Why I chose Phoenix over Australia in 1977


From about as long as I can remember, I was anxious to grow up and leave Minneapolis. Unlike most of my friends, I didn't like the cold. The only thing I remember about trying to ice skate is wobbling around on my ankles trying to get over to where the hot chocolate was being served. Moving away from the snow and cold became my favorite topic of discussion with my brain trust of friends in high school, who were just as oblivious about the world as me.

Where in the world it never snowed I really had no idea, nor did my friends, but we were pretty sure that it didn't snow in Australia. Then someone mentioned that you couldn't just move there, you had to be a doctor, or something, and I gave up on even thinking about it. Of course it would have required me to cross an ocean, and that was way beyond what I could imagine. So I kept asking around.



I was strongly influenced by the 1976 movie "the Gumball Rally", which showed the wide open spaces of the American West, and I pictured myself as Michael Sarrazin in the little MG that I had just got. Where exactly this was, I really had no idea - just out west. I had never seen a landscape like that, and I wanted to live there. It could have been the Outback, or it could have been Arizona, I didn't know, or care where it was.

As luck would have it, the job that I was doing part-time during my first semester of Junior College (yes, they called it that back then) in Minneapolis had offices out west. I presented my dilemma to my boss, who promptly picked up the phone, called the Phoenix office and then turned to me and said, "OK, you can go there." I had a job waiting for me in Phoenix! Yes, it was only part-time, and minimum wage, but it was something. Australia faded away from my mind.

I really had no idea what Phoenix would look like. It could have had sand dunes, or there could have been cowboys shootin' em up, and riding horses. It really didn't matter to me, I just wanted to live somewhere that didn't snow. I would figure out what to do when I got there.

I got there in August, in a car with no air conditioning, and no top. My skin nearly blistered off during the trip, but I was happy to be there. I remember being a little disappointed that people there drove the same cars? Anyway, that December my dream came true, and it was my first winter without snow. I still get that magical feeling every year.

Looking back now I wonder if I would have ever been able to figure out how to get to Australia. Probably not. I was lucky to get to Phoenix!
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