Hummer

Desert Dreams

Note: I thought I’d take a break from the regular stuff and give you a bit of narrative non-fiction. Enjoy.

When you have to leave the house before 6:30AM, setting your clock forward an hour for daylight savings time is not an enjoyable transition. I’ve been late to work the first two days of this week, because my body never quite believed my alarm clock when it chirped at me that it was time to get up. This morning, I managed to drag myself out of bed before it was too late to catch my normal train, and as I hit the road on this cool-but-not-frigid morning, I noticed that in the stars were clearly visible. I was immediately reminded of another time when early morning departures through the pre-dawn darkness were common

In 2004, while living in Arizona, I got a job as a guide for a Hummer touring company. It wasn’t much of a living – in fact it was the most economically difficult period of my life. But it was one of those jobs you take for a while because it sounds like fun and holds the promise that you’ll do very well “when the season hits”. (That year, it never did.)

I’ll never forget getting up early – way early – before the sun was even thinking about rising, slipping into my camo-pants, strapping on my boots and heading out to my car. The little black Toyota Matrix we had at the time felt sleek and smooth as I made my way out of the apartment complex and onto the long and barren stretch of desert highway, especially in comparison to the behemoth I’d be behind the wheel of when I got to work. It’s been four years, and I remember it like it was only a few months ago.

By oh-dark-thirty, I-10 was already beginning to slow under the influx of cars from all the brand-new West-of-Phoenix suburbs that had exploded out of the city’s housing boom. If I’m lucky, I’ve scrounged up enough change to buy a coffee at the Avondale Starbucks to push me through the morning rush, as I eventually emerge from traffic and curve through the oddly bifurcated Phoenix skyline en route to Scottsdale.

Read more...