, cities grow and thrive and then begin to fade over time. It’s an evolutionary process that can take decades or just a couple of years. Rebirth can come in many forms and functions. Then the rebuilding process begins all over again, completing the life cycle of a city.

I read a fascinating book on the city of Detroit recently. It was a snapshot of a period from roughly fall of 1962 to spring of 1964. The author claims that period was probably the high point, the zenith of most everything we associate with that once great city. Automobiles, Motown, etc. were all destined to be reshaped, revised and reimagined in coming years.

It got me to thinking about the past twenty years when I started out as a sometimes visitor to Palm Springs and eventually evolved into a part-time resident. Palm Springs has also gone through its own metamorphosis and evolution as time gradually erased most vestiges of old Hollywood, welcomed a much larger gay population and then invited in the cool hipster set from the coast.

In its heyday, L.A. had its Sunset Strip, Chicago, its miracle mile and Detroit, its automobiles and Motown. Now Palm Springs has done them one better with its own small-town village atmosphere cloaked as a 21^st century hotspot. Throw in a summer splash party or two and it’s become a poor man’s version of ‘Caligula’ for the masses…as long as they’re preferably under thirty years of age.

Back in its glory days, Palm Springs was a classic example of heightened expectations clashing with the reality of desert star gazing. In reality it was only the well-heeled or coastal-connected that got to hang out with the stars. For the average visitor, Palm Canyon Drive was just a welcome respite from the normalcy back home even while it harbored high hopes for seeing one of their favorite stars passing by on the sidewalk. Over the last several years, even before Covid, Palm Springs had slowly begun to regain its panache.

Palm Springs is now fast becoming just about the hippest hot spot this side of Brooklyn, Silver Lake and West Hollywood. West Coast hipsters, designers, remodelers, artists, musicians and actors are all rediscovering what their forefathers knew all along. They’re finding that wrapping those warm blue pools with a healthy shot of alcohol can bring out a hedonistic nature in the best of us.

There is still something magical about the surrounding mountains, desert scape, warm winter months and hip happenings all over town. Palm Springs is now a virtual cornucopia of cultural, artistic, sensual, musical and intellectual stirrings for just about everyone from the art culture types to the more modest of minds. It all seems to be happening here.

It’s a new era for Palm Springs and I’m lucky enough to be ‘cruising along’ in the middle of it.

Old Saint Paul also went through a similar shift in population, commerce and direction. During the late fifties and early sixties, the outlying suburbs became more defined and easy to label. Highways and roadways paved easy access to more land, cheaper housing and became a mecca for younger families.

The beltway surrounding both cities used to be the demarcation line between city neighborhoods and the suburbs. Now second, third and even fourth tiered communities spread out in a fan around both core cities.

Then in the late eighties, a gradual shift in population began from the suburbs back to the cities. The golden horizon, that was once the suburbs, had become too distant for many and commuters tired of their daily grind into the city. At that point, older long time neighborhoods began to grow a sheen of their own and began to attract young couples eager to raise their kids in the cities.

This was partnered with a growing interest on the part of younger generations to embrace what their parents and grandparents had left behind. Whether it meant easy access to transportation, commerce, jobs, education, and other amenities, they found it nearby instead of over the horizon.

Closer to home, Apple Valley has also grown up and out over the years. The initial concept of mini town centers changed to a central core of businesses and amenities surrounded by new as well as original neighborhoods.

Apple Valley is a third ring suburb that has matured and slowed its growth just as its neighbors to the east, Rosemount, and the south, Lakeville; continue their expansion because of available land for development.

While Sharon and I weren’t here at its inception, we’ve been a part of the Apple Valley scene since 1977. That was less than ten years after it was incorporated from Lebanon Hills Township to the city of Apple Valley. We witnessed the transformation of farm fields to housing, an old airport to a Super Target, city hall moving twice, a gravel pit into a Regional County Government Center and too many other civic metamorphosis to count.

In a very real sense, we are the second generation following the pioneers who farmed the crops and sold their farms to the developers. Like my old Saint Paul neighborhood and Sharon’s farm down in Wabasha, we left our birthplace behind for the horizon ahead and never looked back. Along the way, it’s been an education watching our hometowns and the world change and evolve around us.

Some Things Never Change

There’s an old saying that goes something like ‘Some Things never Change.’ It’s a cliché that assumes the past will repeat itself, and current events are likely to come around again in the near future. Seasonal visitors to the Coachella Valley often pack this assumption with them as they plan out their winter vacations here. This desert playground and its inherent lifestyle is planned, probable and predictable.  Except this season, it was different for them and for us.

In fact, seasons like routines and the people who follow them do change, evolve, and morph into other experiences given enough time. It happened this season and it started with the weather.

While last year’s winter temperatures averaged about ten degrees warmer than normal, this year’s temps hovered about ten degrees below the norm. The Weather Service blamed it on very active weather patterns. Translated, the jet streams were going crazy and the desert went cold. Granted, one has to be very careful complaining about a daytime temp in the mid-sixties when many other parts of the country are suffering with below zero temperatures and snow cyclones. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the old desert like in years past.

Then on Valentine’s Day, the Coachella Valley experienced three and a half inches of rain in one afternoon. The average rain fall for the entire year is about five inches. There was flooding in all the arroyos and many of the major roadways were impassible.

In addition, there were subtle changes going on all around us. The old thrift stores, long a mecca for deals of every type, had changed their business strategies and approach. They were no longer the bargain bins they once were. There were also fewer estate and garage sales, no real reason why.

Downtown Palm Springs was finally filling in and with it came a new onslaught of tourists and travelers bent on experiencing the Palm Springs lifestyle. There were a couple of disappointing shows at our top-notch venue, the MaCallum Theater.

