Idle, Idyllic, and Idols in Patagonia

Every day the same three guys sit in chairs under the canopy of the old-fashioned gas station. And since this is Patagonia, it still is a gas station. I giggle at this sight because they are so reminiscent of the old boys hanging out at the gas station on the Andy Griffith show of olden times. In fact that is one way to think of this town: Mayberry for hippies.

The best way to tour Patagonia is to ignore the art galleries and walk through the alleys to gawk at backyards. The normal bland suburb would have codes and ordinances against half of this town. Patagonia is a lower Leadville.

It is ironic. Most of the towns in America more interesting than Gopher Prairie or Levittown are old mining towns. So is Patagonia; yet, the locals are raising hell about a copper strip mine being developed in the area. Actually there is a second layer of irony: an environmentalist's favorite utopian dream is a nation running on all-electric Obamamobiles. How many pounds of copper windings would there be in each of these? Where does the copper come from? Perhaps the typical American of the post-industrial age thinks that an electric car is really an "electronic" car run by silicon chips "made by" Apple.

But back to the backyards of Patagonia. They are the kind of art I can appreciate; art that develops slowly over time, just as the topography of the Colorado Plateau does.

Many houses and sheds had corrugated galvanized metal roofs. When the sun catches them just right they rip the eyes right out of your head. There is a beauty to intensity that is usually overlooked as artists try to make everything effeminately pretty. I love these roofs most when they are partly rusted.  

Most Anglo-Americans implicitly subscribe to the Whig Interpretation of History. How do travelers reconcile this general perspective with their concrete experiences of returning to towns that they love after a year or two? Are they not afraid that something will have changed, and that most change means decline? Or do people worship the false idol of Progress so blindly that they don't see the increased sprawl, noise, prices, traffic, architectural blandness, and rules and regulations?

On one of these returns I immediately hit the town coffee shop, which also serves as the "Chatterbox Cafe" a la Garrison Keillor. My first impression came from the young senorita barista, who had the sort of skin that a gringo with northern European genes has to be in awe of.  Ahh, all was going to be well this year, I thought.

Every year, before Tucson has its first heat wave, I move the ol' wagon up to summer pastures near Sonoita and Patagonia. It is a seasonal idyll that lasts a couple weeks. There's a dog in this shadow:

I don't know how Patagonia got its name. The only time I've ever paid any attention to the name was a book mentioned in William James's Varieties of Religious Experience. The book was Hudson's, "Idle Days in Patagonia." He was an Argentinian of English heritage. Those who have depleted the great open pit mine of Thoreau and would like to find a similar author would do well to consider this book.

By a curious coincidence I remember once seeing a dilapidated windmill in this area, with barely legible labeling as usual. It was made in Argentina.