Sun City, Neighborhood of Watchers

Phoenix' nickname is "Valley of the Sun".  My nickname for Sun City is Land of Watchers.  Here the art of watching reaches new levels.  People watching should be a club here.  All our neighbors know when we come, when we go, when we buy groceries, when we play bridge.  These people know EVERYTHING.   In any Sun City neighborhood, there's an awful lot of medical emergency traffic which is ordinary fodder for the watchers.  Who could resist peeking out at the Sheriff's SUV, the ambulance with flashing lights and the fire truck complete with siren.  Admittedly, they turn the siren off pretty fast, but the blue and red flashing lights wink away for quite a while.  Sun City passed the 'peeking out' stage long ago. When anything unusual happens, doors fly open and out come the neighbors.

Getting ready to 'lift'

We had a premiere watching event on our very street this week, and it was right in front of our house.  The neighbors across the street got a new HVAC (furnace/air conditioner).  Usually that's not such a big deal, and would only rate a glance as you drove by in any other place in America.  In the Original Sun City (where we live) all the HVAC units were installed on the roofs when the houses were built.  To move the units to the ground, the entire duct system of the house would have to be rerouted as well as the roof replaced.  Thus, roof installation of a new HVAC unit  means a CRANE to lift it.  I'm talking excitement here.

Under the cover of blog writing, I grabbed my camera and headed out the door to watch the entire process along with half a dozen of my other neighbors.  No one was as bold as I, though.  I showed those old watchers a thing or two as I strolled over to the crane operator.

"Hi.  I write a blog, and I'd like to write an entry about you and your crane operation.  Would that be OK?  My name is Jan."

This is Robert

"Really?  I'm Robert.  Nice to meet you.  Are you sure you want to write about me?

"Yeah, this is the most interesting thing to happen on this street since I've lived here.  I think your job is fascinating.  How did you become a crane operator?"

"Well, I started working construction when I was a teenager, and I sort of started by helping built scaffolding.  I got tired of that work and starting learning how to operate one of these cranes."

"Is there a training course?  How did you learn how to use it?"

"Oh, I just learned on the job.    Somebody just showed me the controls one day, and then I started operating it.  After a while, you get really good at judging distances."  (I admit, I thought, YIKES!)

"How much does it cost to hire your crane?  Oh, it's $100 an hour.  Like this job, there was 30 minutes travel time, and the lift took about 30 minutes.  It takes more time to get everything ready, than the actual lift."

"What the most interesting thing you and your crane have lifted?

"I think it was the big TV."

"Do you mean a real TV?

"Yeah.  I lifted a huge TV through the patio door on the second floor of this big house.  They wanted a really big TV in their bedroom.  That lift was kind of fun."

Robert may have been thrilled with the big TV, but I found his lift of the enormous HVAC unit onto the roof of the house across the street to be pretty thrilling.  We could have sold soft drinks and popcorn there were so many watchers.  Oh, the excitement of Sun City.

http://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=ZqqcMuBFZRw&video_referrer=watch