Monday, November 18, 2013

Villa de Paz

Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Community Interest
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Villa de Paz is a place unlike any other. I have lived in Iowa and California. I have traveled across the United States. I have seen New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. I have traveled and explored the crevices of Arizona as well. Nothing compares to the little golf community of Villa de Paz.

Village of Peace... quiet, understated, demur, but not obsolete. Ducks, Canadian geese, quail, doves, pigeons, osprey, hawks, owls, vultures, seagulls and cranes grace the sky, trees, and ponds. It's where turtles cross the streets and children play on their bicycles.

In the mornings, students walk to school with their backpacks on. In the evenings, people return home from work. On the weekends, families barbeque.

Retired couples relax and spend their golden years in style. Young couples raise their children without fear of overcrowded streets, sprayed poisons, or drag racing. It's a place where everyone fits just right in a mold all its own.

If you are in need of help, all you have to do is ask. One of your neighbors are bound to lend a hand. Sometimes two do.

Villa de Paz cannot be replicated because it has taken decades to form with care, ethics, values, and strength. The golf course is the center that keeps the shape, feel, and culture of this small community alive and well. Without the golf course, the community would not be the same and the allure that brings people here would not survive as it once was.

Sometimes change is good, but when that change comes at the cost of your community, your neighbors, and your values, then change is best left to other places. Here in Villa de Paz, it's like coming home even if it's your first visit. There's something about this golf course community that attracts people from differing walks of life. 

Without the golf course, Villa de Paz would lose what makes it special. Unique. We have peace, quiet, wildlife, and a little extra space away from the crowded lights of the other meccas that allow us to stargaze every night. 

Why would anyone want to come in and destroy such beauty? 

Money? Greed? For overflowing accounts someone already has? Or is envious to obtain? Seems trifle and silly to me. Sometimes it takes a community to stand together and just say: "NO!"

When you have perfection, why would you want anything else?