Help a Neighbor

The villages of Sonoita and Elgin were recently torn apart from hail storms. By all reports the hail size ranged up to golf ball sized and was massive in its reach across the area damaging crops and anything else in its path.
“Why is this of any importance?” You’re probably asking. The Sonoita/Elgin area is the heart of southern Arizona’s wine region…yes we have one (several actually), and yes they’re very good.
The decimation of the grape crops has been, by most accounts, so complete that a half dozen or so (out of a little over nearly thirty statewide) of the area’s vineyards will not produce wine this year, The few that are going to try will be producing limited varieties and a few are going to attempt to make nothing more than a rose’ this year to maximize the crop yield. Some will purchase grapes from outside vineyards in the Willcox area (another excellent wine region that was untouched by the storm) and some may go as far as California for additional product.
The northern Arizona wine region in the Cottonwood/Sedona area, while strong and untouched by weather issues, currently only produce enough grapes to meet their normal production levels and can spare little to be sold as bulk to outside wineries.
The current mantra for many people these days trying to live healthier more responsible lives is to “Buy local and support the nearby farmers and ranchers.”, and, the often over used term, “sustainable”. At times like this when “neighbors” probably need us the most we should probably be seeking them out the most. As I understand it customers of many of these vineyards have shown up unannounced bearing rakes, shovels and other implements to help salvage what can be for this year and prepare the vines as much as they can for next year. Many of us may not have the time or physical ability to do something like that but we may be able to make a day trip or two to one or more of the vineyards and purchase some excellent (and in many cases multiple award winning) wine from someone who may become a future friend as well.
For those who can’t travel easily places like BevMo, AJ’s, Total Wine, AZ Wine and Sportman’s have wonderful local wine sections at reasonable prices.
For information on all of the vineyards here in Arizona you can contact the Arizona Vines and Wines at http://arizonavinesandwines.com

MIRROR, MIRROR

A little over a year ago I was talked into getting on FACEBOOK as a social networking tool for my business and I did get a few business contacts from it.
What surprised me was all of the people from my past who magically appeared from out of the woodwork one day. Junior High, High School, College friends and ex-girlfriends, people I had worked with at one time or another and Lifestyle friends and playmates long since forgotten.
In an odd way it was interesting to hear from them. In many ways it was a surreal look through a magic mirror to another time and place I’m not sure I wanted to re-visit.
Someone had posted a question on the Forums in one of my favorite swing sites asking “Has the Lifestyle made you a better person?” They went on to explain they had gotten on to FACEBOOK and had encountered friends from the past, much like I and everyone else on there has, and how he had noticed how much he had changed and yet many of his past compatriots had “let themselves go” or didn’t seem as happy as he was. He was wondering out loud if the Lifestyle had something to do with it.
My response to him was short and probably incomplete, partially because I might say too much but probably more because there wasn’t an easy answer to that on my part.
I had jumped into the Lifestyle at the ripe old age of nineteen. Because of my life experiences up to that point, looking back on it, I seemed to be pre-disposed to have gotten into it. It always felt to be the right place for me to be. There always happens an experience or event in a person’s life that deep down inside you know is the right thing to do and the Lifestyle was one of them for me.
Back then perhaps only a half dozen of my high school classmates shared that feeling (that I was aware of) and college didn’t significantly add to those numbers right away. Now here I am looking at pictures of these people and their families nearly forty years later and wondering…why?
Looking good was always important to me. Not for any vain or egotistical reasons. I just felt better dressing well and staying in shape. Something I still do to this day (give or take a few times dictated by health issues). It was already part of the way I was before I got into the Lifestyle. I couldn’t help but notice how those things became important only after they had done so for many of the people who responded to that forum question.
I looked at the pictures and read the accounts of the lives of the people in my FACEBOOK account and realized that, with the exception of a very few, I had nothing in common with these people anymore. Has my life been so much better than theirs? Probably not…just different. We had been held together by geography before. Now we had different life experiences, goals, ideals and probably different dreams than we once had. They weren’t bad or unfortunate people. They just weren’t the people I knew back then (assuming I knew them that well to begin with),
My best friend in junior high school with whom I raised more than a little hell with and compared notes with while we were learning about sex with our girlfriends back then…is now a minister in a small town in the Northwest and has been for a little over thirty years. My life is as foreign to him as his is to mine these days. We have great respect for each other but the two kids who blew up a telephone pole one afternoon and felt our first naked females don’t exist anymore. Likewise many of the women I dated and/or played with. Many have fond memories of the wild things we did but “couldn’t possibly imagine doing those things now”.
Has the Lifestyle made me a better person? I doubt it. The Lifestyle has never been a charitable endeavor or a philanthropic foundation. Nor has it been a character building experience. Did it lay the foundation for who I am today? Very much so. It allowed me to be ME with very little compromise for the majority of my adult life. The few compromises I did have to make were ones I willingly made knowing what the consequences (if any) would have been.
I don’t have the same hair style I did in high school (duh). I don’t wear the same style of clothing I did, eat the same food, listen to the same music, have the same opinions, same friends and playmates, the same look on life or the same interests I had back then. Did the Lifestyle have anything to do with that? Not as much as one might think (if at all). Chances are that would have happened regardless.
Did the Lifestyle provide me with a road map for my life experiences that fill the volumes of my memories…absolutely. Those may not have happened without it.
The FACEBOOK experience may have opened my eyes or even caused me to take a good look at myself. What it didn’t do was cause me to fall through the looking glass and end up in an Otherworldly Universe.

