On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 08:06:06 -0400, "Dan Edwards"
wrote:


Hello JC,
Sounds like you got to see some interesting things while in Tucson! I
certainly appreciate your feelings about wanting to go back to Tucson
because I feel the same. Probably would have stayed if my wife at the time
had not been home sick for Cincinnati. Doubt that I would recognize it now
after over 30 years!

-Dan Edwards-

I expect it's still pretty much the same, just a little bigger. It's a fairly
transient type town. Lot of folks go there looking for work after they've heard
how nice it is. Then they find out it's there's not really that much work to be
had, then they leave.

It's also hard for craftsmen to make a living there due to the retiree's living
there. You'd be surprised how many people retire there (the poulation almost
doubles in Sept, between college students and "snowbirds") and then find out
they don't have as much money to spend as they thought... so they do little jobs
on the side. One of many customers I had that was in that boat was a house
painter. He was being killed by guys that had retired and were now painting
houses for "friends" for extremely cheap compared to what he had to charge. He
had a store, two vans and employees to take care of while 'Joe-Blow' who retired
two years ago just had his spray gun and spare time on his hands. All of the
service type occupations suffered from that kind of thing. I was really
surprised to find out how much of it was going on. Even I, as a gun shop owner,
had competition from guys that had FFL's and worked out of their garage.
Between them and the big stores like Wal-Mart and Target, it was a tough
business to be in.

But beyond that, Tucson is a beautiful place to live. Great hunting, lots of
places where you could go camp out and not see anyone else for days... I really
enjoyed my time there. Flying opportunites were fantastic if you had the $$$.
Summers are pretty brutal but we still toughed it out and hunted and camped. Of
course, I was much younger then, I'm not sure how I'd fare these days!
Cheers,
jc