DdBob
Dogue in teh desert
in Tucson......This was in todays "paper"
So there used to be a tiny Pizza/Italian place on the corner of Speedway and Camino Seco, just down the road from my High School and only a few miles from my childhood home. back then we were on the far eastside and it was two lane blacktom from Camino seco east then you eventually got to Reddington Road which turned to relatively unmaintained dirt road. The reddington area is slightly more main tained and urbanised these days but it's still a vast area of national forest, BLM and wilderness area.,.....like this which would be on the east side of the Reddington pass which is a mountain road seperating Tucson from a vast Valley on the other side. The east side is more grassy and the west side (Tucson side is primarily like in pauls home photo below)....
So it was probably 1985 the first I heard runors That Paul McCartney lived up on Reddington somewhere and then a friend of my who was just slightly older got a job delivering Pizza at the tiny (capacity was probably 10 people) restaurant at Camino seco and Speedway. One day when me and friends visited him at work he showed us a photo of Paul and Linda hanging on the wall...it was a pic of Paul and Linda eating at the restaurant.
The skaggs and A.J Bayless mentioned in the article is at the same location and we used to shop there. My bro had a fake license then (when the drinking age was 18 here) and he used to buy beer at the Skaggs....
Nowadays the area like all of Tucson has grown so much and the eastside where we lived is not the sleepy little outskirts anymore but it has basically grown to it's potential due to the layout of the geography...anyway here is the McCartneys home and the article...BTW There was always this huge modernist style home in a minimalist style with massive glass windows which everyone always assumed was Pauls home as I did but apparently it was not. From the photos below I now know it is not viewable from the main dirt road through reddington....anyway
The gate and road to Pauls home
andhere is Pauls Home whic is very modest for a person like him.
The dusty blacktop road on Tucson's far east side doesn't look like it leads to a British nobleman's house.
But the 151-acre ranch near the foothills of the Rincon Mountains belongs to Sir Paul McCartney, whose wife Linda died there in 1998.
McCartney's company still pays taxes on the property; someone obviously maintains the place. But that's the backstory. What we have here is a yarn about a larger-than-life love affair.
This is an honest-to-goodness Camelot-style love story replete with a chivalric royal knight and his queen. This fairy tale spans the world and ends in this house near Redington Pass.
Paul McCartney's connection with Tucson was through his wife, Linda Eastman. She attended the University of Arizona, where she began her prolific photography career. Linda was enamored with the desert beauty and tranquility of life.
The two met in London in 1967 when Linda was on a photo assignment for a book about rock stars. After a two-year courtship, they were married in 1969 in a civil ceremony at a town hall in London.
They soon pushed each other beyond the limits of their combined imagination. Over the 29-year marriage, Paul was the most creative in his musical career, and Linda blossomed as a musician.
Over their 29-year marriage, the couple was apart only one night.
After buying the Tucson ranch in 1979, the McCartney family began to grow. The house became a dominant family home, mainly in the spring and fall — a place to be free and one with nature, away from global prying eyes.
Locals understood and gave them a wide berth. Occasionally mom, dad and the children would venture out and thrill Tucsonans at restaurants and stores.
The McCartneys visited the old Skaggs Drug Store at Speedway and Camino Seco, especially at Halloween and Thanksgiving. During these times, fans would hang out waiting for autographs and a glimpse of the rock star family entourage.
Other locals camped out at the nearby AJ Bayless grocery store, where Paul would kindly sign albums while picking up milk and bread.
In 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. The privacy of the ranch allowed her to face treatment and healing in secluded personal privilege.
Just days before Linda's passing, she and Paul rode her much-loved Appaloosa horses, Spot and Blanket, over the ranch and adjoining wilderness area, enjoying the private time together. Paul and Linda's doctors had decided not to tell her how much her cancer had aggressively spread.
In the predawn hours of Friday, April 17, 1998, 56-year-old Linda Eastman McCartney died at the Tucson ranch house. Paul and the family, including their four children, were with her.
A half-moon traversed Tucson's star-filled sky on the evening of her passing, casting a consoling soft glow over their tin roof.
Linda's body was cremated in Tucson and became part of the desert she respected and embraced when the family spread her ashes at the ranch before returning to London.
