More than a Soccer Mom

Greetings to all.
The Moon is still full and the weather is so beautiful here in Tucson today. I would like to thank all of my faithful followers and everyone that reads this blog. I know I don't do it as much as I should be sometimes, you know how it is, I just don't have the time. It's not that I dont have plenty to say, finding the time to get it all out would almost be a full time job, without pay.
In any case many thanks to all who have submitted me a story about life here in Tucson. I now present to you the first of many more to come from a mother of 3 a resident of the Eastside of town and her tale is presented to you pretty much the way she sent it to me.

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A belated happy New Year to every one. It's just after Valentine's day now and it's been a long time since I had an opportunity to speak about things that I see and things that I'm concerned about. I like living in Tucson Arizona, it's one of the most beautiful places on earth and it has some of the friendliest people that I have ever encountered. I remember ten years ago when I first got here I moved into a place off 22nd street and Craycroft I didn't have a car so I caught the bus I caught the bus public transit is terrible no matter where you live but I remember when I used to walk down the street people would speak to me and smile, single people, walking couples I mean just people walking their dogs their kids at the time and it is still like that after ten years. Even though I have a car, I still like to get out and walk through my neighborhood, just last weekend {Valentines Day} I decided to walk to the grocery store. It seems that most of them had steak and lobster on sale, yum.
I think Tucson is a beautiful place and I love the spectacular view of the Santa Catalina’s, the Rincon’s and the Tucson Mountain range as they form a wall around the city. Most days no matter which direction I look in I can see either of the three. When I first read the blog by Loko asking for stories about Tucson, what you love what you hate I thought that nobody cares what I think. I did change my mind, and I feel better now after having shared my Tucson with others. I've been living here for a long time and I've seen the city change, people come and go I seen a lot of things happen not all of them for the good either. I originally moved down here from Phoenix, it grew so much that I didn’t like it anymore; it just got to be too big for me. I liked the simplicity of living here I love the scenery I love the people there's always lots of things to do. Sadly the average person sits around moaning and whining about how bored they are but they never go anywhere they never do anything. we have several publications that tell us exactly what's going on all over town they tell us when where we can go for entertainment whatever suits your fancy. What a wonder mixture of cultures we've got here so what if we don't have a beach we live in the Sonoran desert get over it. I live, I play, I work and I do it all right here. I can barely remember the name of the street I lived on as a child, but my children are having a fabulous childhood experience.
On a sad note though over the last five years a lot of jobs have left the area and it is getting harder and harder to find a job. I know that it is not just here I'm sure it's going on in other places but my main concern is what's happening to me right here right now how will I pay for my children's college education I went back to schools last year to the University of Phoenix which is very expensive. The only reason I can afford to was because my employer was willing to pay for it. I wanted to go back to school for something different but they wouldn't pay for what I really wanted to do because it has nothing to do with their industry I can understand that if the work in an office why would they pay for me to be a welder so there you are.
Now down to the heart of the matter, my favorite part about being here is that we have long hot summers not like the Tennessee Williams play. Living with the hot summers triple digits for a leased five months I still find plenty for me and my family to enjoy. We like to go rollerblading around Reid Park we blade around 3-4 times at least every time we go in the summertime we go at least once a week and now that Roller derby is back in fashion, my teenage daughter is planning on trying out for the team. We still love going to the drive and what I heard it was closing down this year. I mean it so raggedy you’d better drives slow when you go there and I don’t think they have filled in any of the potholes since they built it, but we still enjoy taking our own food and my husband likes to get ice cream from the concession stand [he said he was never allowed to have any at the drive-in as a child {poor baby}]. We load up the car and sit in a captain's chair I’m a soccer mom, I admit it.
I live on the Eastside near Kolb and Broadway we do have a few neighborhood Parks that are close enough for us to go to on a regular basis sometimes is hard to get down to Reid Park so we just go to the neighborhood park and we can skate for a while, there is the soccer field, basketball court, doggie area there are even a lot of neighborhood Parks and have swimming of course there's grills and I forgot about the softball fields. We always find something to do as a family minimum if three times a week. Don't tell me your kids don't have games, or that they're not in the band at school or there is no soccer game. Who says you have to know someone playing on the neighborhood game field? There's no reason to sit around looking cross saying oh my god is so boring here. Now I've just been talking about some of the free stuff, don’t get me started on the inexpensive things to do in Tucson we do a lot of other stuff that cost little or no money we ride our bikes we walk sometimes just to get away from the house. Since we don’t have a pool we go to the neighborhood park it only cost $1, we load up the car and you know we have a picnic we barbecue we spend a lot of the day out there and we spend a lot of time at Reid Park you know there's an open air Rose Garden, an indoor pool and an outdoor FREE theater! This past summer we saw Shakespeare's Julius Caesar it was wonderful my kids loved it we just gave a donation so don’t tell me there’s not a lot of free stuff you can do in Tucson even with the family and especially if you don’t have a family …….. More than a Soccer Mom


I hope you enjoyed this piece as much as I did. I felt "Soccer Mom" had a lot of really good ideas for fun here in Tucson.

Peace,
Loko, Queen of The Night