On missing/not missing PA...

It’s been more than 30 years since I left Pennsylvania, and I admit there are some things that I miss. Or at least used to miss.

For a while I missed the change in seasons, although I found Tucson’s dry heat preferable to the Delaware Valley’s hot, humid summers; now that I’m in Prescott I can enjoy the changes again (it’s snowing as I write this) along with relative aridity. And it was easy to miss cheese steaks and hoagies from where they make them best, although once I became a vegetarian that ceased to matter. (Never really missed scrapple anyway. Tastykakes maybe, until I got militant about hydrogenated oil.)

I still miss proximity to the ocean, what used to be a day trip of an hour or so now requiring a major trek to California. But that’s not missing PA, it’s missing NJ. I’ve also missed driving on wooded country roads, where the trees overhang the lane and the sunlight coming through the leaves dapples your dashboard. Not even AZ’s ponderosa pine-lined highways, like driving up the switchbacks on 89A from Sedona to Flag, can match that sublime experience. Those country roads back east almost make up for the hell that the interstates and main arteries have become.

But there are also a few things I definitely don’t miss.

One is the liquor control board, which restricts the sale of wine and spirits to state stores and that of beer to either case purchases at distributors or six packs at bars and a handful of delis. Totally ridiculous. When I got to Arizona and discovered you could satisfy your cravings at a supermarket or drugstore, it was like coming out from under a cloud.

Another is the auto inspection system, whereby you haul your jalopy into a state-licensed private garage every year and, if you’re lucky, they won’t rip you off for unnecessary repairs. Imagine my surprise upon moving to Delaware in finding that state-operated garages lent some uniformity to this process. And then discovering that Arizona only cared about your emissions.

And a third is living in a state that once elected Rick Santorum to the Senate. I expect such of Arizona; it’s the home of western conservatism. John Kyl can’t help it, it’s in his blood, he’s what his constituents expect. And “maverick” John McCain—well, we’ll leave him be for now. But gay-bashing, sanctimonious, smarmy Santorum? I can’t even bring myself to put his cheesy face on this page. But now that he’s declaring himself a possible presidential candidate, I figure I’d take this early swipe.

It’s said that various factions in Pennsy politics or demographics are responsible for the perpetuation of eighteenth-century restrictions on the procurement of liquid refreshment and of having your mode of transport held hostage by a local grease monkey. But whatever insanity among the electorate was responsible for propelling Rick Santorum onto the national stage proves that Pennsylvanians are no less gullible than Alaskans.