Dang, proof positive i've lost my mind and gone off the deep end..but alas, stay with me and i will tie this thread into a Sun City piece that will be interesting to at least a handful of TOSC members and visitors. Promise. Just this morning i crawled into one of the recliners spread around the house and finished the book by Daniel Silva, The Other Woman. It was his 2018 work and it was due back at the library today. I loved it and while i'm sure his primary character, Gabriel Alon, isn't for everyone, it is exactly my cup of tea. What i especially appreciate is, he has stayed true to his craft. He does one book a year, usually released in June. So many of the current crop of writers bang out 2, 3 and 4 books a year. Invariably they dilute the quality of their efforts to simply chase the almighty dollar. I've loved to read for a good number of years. The thing is when we retire, we usually have more time on our hands to pursue those things we couldn't find enough time to do when we were working. And sadly, reading is becoming a lost art as so many are quick to the internet where there is often instant gratification. I like good story tellers. Those authors who take their time to develop characters and draw us in and make us feel something. Doesn't matter if it makes me laugh, cry or get angry, i want there to be an emotional pull. I really like when they write series and i can get to follow them as they grow, evolve and yes sometimes die. I know, it's called fiction...they aren't real and they aren't my new best friends. The great ones can overcome that hurdle and are capable of painting a clear enough picture to make it feel like they exist. The really special ones add a historical perspective that brings it even more to life. So, how the hell does this have anything to do with Sun City AZ? Since very near our beginning, residents have loved to read. So much so in 1961 an informal Friends of the Library was formed. Along with that, and from their website is the following piece of their first efforts to put books in people's hands: 1960 Del Webb opened the first five model homes in Sun City, the world’s first master planned retirement community. After record first year home sales, the need for a library to serve the community’s cultural,educational and recreational needs was recognized. Sun City gave 820 square feet in the Town Hall Center,now the Fairway Recreation Center site, for use as Sun City’s first library, a mini-library open three days a week. Records were kept in shoe boxes. Maricopa County Library supplied the initial inventory of 2,500 books. Eight volunteers ran it. Town Hall Center opened in 1961. I didn't realize the history went that far back, but clearly it was little more than the beginning of what has been a long-standing love affair of books and all they have to offer. In coming posts to this thread i will continue on with the history and share some of my favorite authors and why i enjoy them. Feel free to join in. The site has been slow with posts and while i know there is another section on books, we can use this one to develop the history and have some fun with what we read and why.
Good thread. My "reading" is mostly audible books, non fiction . History, biography, business etc. Michael Lewis, Malcom Gladwell, Bill O'Reilly's history books. I fly several dozen times per year and a good Audible book is essential. On my 20+ hr drive back to WA I usually listen to books on history of the west. Seems fitting , especially on US 93 through Arizona, Nevada. The upcoming trip I will finish Trail, Lewis and Clark expedition about the time I cross the Columbia River into WA. Both SC libraries are real assets. DVDs, CDs, audiobooks and more. Possibly like you my first library experiences were the St. Paul Library Bookmobiles.
I know audio books are more popular these days, as is reading from Kindles and the like. Said it before, i just love the feel of a book in my hand. And, it has been my salvation from dropping dead from boredom as i have increased my weekly hours of cardio at the gym. With book in hand (actually i hold the hard covers open with a massive chip clip), the 45 minutes to an hour and a half flies by. Especially with an author who has pulled me into the story. Some have questioned how i can read and workout, but like many, it's just about focus. Back to the history. In 1971 the Sun City Library Inc was formed and in 1972, the Webb Corp made 2500 square feet of space available at the Lakeview Rec Center. It was 3 times the space at Town Hall and included a paid librarian and a volunteer staff of 30. That center had just opened a couple of years earlier and virtually everyone lived the other side of the tracks. That didn't last long, as sales in the new phase 2 exploded. And of course the round architectural design was wildly popular as it gave the community something truly unique. Adding the library there made the show place a go-to-place for all things book related. When the Bell Center opened (circa 1975-1976) the Webb Corporation built a 15,000 plus square foot building just to house the library. The Lakeview location closed and they put a branch library back at Fairway (the old Town Hall). It was merely the beginning of a long-standing tradition of Sun Citian's affinity for reading. The Friends of the Library is still in existence today, even though our two beautiful libraries are now run by Maricopa County. For nearly 50 years the Friends ran the library with a small paid staff and a large volunteer base. They did a great job, but the challenges of an aging population, dwindling numbers of volunteers and the difficulties of keeping pace with technological changes and increasing costs of books, videos, magazines, newspapers and on-line services finally took its toll. In 2009, the Maricopa County library system presented the RCSC board and the Friends of the Library with an offer to run both the Fairway and Bell libraries. The RCSC secured a rental agreement and the Friends got out from doing the heavy lifting. It was a win/win for all involved. The biggest winners were those of us who use them. They increased titles, added computers and streamlined virtually every aspect of how they were doing business. Three or four years later, when the lease was up and the county was strapped for cash, they asked the RCSC to give them the space. I was on the board at the time and when we looked at the numbers of people who used the two libraries there was no question, they were amenities we couldn't afford to lose. The history of the libraries is almost as joyful as a good book. To this day, at the Bell Rec Center, you can go into the backroom space designated for the Friends and shop for reasonably priced hard and soft covers. Residents regularly drop off donations of books that are resold and the Friends of the Library and their volunteer board manages their resources well and generously. They have been a remarkable asset to Sun City for countless years and i suspect they will continue to do so for years to come.
