Nogales: The real thing

My esteemed colleague Dan Shearer, editor of the Green Valley News, visited Nogales recently. Too bad.

Wish he’d called first. We could have tidied up.

His last place of residence was Scottsdale. I just went there this weekend, and man, that place is unnaturally clean. I went out for a breath of fresh air only to suck in eau de parfum and breath of hedione.

We do the best we can, down here. We don’t have the kind of tax base that Scottsdale has.

The three chambers of commerce in Nogales, Nogales, Sonora and Green Valley, for example, are organizing a free tour for a group of Green Valley residents in November. It is the first in what the chambers hopes will be a regular activity offered to area visitors. Those who take the tour will surely go back home with a less superficial sense of our community.

In an editorial published in the GVN on Sept. 22, Shearer said, “The real problem is that Nogales just isn’t interesting anymore. On Saturday, we found torn-up streets, desperate shopkeepers and few decent goods on the shelves.

“It doesn’t help that we need passports or passport cards to get back into the U.S. Most Americans don’t have one and aren’t interested in spending $60-$100 for a card they’ll use once or twice in a lifetime,” Shearer said.

The clincher was this little gem: “And though Nogales is only 40 miles away, Tubac is closer and offers higher quality in a more inviting environment.”

Good thing Shearer is not an anthropologist.

It’s not just about the pottery or clean streets. It’s about the culture; it’s about a warm urban environment; it’s the smells wafting from steaming taco and hotdog stands; traditional home-style cooking at La Posada; and the romantic ambiance at La Roca, a restaurant and bar literally built into rocks that form rare geologic phenomena known as Nogales Formation.

It’s the friendly barkeeps at joints with names such as Potros, Cheve’s and Regis; the strolling musicians; Radio XENY blasting through a blown speaker in the barbershop.

You can’t buy all that in Tubac, my friend.

But someone who comes from where the living is easy and the plastic is rampant, may not understand all this.

Perhaps the chambers will consider saving a spot on the tour van for Shearer. Or better yet, I would suggest he cross the line with NI Assistant Editor William Wilczewski, originally from the State of New York, or Copy Editor Aulton Utsey who is from Oaklahoma. Shearer may discover what those two and countless others have come to appreciate -- the real Ambos Nogales.

(Write us at 268 W. View Point Dr., Nogales, Ariz., 85621, or manuel.coppola@nogalesinternational.com.)