Oracle's Precarious Perch

  Relationships among local residents never came easy either.  From the beginning tensions simmered and bubbled up only to simmer and boil again.  Internal battles occasionally devolved into public arguments and fisticuffs as factions contested for town dominance.

  National movements - the labor movement; the environmental movement; the peace movement; the tea party movement; Trumpism - swept in and out and some back in again.

  All of this makes for compelling story telling.  

  As of now Oracle seems to linger on the success side of the ledger:  A small, unincorporated town buffeted by powerful forces that has managed to carve out a unique identity while exercising a degree of self determination.  Threatened by drought and fire, vulnerable to contamination and/or exhaustion of the aquifer sourcing its water, sometimes wracked by political divisions , perched precariously on a north facing granite ridge, nothing about Oracle’s future can be taken for granted.