Well said E, i think all of us long for a time when civility and humility were way more the norm than the hostility and rage we live with today. Yesterday we stopped by COSTCO for a couple of things and i always check out the new book releases. David Baldacci's Redemption was in. It is the fifth in the Memory Man series and i know i could get it eventually from the library. However, i do feel compelled to support authors who bring me countless hours of enjoyment with an occasional purchase. Anyway, if you haven't read the series, it is quite good. The premise starts with a professional football player who takes a shot to the head in the opening kickoff in his first pro game. He's knocked out of the game, forever. He sustains a head injury that gives him instant recall of everything, past and current. There's actually a name for the injury, though it escapes me. He goes on to become an FBI agent after a period of absolute tragedy. Brilliantly done all through the series to date. The last couple of years found me searching for series that could carry me through the summers heat. William Kent Krueger and his Cork O'Connor character was the first, a policeman in a small town in Northern Minnesota was exceptional. 18 books in total and i found them thoroughly enjoyable. Then i stumbled on C J Box and the Joe Picket novels. I'm not an outdoor guy, but both of these series were well written and kept me entertained for months. I have both to borrow if anyone is interested. Send me a pm and we can hook up. Lastly fixj, unfortunately i didn't acquire a taste for reading till later in life. Like most youngsters i dabbled with the Hardy Boy's series, but got away from books as i got older. On the other hand, my wife tells me she spent countless hours at the downtown St Paul library. It was a classic beauty of a building where one could get lost for days there. Some of her fondest memories as a youth came from that building. Sadly, today those kinds of experiences have been lost to technology. YouTube has replaced a good book and any hope that people can slow down and develop a taste for enjoying a story that takes days, weeks or months to unfold and read is gone. If they can't have instant gratification, there's little hope it will have any meaning for them.
I order about 10 books every 2 weeks from Bell Library. So easy to do over the internet. They let you know when they are in. I wait until they are all in and then pick them up. My recent company checked out videos and books. Kids love to get a couple of books from "Around the Corner" to take home.
That’s the good news about the library; if you get a stinker (and lord knows they are out there), not reading it is an option. If you buy it, you almost feel the need to struggle through. I have a dozen or more full series i loan out i have accumulated over the years. More often i have pieced them together buying bulk or box lot collections and filling in the ones i am missing with Amazon or EBay.
As some of you may have read, i am now on the long range planning committee. It's been fun to see a new energy take shape with Rich Hoffer as the chair and Dale Laird as co-chair. When i read Emily's post above, it helped me understand how much work we have to do in preparing for the next generation of Sun City home buyers. She is exactly right, there are more and more people buying in Sun City who don't have the luxury of not working. That changes everything, at least when compared to our past. To fail to understand that, fails to grasp the importance of planning for the next twenty years. I suspect any number of folks who read here or listen to what i say at meetings think i am anti-golf. Nothing could be further from the truth. Golf will always be one of our core amenities. Where i take exception is at what cost? The coming Gen Xer's will be even less likely to golf. A good percentage of them will be looking at work as a permanent fixture till the day they die. We can make Sun City a viable option for them, but disposable time will be tough to come by. Consider emily's comments; if reading as much as she would like is challenge even today, imagine finding 20 hours a week to chase a little white ball around those green spaces 10 years from now. BTW, started Baldacci's Redemption yesterday; brilliant.
