Still cool no matter what age

The town of old people

Tucson surely rivals Miami for the number of centenarians, or folks who are age 99 or older.

We have at least 50 of them down here in the constant sun – and that’s not a bad thing. Actually, some of the stories they tell are pretty cool, like the guy who hung out with a murderer.

It was even in the good ole’ days of murders, waaaaay before Charles Manson (but after Jack the Ripper).

Walter Michael, age 101, was on the Arizona Board of Pardons and Paroles and got to sentence Winnie Ruth Judd. Judd shot and killed two of her roommates and stuffed them in steamer trunks. One of the bodies was a shade too large and had to be chopped up to fit. She tried to travel with the trunks to L.A. but the train’s baggage guy wouldn’t let the trunks go once he saw blood seeping and oozing from the cracks.

Michael said the biggest change he’s seen in his 102 years on earth is not necessarily for the better.

“We’re becoming more savage,” he said of the human race. “We’re not big enough to police and tame the world.”


This reportwas originally webcast on Rynski's Shattered Reality on Party934.com

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Gloom and Doom Shower

Dog pool party at the YMCA

Dog pool party at the YMCA

Ryn's Backyard Project, Tucson, AZ

BACKYARD WONDERLAND: Yes, in my backyard

By Ryn Gargulinski

I got a yard. I got some sheet metal. I got some spray paint.

I got me a BACKYARD WONDERLAND.

The last few weekends have been spent toiling over bent metal and amassing enough debris to transform my backyard into a magical place.

Now, the debris is not just any ordinary debris, but debris carefully chosen from Gerson’s Salvage, perfectly picked out of the nearby Rillito River riverbed or even combed from other people’s Dumpsters.

A lot of thought, back bending metal bending and spray paint went into my BACKYARD WONDERLAND.

Three things have influenced me in this glorious project:

1. Tucson’s Valley of the Moon: a 1920s-era fantasy land that has weirdo faces peeking out of the bushes and a magic troll bridge.

2. Detroit’s Heidelberg Project: hunks of junk collected, arranged and stuck to houses down a downtown block. The last time we went there was a yard full of neatly arranged shoes and a home with its siding stuck with stuffed animals.

3. That tall leaning thing in the Avenue B community garden in New York’s Alphabet City.

The several story structure was adorned with doll parts, Big Wheel chunks, nuts, bolts and just about everything else before it had to be torn down just this year as it began to lean and sway precariously.

So far I’ve got the Moon’s weirdo faces, Detroit’s nod to debris and a few trellises along the back wall that lean and sway precariously.

My mom thinks I also have a yard so crammed with art that the dogs have nowhere to play. I’d never do that to my canines. Heck, they can easily run around the debris.

Hope you have as much fun viewing the photos below as I did creating the art.

Backyard Bonanza

Backyard Ballyhoo

Backyard Bebop

Backyard Bliss

Backyard Blessings

Backyard Borders

Backyard Beasts

Backyard Beauty