DISGUSTING!

Two weekends ago we had our monthly meet & greet at Terroir Wine Pub. As usual it was a big hit and we thank you all (we most of you) for comming.
We did however have a few incidents that are still causing steam to come out of my ears and field more than a few e-mails of people registering shock and disgust over the couple of things that happened. So much so that for the first time ever I'm going to address these issues here. In part to get them off of my chest and in part to make a few things perfectly clear but before I dig into the meat of the matter let me lay out a few of the rules we are all governed by when it comes to meet & greets and other public or semi public events.
In the state of Arizona the way the liquor laws are written you may not at any time have nudity or partial nudity where alcohol is being sold and served. This means that, although it's fun and visually thrilling, you CANNOT at any time flash body parts at people or incite a group grope... even in a tight circle of people. You CANNOT participate in any form of public sex and crowding into a bathroom doesn't count as a private space. Restrooms are still considered a public space available to patrons of the establishment and required by law to be available to ALL patrons of that establishment. Locking the door to do anything other than what restrooms are designed for you to do is rude and inconsiderate of your fellow partiers. The lines are long enough without adding to the frustration.
The staff at any place selling alcohol have been trained to identify potential violations of their license and interceed before it happens as much as possible. Depending on the size of the venue those taskes may be delegated to security staff, a manager or owner and in many venues the waitstaff may also be included. The point is...there is always going to be someone looking for problems that could potentially shut them down and/or cause them the loss of their license and livelyhood.
NOW THE REASON FOR MY ANGER:
WE've all been to one meet & greet or another over the past few years thanks to the short sighted, narrow mindedness of a few clueless people. Everyone (including me) misses the "good ol' days" of having a quality swing club in the valley and, sometimes, the combination of alcohol and highly charged sexual libido's get the better of us and we forget where we are. It's happened to all of us at least once.
However some of us have begun to make it a normal part of their social behavior regardless of where they are and this posses a problem not only for themselves but everyone around them...even ones who aren't part of the group.
At the last meet & greet a group of people in a, unfortunately, highly visible place (encouraged by someone who knows better but thinks they're an exception to every rule) decided flashing boobs and other body parts, nipple rubbing and highly charged grouping and kissing were perfectly OK to do...even after being asked by several staff members (and me) to tone it down. Rather than tone it down they ramped up and decided they'll play in the restroom then which created a line to the ladies room. This, in turn, began a number of cautions against doing that and caused the staff to cast a wary eye on the group and the ladies room door which began to piss the women in that group off. Several other women were cautioned as well because their preceved actions appeard to be heading that same direction which, unfortunately but understandably, offended one of these women for being warned about the occupancy number in the restroom by one of the waitress'.
When several of the offending group were blocked from entering the restroom together they were outraged that someone would prevent them from having fun. So what did one of them do? Express her outrage by taking a shit on the restroom floor! What sort of classless moron does something like that?! Needless to say this woman (and her husband) have been banned for life from Terroir.
The remainder of that group is now suspect wherever they show up not only for all of that silliness but also because they, and several other people, were responsible for shutting down another meet & greet and causing that event to be banned from that venue for similar (and worse) behavior there. Something, at the time of this writing, they refuse to take resposibility for. They claim it was the vanilla people's fault for making such a big deal over what they were doing. Huh? What are they and people like them thinking?! If they're thinking at all.
I, unfortunately, feel the need to say this again...When we all got into the Lifestyle no one gave us a special level of entitlement that allows us to do what we want, when we want, how we want in public places! There are laws that govern our behavior in public and there are no exemptions for swingers listed on any of them (believe me I've looked), in fact there are MORE limiting our actions that people in the vanilla world!
Experiences like the ones mentioned here are one of the prime reasons the vanilla world has issues with our lifestyle! At a time when many of us are trying to build bridges and close the gap with the vanilla world so that we can reclaim the portions of our lifestyle that has been stripped from us over the past few years this is the time to be demonstrating what a classy, stable, elite, worthy of emulation and praise person the average Lifestyler is and that we're not the juvinile, classless, irresponsible bufoons they've always imagined us to be.
C'mon people...get a grip!