I'm not nearly as certain of that as you, Bill. We have more course capacity than needed for the number of SC golfers now, maintenance costs are escalating faster than inflation, water costs are increasing rapidly and will be limited in availability in the future. Historians believe an extended drought drove the indigenous people from the Phoenix valley 800-900 years ago. I've lived in the valley for 30-years... the rivers haven't run year-round for a most of that period and the Dams levels are at all time lows. The future is clear... global warming is happening no matter what side of science you're on as to the cause. If water gets too scarce/too expensive people will have no choice but to leave when they can no longer afford to stay. A city not far from us mandated the use of treated sewer water to water golf courses over 20-years ago -- implementing the infrastructure for that cost a small fortune and took more than 5-years to construct. Others converted to desert courses, others simply closed courses. Meanwhile, the RCSC is not doing anything visible to address this that I can see. But, burdened with 7 golf courses, the RCSC is really at risk financially. Well, technically, they aren't -- we are since they can raise our assessments pretty much at their whim. There needs to be an RCSC planning activity to address this NOW, not when our assessments double to pay for scarce water or the gov't outlaws water use for turf irrigation altogether. If we spend $50-mil on golf now, what are we going to have to spend in 10-years to change to desert courses, or astro turf, or what ever? We desperately need a plan to transition to low water use golf for the short term, and a longer range plan get rid of some golf capacity. Yes there are deed restrictions, and yes they're nasty to break, but they can be broken. Yes there's an issue of adjacent property values and yes that will have to be dealt with somehow. These are all tough problems that have been ignored by the RCSC with the simple "we can't because of... ". Well, my dad always told us "can't never did anything". The problem isn't going to go away, nor can it be solved by the ostrich method, nor kicking the can down the road.
Fair points IC and one of the reasons we need hold the RCSC's feet to the fire about golf remaining revenue neutral. Sadly, some of that has already been shelved without people even noticing. The reason DEVCO established that was they understood if golfers didn't pay their way, subsidizing it could explode and drive costs out of reach. Ten pin bowling was the same way, but since they opened it up to others, it has done well. There will be a problem within the next ten years, but as i have said before, it will come from the private clubs first. All of them will face the test of whether they survive in the face of the downturn in golf and rising costs. The land they sit on is worth 15 or 20 times what they paid for it. The one thing i am clueless on is how the water rights they buy with it work. Someone told me the water rights at Palmbrook were worth more than they paid for the course. I guess only time will tell for them. The saving grace for the RCSC may well come well down the road when water is simply too costly to continue to dump on all the green grass. If they are mandated to do something, it becomes far more palatable than if they arbitrarily shove those kinds of changes down residents throats. which all reverts back to the first paragraph. If the cost to play is adjusted based on the cost to maintain, as the numbers of players diminish, the costs become beyond what many will pay. Less courses aren't an issue if there are way less players. once again, time will tell.
I understand revenue neutral, but what happens if/when that becomes impractical... ie, greens fees grow beyond what an increasing number of players will pay? The RCSC is still on the hook, isn't it? So then the entire membership gets a bigger and bigger portion to fund out of assessments? I'm not against golf, but no amenity should be allowed to have a blank check. This reminds me of timeshare ownership... you own it forever and they can charge whatever maintenance fee they want. I'm not trying to be chicken little, but solutions of the magnitude required to resolve the water problem (if climate change and population growth continues at the current rates) will severly stress the community financially IMHO. It will require lots of money, possibly decades of court litigation, etc., etc. Is there even the hint of contingency plans for addressing any of the possible outcomes, especially the worser case ones? If there are it's time for the RCSC to let that cat out of the bag.
Wouldn't argue with what you wrote above IC, but it will be years before we are forced to do something drastic. It's an especially good reason to build a long range planning committee that is making decisions based on facts and statistics; all of which we are in the process of trying to establish. We don't have the luxury of ignoring what is going on around the country. Nor should the long range planning committee be told anything is outside their purview. It's why i was half-crazed while serving on the board. Bad decisions were made because they wanted to do things and if people were trying to logically explain why they were doing them they were dead in the water. I always worked from the simple rationale, if you can't explain or defend your actions, you probably shouldn't be doing them. So simple, but so difficult to get buy-in.
