• Home
  • Oracle
  • David Wins Journal
  • How we got to Oracle, AZ
  • Get in Touch
  • About
FRANK PIERSON
HOME  |  ORACLE  |  ABOUT  |  CONTACT

ORACLE Chronicles


Episode 4: This Old House

7/26/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
  Owning an older home presented myriad challenges. Plumbing was the first. Being city-suburb dwellers, such matters had always been invisible to us. Two toilets didn’t flush properly, and all the faucets leaked. We called Oracle’s one plumber, Delbert “Dub” Ragels, owner of Dub’s Plumbing. He showed up a couple days later. After greetings and a few niceties, he fixed the worst offending faucet and suggested that we’d better learn to change the washers ourselves or we’d soon run out of money.
  “This is Oracle,” he said with a grin, “but don’t get me wrong, I like the business.” 
  Read the rest of the Episode 4 here:  frankpierson.substack.com

0 Comments

Episode 3: Greet The New Neighbors

7/19/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
  During our first few days in the new house, a balding white haired man (about my age now) drove an ancient four-wheel drive Ford pickup from the road straight to our front door on what wasn’t intended as a driveway.  So who the hell is this rude old guy and what does he want?
  Stiff of back (like mine is now), ever so carefully placing each foot, he lowered himself down from his truck - breathing heavily with an oxygen tank in tow. “Bill Collier,” he announced holding out his calloused right hand, “the neighbor right behind you.” Before we could respond he followed with, “Just thought I’d drop by to meet you folks and bring you up to speed on the neighborhood and its history”. 
  (Visit frankpierson.substack.com for the entire Episode 3.)
0 Comments

So Where The Hell Is Oracle, Anyway?

7/13/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
   On our first visit, we were blown away by the oaks, the majestic Santa Catalinas rising at towns edge, wild growing iris, mysterious granite outcroppings. Not desert, not mountain - somewhere in between - a “transition zone”.  And so it became for us, geographically and personally from one way of life to another.
  Most of Oracle was hidden away in the nooks and crannies of ridges and washes, all somehow carved out from the Santa Catalina foothills facing a desert plateau.  Every view, even a handful of feet away, opened to new vistas, different plant life.  A place of infinite visual discovery.   
  We didn’t know a soul.  We had no relationships to build on.  We’d never been through such a place much less considered actually buying in to it.
    Follow our story:  The complete Episode 2 is up on 
frankpierson.substack.com
0 Comments

Leaving NYC Behind:  Kaz and I Make Good Move

7/9/2023

0 Comments

 
PictureCedar Ridge, Oracle, AZ
Looks about the same as when we moved to Oracle in 1979. 
------------
  New York City was drowning in debt.  Felix Rohatyn and the Municipal Assistance Corporation had just taken over the government moving it even farther from ordinary citizens.  Crime was spiking.  A series of bizarre murders, several nearby us in Queens, scared everybody half to death.  A couple was shot returning from an evening out at a disco. A Barnard student was shot dead in the face.  Mayor Beame and local law enforcement were helpless.  He showed up one day near our apartment when Kaz confronted him: “Do something you asshole, “ she shouted to his face.
  I had a meltdown of sorts one afternoon in Astoria Park.  Sitting with my dog Roofer I put my arms around his neck and started telling him my troubles (okay, I was crying).   As man’s best friend Roofer was a good listener with an ear for lament.  I told him my work seemed to be going nowhere and I wanted out of the city. 
  Meanwhile, David Berkowitz, Son of Sam, was also engaged in dog conversation, one that included demonic instructions of murder and mayhem.
  My work – “community organizing” -  in light of the cataclysmic events unfolding all around us seemed piddling. I was exhausted by trying to play the hero.  We were lonely for relationships that we didn’t know we missed. A weird limbo we struggled to get our heads around.
--------
Visit https://frankpierson.substack.com/ for the complete Episode 1.  I'm looking to post a new episode every other week. Free sign up.




0 Comments

If There's Anything I Thought I'd Never Do ...

7/6/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture

This is It: No knead bread right out of a Dutch Oven. 

BTW I'm writing my Oracle book on https://frankpierson.substack.com/
Serialized in "Episodes" that capture some of the events and people we've known over the years since we moved here in 1979. What does substacking and bread making have in common?  Trying out new things.
0 Comments

    Author

    Kaz and I moved to Oracle in 1979.  The house we bought dated to the late 1940s.  With little advance knowledge of the place, we set out to build a new life together, intending to settle in and raise a family.

    Queens, New York and before that Chicago, Illinois rapidly receded in our rearview mirror as small town living moved front and center.

    Of course, we had to learn how to do lots of new things - from chainsawing dead trees, fighting fires, building cabinets, patching leaky roofs; not to mention figuring out how to get along in a rural town in Arizona with the center of local government an hour away and a do-it-yourself ethos the order of the day. 

    Kaz & Frank

    Categories

    All
    -
    Community
    Developers
    History
    Nature
    Oracle Arts
    OTown People
    OTown Politics
    Sometimes David Wins
    Thoughts

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022

HOME   |   ORACLE   |   DAVID WINS JOURNAL   |   ABOUT   |   CONTACT

© frankpierson.com  |  All rights reserved 2022
Site by LVCorua
  • Home
  • Oracle
  • David Wins Journal
  • How we got to Oracle, AZ
  • Get in Touch
  • About