So there used to be a tiny Pizza/Italian place on the corner of Speedway and Camino Seco, just down the road from my High School and only a few miles from my childhood home. back then we were on the far eastside and it was two lane blacktom from Camino seco east then you eventually got to Reddington Road which turned to relatively unmaintained dirt road. The reddington area is slightly more main tained and urbanised these days but it's still a vast area of national forest, BLM and wilderness area.,.....like this which would be on the east side of the Reddington pass which is a mountain road seperating Tucson from a vast Valley on the other side. The east side is more grassy and the west side (Tucson side is primarily like in pauls home photo below)....
So it was probably 1985 the first I heard runors That Paul McCartney lived up on Reddington somewhere and then a friend of my who was just slightly older got a job delivering Pizza at the tiny (capacity was probably 10 people) restaurant at Camino seco and Speedway. One day when me and friends visited him at work he showed us a photo of Paul and Linda hanging on the wall...it was a pic of Paul and Linda eating at the restaurant.
The skaggs and A.J Bayless mentioned in the article is at the same location and we used to shop there. My bro had a fake license then (when the drinking age was 18 here) and he used to buy beer at the Skaggs....
Nowadays the area like all of Tucson has grown so much and the eastside where we lived is not the sleepy little outskirts anymore but it has basically grown to it's potential due to the layout of the geography...anyway here is the McCartneys home and the article...BTW There was always this huge modernist style home in a minimalist style with massive glass windows which everyone always assumed was Pauls home as I did but apparently it was not. From the photos below I now know it is not viewable from the main dirt road through reddington....anyway
The gate and road to Pauls home
andhere is Pauls Home whic is very modest for a person like him.
The dusty blacktop road on Tucson's far east side doesn't look like it leads to a British nobleman's house.
But the 151-acre ranch near the foothills of the Rincon Mountains belongs to Sir Paul McCartney, whose wife Linda died there in 1998.
McCartney's company still pays taxes on the property; someone obviously maintains the place. But that's the backstory. What we have here is a yarn about a larger-than-life love affair.
This is an honest-to-goodness Camelot-style love story replete with a chivalric royal knight and his queen. This fairy tale spans the world and ends in this house near Redington Pass.
Paul McCartney's connection with Tucson was through his wife, Linda Eastman. She attended the University of Arizona, where she began her prolific photography career. Linda was enamored with the desert beauty and tranquility of life.
The two met in London in 1967 when Linda was on a photo assignment for a book about rock stars. After a two-year courtship, they were married in 1969 in a civil ceremony at a town hall in London.
They soon pushed each other beyond the limits of their combined imagination. Over the 29-year marriage, Paul was the most creative in his musical career, and Linda blossomed as a musician.
Over their 29-year marriage, the couple was apart only one night.
After buying the Tucson ranch in 1979, the McCartney family began to grow. The house became a dominant family home, mainly in the spring and fall — a place to be free and one with nature, away from global prying eyes.
Locals understood and gave them a wide berth. Occasionally mom, dad and the children would venture out and thrill Tucsonans at restaurants and stores.
The McCartneys visited the old Skaggs Drug Store at Speedway and Camino Seco, especially at Halloween and Thanksgiving. During these times, fans would hang out waiting for autographs and a glimpse of the rock star family entourage.
Other locals camped out at the nearby AJ Bayless grocery store, where Paul would kindly sign albums while picking up milk and bread.
In 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. The privacy of the ranch allowed her to face treatment and healing in secluded personal privilege.
Just days before Linda's passing, she and Paul rode her much-loved Appaloosa horses, Spot and Blanket, over the ranch and adjoining wilderness area, enjoying the private time together. Paul and Linda's doctors had decided not to tell her how much her cancer had aggressively spread.
In the predawn hours of Friday, April 17, 1998, 56-year-old Linda Eastman McCartney died at the Tucson ranch house. Paul and the family, including their four children, were with her.
A half-moon traversed Tucson's star-filled sky on the evening of her passing, casting a consoling soft glow over their tin roof.
Linda's body was cremated in Tucson and became part of the desert she respected and embraced when the family spread her ashes at the ranch before returning to London.
