Apparently burning babies to death, through negligence or intent, is not much of a crime in Maricopa County. Allison Gail Rolland nearly killed her five-month-old infant when she abandoned the child in the family car on June 15 as scorching desert temperatures reached 108 degrees. A frantic passer-by freed the…
Even for drug-riddled Cochise County, the raid at the Hide Out Bar in Huachuca City was a doozie. Forty-five officers from eleven police agencies swooped into the bar and held 65 patrons–most of them bikers–at gunpoint for more than two hours while they searched high and low for drugs. After…
Phoenix’s dead real estate market and slowed freeway-construction schedule are, taken separately, bad enough for anyone directly affected. But when the two converge, as residents of one small north-central Phoenix neighborhood are finding out, the effect is like a hurricane sweeping in at high tide. The focal point of these…
I got to Beth Israel Cemetery an hour early. Brad Funk’s coffin was already sitting under a canopy near the main gate with an American flag draped over it. About fifteen minutes before the service was scheduled to begin, the crowd arrived. They came in flashy cars that formed a…
The way I’ve come to see it, you can’t fully qualify as a modern parent unless you bring to the job these five essential items: shelter, food, clothing, medical care and a $999 video camera with special-effects functions and a free accessories package (retail value: $150) that includes carrying case,…
Colorado developer Frank Aries had no intention of carving out another piece of ho-hum suburbia when, in 1985, he went calling on the Driggs boys, the freewheeling moneylenders at Phoenix’s Western Savings and Loan. The land sultan of Colorado Springs, fresh from a slick parceling of the old Howard Hughes…
One day, just after Christmas in 1984, Marion Bulin was driving to work through the Marina District of San Francisco. All of a sudden, she says, “I realized that I was just driving through this crop of Christmas trees.” This crop, however, was of discards, looking strangely human and sad…
Hey, dude! Wanna buy a Berlin Wall? Yep. As off-the-wall ideas go, this one was right up there. “At the time, it just seemed like a wacky thing to do.” So says Aaron DeVault, an ASU student who hopes to recoup the cost of a trip to Germany by fencing…
Submitted for your approval, one storefront greasy spoon, the kind of place most folks ordinarily wouldn’t pay no never mind to. No, sirree, ma’am. Nothin’ fancy about it, unless your idea of high-falutin’ decor runs to things like souvenir Elvis mirrors and wastebaskets, or maybe a plastic bag from the…
Attention, yuppie shoppers! Arizona’s oldest merchant family, the GOLDWATER clan, is back in business. For the first time in years and years, the family is going to use its name to sell goods. Patriarch BARRY GOLDWATER and his family, whose name was plastered across stagecoaches last century, sold their department…
Sometimes, as that popular bumper sticker so ineloquently puts it, shit happens. And sometimes, there is no one to blame. You can see it coming from fifty miles off, all flashing lights and screaming sirens. You can do everything in your power to avoid it. And then . . …
Valley autograph hounds must have thought they’d been put to sleep and gone to heaven. Simply put, the town was lousy with stars in the Eighties. And as we forge into the Nineties, it’s time to tick some of them off. Guess who came to dinner? How about Laugh-In bench-warmer…
The following is a transcript of an upcoming episode of Geraldo Rivera’s hard-hitting TV expose series Geraldo. It’s scheduled to air January 5. Geraldo: What is it about our society that requires us to place labels on our decades? Ten years is such a long time, and so many diverse…
If one cultural artifact exemplifies the Eighties, it is the Day-Timer. The Eighties was the decade when no one had any time. What made the Eighties so boring is that people were proud of this. Drudges who invariably labored in something called “marketing” bragged about working sixty- or even eighty-…
WORST LINES “You wear your angst like a breakaway chastity belt.” Anthony Perkins to Kathleen Turner in Crimes of Passion. “I once beat mah haid on the barn door I wuz so lonely fer you.” Kelly McGillis to her backwoods beau in Winter People. “It was good, but not that…
Yes, that’s right. I’ve kept an intimate diary of the entire deal. As I look back through this journal of the Eighties, I see that more often than not my intuition has been pretty amazing. Also, through the years I’ve had the opportunity to hobnob with most of the so-called…
I browse through the Arizona Republic’s editorial pages every morning. I feel obligated to undergo this test of concentration. The alarums of the editorials prepare me for any challenges General Noriega or General Motors might place before me the rest of the day. Where else in American journalism would you…
‘Twas Christmas morning, and all through the house, there was no room for nothin’; not a mouse, not a louse. All night my son nestled so snug in his bed while visions of merchandise danced in his head. And now he’d discover that dreams CAN come true. That’s the magic…
The Hualapai tribal elder summons what strength is left in his failing body, and gets right to the point. “If my people don’t watch out, it’s gonna get a lot worse,” says 76-year-old Rupert Parker, his once-resonant baritone reduced to a whisper. Parker is confined to a bed in his…
Former U-Haul technical writer Russ Korne has no quarrel with drug-testing in the workplace. “Hey, there’s a big problem in this country with drugs,” Korne says. “We have to do something. In my case, the worst thing they’d ever get out of me was last night’s Genuine Draft. And I…
Five years ago Maricopa County residents momentarily set aside their hatred of taxes to finance a spectacular network of freeways. Terminally disgusted with the Valley’s podunk street system, voters approved a half-cent sales tax intended to raise $3 billion with which to build the 231- mile system. And thereby made…
Being a shopping-mall Santa is not an easy job. The words “G.I. Joe!” “Nintendo!” and “Barbie!” make Santa’s ears ring. His nose plays host to 1,000 viral invaders. His eyes acquire a permanent glaze from 10,000 flash bulbs. This weekend, members of the corps will hitch up their baggy pants…
