Small Town Still Growing

Gilbert is growing, which is no secret. One of the reasons it keeps growing, is no secret, either: it has that small town feel. I posted on that topic and how the change from ACTUAL small town to town with small FEEL fomented Morrison Ranch. That was a couple of years ago, when the Gilbert population was only 170,000. There's an article in today's East Valley Tribune that indicates we are nearly, or perhaps already arrived at, 200,000:

Gilbert’s population is growing fast toward 200,000 residents. An influx of annexations along with continued growth are helping the town move toward that milestone, which could be reached in a few months, town officials said. “We could already be there now,” town spokesman Greg Svelund said. The town has received an updated Census certification for 2,722 residents who annexed by August, 2006. The town is waiting for another updated certification to be approved that will include an estimated 1,400 more newly annexed residents. Annexations jumped after Rural/Metro Fire Department announced in November 2005 that it would stop providing service to county islands in Gilbert. According to Department of Economic Security estimates, the town population as of July 1, was 185,030, which does not include the newly annexed residents. The most updated information on residents, compiled by the town using permits for new homes and average family size, is 192,300 people. Adding the already calculated newly annexed residents, the town has 195,000 to 197,000 residents, with others living on 546 parcels still in the process of annexing.

So, a large part of the reason for the recent uptick in number is due to annexations. But folks are still moving in; this is good news for the homebuilders at Lakeview Trails North, of course. The goal remains to keep that small town feel, not just in Morrison Ranch, but in Gilbert.

One of the reasons this topic struck a chord with me is because The Mister has been in a reminiscent mood lately. He came home from visiting his mother one day and proclaimed that he was in possession of a treasure. When he carefully held out a vinyl record for me to peruse, I had to chuckle; after all, we have a cabinet full of vinyl records, and no turntable, and we certainly don't think of them as treasures.

This record, however, was cut somewhere around 1958, when The Mister was only 4 years old, and Bias For Action was 1, according to the record (they are the two kids at home who might "not appreciate the niceties of a head table"). It's a speech given by his father, who was accepting an award from then-Senator but eventually AZ governor Paul Fannin. He was speaking at a Future Farmers of America event. Back in that day, recording audio was not as easy as it is today, so the solution was to use records. The problem now, was how to listen to it, and more importantly, preserve it (the tossing of our turntable happened some time back when The Mister had had enough of my badgering about getting rid of some of the dead computers, pdas, and cell phones that pop out of our cabinets like a jack-in-the-box when the doors are opened; I think he offered the turntable as the sacrifice in order to keep the other electronic junk, but that's another story).

Bias For Action had the necessary equipment, and The Mister has spent the past weekend transferring not just the speech, but all his old James Taylor and Earl Klugh records, to audio files on his computer. Maybe those records really were treasures.

I'm including about a minute of his speech in the link below; there is no way for us to remove the scratchiness. Just think of it as authentic. You can catch a little bit of the flavor of the father, and see how some of that got passed on to the next generation.