APACHE JUNCTION, ARIZONA

Snowbirds visit Superstition Mountain

by Clayton Davis email: cd19@erols.com

I'm not sure, but it may happen at other places. People from all over the Upper Midwest flock to Apache Junction, Arizona. This wide place on the highway east of Phoenix will see Recreational Vehicles beginning to arrive during Thanksgiving week.

Friends and neighbors have told each other about a wonderful place in the sun. These nice folks from farms and little rural villages have found a place to roost and warm their bones. Their Recreational Vehicles will sit snugly here in the shadow of Superstition Mountain all Winter. On Friday and Saturday there is an enormous Flea Market. Farmers from Minnesota will buy wrenches, screwdrivers, and hydraulic jacks to use back home. Next door to the Flea Market is a dog track where they can bet on their favorite greyhound.

They come here every Autumn and stay until Spring. Some drive Recreational Vehicles. Others have trailers still waiting in parks where they own small lots. Visit them and you will see

curtains and memorabilia sitting in shelves or hanging on walls that make the place look just like the inside of their homes up north.

These are second-generation offspring from those hardy immigrants who came to America from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Lured by dreams of free land through advertisements circulated by the newly constructed railroads, they boarded ships and came to America.

Tough men and sturdy women, salt of the earth, these winter residents in Apache Junction, Arizona, are growers of the nation's corn and beef. Some are widows who have outlived their hardworking husbands. They have found a nice place to escape the bitter winters of their fathers' homesteads.

These Upper Midwest residents are comfortable and some are even wealthy. Many still farm and ranch. Others offer services like cement and gravel for the building trades. All still work just as hard as their immigrant parents before them. Grandchildren in their twenties and thirties have not abandoned the stern European system of ethics fostered by their Catholic and Lutheran parents. These visitors don't cuss, but some do chew tobacco. Almost every other pair of blue jeans has a two-inch diameter imprint on the back pocket. It is from little round boxes of powdered tobacco they call "snoos," which they put between lips and gums. Some say it works to get their hearts pumping on a cold morning. This pacifier won't set fire to your hay and burn the barn down. Pipes and cigarettes will.

Good cooks and outgoing, loving people greet you when you come to visit these vacationers. Sit there in the Recreational Vehicle and listen. You can hear their spoken language ringing with accents from the Upper Midwest.

Stay a little while longer and they will cook you a hearty meal of meat and potatoes from the prairie. It is hard to imagine a better collection of home-folks. Apache Junction, Arizona, is a great place to spend the Winter.

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