WEBVTT

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Lots of dry eyes in the
house after that one.

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This is a poem about--

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I don't think this happens
around Tuscon, because there

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are so many Tuscon like names
for gated communities and condo

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developments and whatnot.

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I mean, there are
lots of Spanish words,

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and vistas and stuff like that.

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But in other parts
of the country,

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when you have these
housing developments,

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often you have a very
rustic or kind of pastoral

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name for them, usually
involving an animal, cute names

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like Beaver Hollow, or
Deer Run, or whatever.

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Quail Ridge and stuff like that.

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And of course, when
you think about it,

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these are precisely
the animals that

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were banished from this area
in order to build these houses.

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So the signs are really epitaphs
for these poor creatures.

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So having seen
enough of those, I

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wrote this poem called
"The Golden Years."

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And the reason its
called The Golden Years--

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well, it's a sonnet,
and it's spoken

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in the voice of a retired
widower, a retired fellow.

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"The Golden Years."

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"All I do these
drawn-out days is

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sit in my kitchen
at Pheasant Ridge

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where there are no pheasants to
be seen and last time I looked,

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no ridge.

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I could drive over
to Quail Falls

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and spend the day
there playing bridge,

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but the lack of a falls
and the absence of quail

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would only remind me
of Pheasant Ridge.

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I know a widow at
Fox Run, and another

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with a condo at Smokey Ledge.

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One of them smokes,
and neither can run,

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so I'll stick to the
pledge I made to Midge.

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Who frightened the fox
and bulldozed the ledge?

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I ask in my kitchen
at Pheasant Ridge."

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