Unlike the infamous Read It Here April Fool's article on (nonexistent) Arizona salmon fishing, I swear to you the article here on Arizona scuba diving is legit - there really IS scuba diving in our desert state.

I'd just gotten home from a week of scuba diving at Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras; what do suppose I was thinking about on my first morning back at work, sitting at my computer, staring at hundreds of emails while slurping coffee from my souvenir Utila coffee mug? That's right.

If you've swum around a shipwreck in crystal clear water; if you've rolled onto your back along a sandy bottom and watched your bubbles mosey towards the surface 130 feet way up thataway, then you know what I was thinking about. Ditto if you've dived a Caribbean reef at night, especially if you got nailed four times by jellyfish as you waited your turn to clamber back onto the dive boat. Or if your second dive of the day concluded with a storm that battered the dive boat and made it pitch and twist so wildly that it was a harrowing workout just to get back aboard – and then, on the way back to harbor, the skipper rescued four divers from another boat that sank in the storm. Yeah, I was thinking about work...

With that “what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation” background, you can understand why this issue features Arizona desert scuba diving.

Besides, now that I've written about my Caribbean trip, I can deduct it as a business expense, right?

Talking local elections may seem a bit premature, but it isn't. Before our October issue hits the stands Prescott voters will already have chosen a mayor. Because there is only one challenger to the incumbent, the primary election on Sept. 11 will decide who will be the next mayor. BE SURE TO VOTE IN THE PRIMARY SEPT. 11!

Read It Here endorses Jack Wilson for mayor; you'll read the reasons why elsewhere in these pages. We also advocate some change on the local city councils, whose visionless suburbanization based on the outmoded model from 1941 – founded upon the needs of a war economy - is no longer necessary or desirable. Indeed, it is ultimately destructive to the very quality of life that brings so many here. While new urban models and new thinking are working in progressive communities elsewhere in this country, too many local minor politicians lack the desire, creativity and foresight to build healthy, long-term sustainable communities here. You can change that.

Last month local Coyote Radio KJZA 89.5FM interviewed Erica the Omnipotent Publisher about Read It Here. It was a fine interview -  informative, witty, entertaining, even – right up until the end, when Andrew the Interviewer asked Erica about my coffee drinking habits. Erica said “Art takes his coffee like a woman, with cream and sugar.”

Let me say this about that:

When I was 18 years old and still on my first year in the Navy, I was already a coffee drinker. I liked it Navy thick, with creamer and sugar to temper the meanness. I soon got involved in a kind of ritual where a handful of us would stand on the hangar deck first thing each morning, scan the airplanes and talk shop while imbibing hot java. One morning a grizzled old Chief Petty Officer looked in my coffee mug and barked at me, “Merrill! What the hell is that? Real men drink their coffee black!”

Being young and impressionable and wanting to be a real Navy man, of course I started drinking my coffee black. I hated it. Not drinking coffee was, of course, out of the question; the bitterness of barefoot coffee made me gag, but I got approving nods from the chief, who inspected my mug each morning with a cursory glance as we stood on the hangar deck.

After a week or so of this I started sneaking sugar back into my coffee. It was an improvement, but not entirely satisfying. One morning I finally tired of the charade and added a nice spoonful of creamer to that mug o' tar. Yum! When the chief saw my cuppa blonde coffee, he said, “Merrill! I told you real men drink their coffee black!” I looked at him over the top of my mug, slurped some coffee real loud and said, “Chief, real men drink their coffee however they damn well please.” He laughed.

True story.   -Art Merrill

Comments (2)

... : Rob Smith Hi Art, just thought I'd check out the link in the email you sent me. Liked you article, but you didn't say where you can dive in Arizona? Or did i miss the point! I guess you are using Joomla for your site? Same as we use for ours. September 19, 2007 ... : Mattb Heh. I have NO idea what this has to do with scuba diving in Arizona :P October 15, 2007

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