CAREFREE
Just north of us are two separate burgs, though I might be the only one who has ever penned burgs with the West, named Cave Creek and Carefree.  I've been to both though I 've frequented Cave Creek more when the fork forces me to choose.  Cave Creek has handier Western shops, a golf course, and some good places to chow down: the best at the Rancho Manana Golf Club.

I've never seen the creek or the cave and when I've gone the other way, I've never felt very carefree.  They're both the kinds of names that drew me nearer to baseball announcer Harry Carey when he called the games for the Cardinals when I was a kid.  He'd either announce fans were in St. Louis from Strawberry Danes, Arkansas, or some other interestingly named town.  At least to me, a lover of words at a young age.

But what would it be to feel carefree?  I always go back to my school days as a grade school student, junior high, high school, college student and teacher.  There was just nothing comparable to the last day of school.

The feeling of no constraint, the feeling of complete freedom.  At the tail end of a physically hard day of work (you're right--I never experienced many), turning 21 years of age, getting that diploma paled in comparison.  It was just knowing or better yet not knowing what was ahead, but you had survived whatever had been thrown at you, whatever had come your way.  And you were ready.

You could take all day to slide or blow bubbles.  You could sleep till noon.  You could stay up all hours of the night or all night.  No repercussions because you were free of cares.   For the time being.  But for once, time wasn't your boss.  You felt Summer would never end.

About three weeks later, you started thinking about missing your friends and what school would be like in the Fall.  Your carefree days were great.  For awhile.

It's like some who I've known that never got out of the military.  Never got over their year(s) of service.  They were free (and thank God for their service for our freedom) but pulled back, in a way retained.  Same with school.  Some of the people I've known as fellow students and former students who couldn't wait to get out of school and into the real world, never graduated.  Never got over the "dear old golden school days".

Some like a character in a Frost poem were still thinking of arguments they should have used, could have used back then.

I guess most are not really anymore carefree than the town in Arizona.  Even at Summer's beginning, school's end, or honorable discharge.  That's the human for you--we want freedom, but then again, do we.

Carefree is nice, but only for awhile.