Like a lot of old friends and acquaintances here, Sharon and I tried to continue our old routine of work and play but it was different this time around. Several seasonal couples had moved on to other pastures and no longer spent winters in the desert. A few older friends had passed away. New relationships had been formed or left to wither away through an absence of communication. The yearlong residents had evolved with the seasons and no longer focused just on ‘the season’ to fill their days and nights. The old pattern of weekly dinner parties, card games and bunco was no longer the order of the day for them.

In past seasons Sharon and I have found our daily routine after a pretty short while here. Sharon used to go swimming almost every day with the other mermaids at a hotel nearby. Now the air temps made swimming a daily challenge for the mermaids. Then their hotel decided not to heat its pool in January and February while it underwent repairs. The water temp dropped to the 50s and the mermaids dropped out, waiting for warmer temps to arrive. It was a long two-month wait.

In years past, Sharon had taken a number of art classes in local venues. Now she found that new ones weren’t being offered. Her garage studio wasn’t much in use since the air temp was often too cold for the paints to dry properly.  Busy schedules and colder temperatures hindered her painting pals from coming over and group painting as they had in seasons past.

I used to sequester myself in my office and work on my ‘novel in progress’ each morning. Afternoons were taken up by working out at the local gym, occasional library visits, Palm Springs Writers Guild critique groups and an assortment of other activities. But even those daily activities had gradually morphed into other daily routines. Writing novels had been replaced with plays and marketing had taken on new prominence with my works.

My first timid tip-toe into local theater was beginning to grow into larger steps in that direction. My writing had expanded to include more complicated plays and screenwriting. There was a sense of urgency to reach out to newer theatrical venues locally and back home.

Script2Stage proved the perfect venue for my newest play ‘Polly’s Amorous Adventures’ and Sharon helped fill the house for both performances. Stage managing there brought new insights into other plays and their tone and structure. It was like a graduate course in playwriting.

Local writing groups seemed stuck in the past and lost some of their relevancy to me. I moved past their stayed agenda as my own list of projects grew. A new writing routine was becoming solidly in place. The season was rushing by.

After numerous distractions, I found myself with only nine weeks left in the desert. Suddenly there were two new plays to write and three more scripts to tighten up. Preparations had begun for my scheduled play ‘The Last Sentinel’ to be performed in Minnesota in August. There were several prospective venues in the Twin Cities to explore for my past plays.

Then the Coachella Valley for next season was starting to look promising. There would be new shows at the McCullum, new hiking trails to explore, newfound friends, and neighbors who were already talking about next season’s events and gatherings.

It’ll be different next time and yet so much will remain the same. More to see. More to do. More to accomplish. It’ll be watching the constantly shifting sands of time while running out the clock on life in the desert.

Unicorn in the Pool

Our two adult children and their families alternately spend either Thanksgiving or Christmas with us in the desert. Like any large gathering of divergent personalities and ages there is usually one major meltdown per visit. Certainly not unexpected when the quiet lives of two people are catapulted into the fast-paced, high octane energy of our respective families.

But I’m getting much better now.

This year our Thanksgiving rendezvous entailed the now familiar daily trips to Ralphs for more milk, reverberating children’s screams across the fairway and as always enough trash to fill a Brooklyn landfill. New this year were art classes, shooting off rockets on the golf course at night (don’t tell anyone) and learning the fine art of poker. Like an Emo band of the Eighties, our ten days together corralled the divergent personalities of five grandchildren and funneled their atomic energy into exciting memories for all of us.

First day, first thing, the kids had to pick lemons for making lemonade. It’s become a tradition much like ‘Morning Coffee with Papa; one kid per morning.’

This year’s addition to the multitude of pool toys was a unicorn curtsey of the McMahons.

It was a tremendous hit and actually lasted the entire week without succumbing to the brutal onslaught on five over-eager pirates. Pool time lasted the better part of most days and included diving for torpedoes, tumbling down the slide, balancing on boggy boards and doing laps for the mystery treat Nana always provided each afternoon.

Calm before the storm

Walking on water again

Afternoon snack time

Maya would rather work on her book

Exhausted after swimming all day

Our annual family photo session was taken up by the Chino Cone; a spectacular gateway point to the city.

Another tradition for our family meals is the power of the crystal bell. Each meal one child is allowed to ring the crystal bell before the meal and saying grace. With it comes the power to seat people for that particular meal. With the exception of Papa who is always seated at the end of the table, the kids got to choose who sat where.

Afternoon and evening activities included art classes, chess, reading and new this year, learning the fine art of poker. The kids picked up the game and the excitement of their nickel bets like Vegas backroom pros. Nana could not have been prouder. It brought back many wonderful memories of her own family playing the game.

Art Classes

Reading

Chess

Playing poker like pros

Brian and Scott took me to the newest attraction in town, 'the High Bar' at the Rowen Hotel downtown. The views were spectacular, the ambiance pure plastic and the prices not to be believed. But, wait! I’m dating myself.

The High Bar | Rowen Hotel | Palm Springs

Melanie took me to Starbuck’s newest reconfiguration of a coffee shop called ‘The Reserve.’ Great coffee, slow service and holiday tourists eager to be part of the hipster scene. Once again, my age betrays me; call it learned experience.

The recurring question that week, as in years past, was always ‘How is Papa holding up?’

Early morning respite

I did manage to steal away some quiet moments amid the storm of activities. I spent a week with my kids and grandchildren. It was close, intimate times with the ones I love. It was creating memories for those young expanding minds that I hope will last a lifetime.

I am exhausted but yeah, I did OK.