I bought Bennie’s boots

My family and I attended the culmination of a 72-hour charrette in city hall on Sunday. The room was full of architects, planners, historians and students who had picked apart our community psyche, history, economics and culture to come up with insightful design concepts for the future of downtown Nogales.

I looked around toward the end and noticed some attendees were teary-eyed contemplating what could be. But there was something else hovering in the room. An aura that inspired those present to believe all those good things were within our reach if we could only get our collective community act together.

I thought of Margaret Mead’s quote: “A society that no longer moves forward does not merely stagnate; it begins to die.”

What also came to mind were Nogales downtown landmarks that inspire vision, library and VFW Hall, for example, with their absence of right angles. They were both designed by Bennie Gonzales, an internationally renowned architect, who along with wife, Diane, made his home in Nogales for several years before he died at age 83.

Two of the charrette team members were friends and colleagues of Gonzales. Bob Frankeberger the State Historic Preservation Office architect, and Will Bruder, who came to Arizona with Paolo Soleri of the famed Arcosanti project near Phoenix.

It may have been through them that Bennie’s visionary aura was invoked during Sunday’s session. I left thinking that with their help Gonzales’ spirit could help guide us into a more progressive era.

We then went to the Hilltop Gallery, which was designed very much in Bennie’s style by Ed Starr, an architect who worked with Gonzales.

It was the tail end of an auction and flea market but there were plenty of cookies, lemonade and Sangria left. We scanned the art in the main hall and rifled through the sale items. I was elated to find a $30-dollar camera tripod for just seven bucks.

As I moved along the table, a pair of brown Justin ropers caught my eye. Now normally, I’m a fairly fastidious guy not prone to buying used footwear. But these looked clean and almost new. The curator then explained that the boots were half off and that they belonged to whom else? Bennie Gonzales.

Coincidence? Hardly. Those size 11s are mine, now.

(Coppola can be reached at 268 W. View Point Dr., Nogales, Ariz., 85621 or manuel.coppola@nogalesinternational.com.)