By Patrick Whitehurst
Father’s Day might look a little different in 2020 than past years, but dads will still get a chance to shine.
Social distancing, due the coronavirus pandemic, has been the norm in the small residential community of Civano, as it has throughout Pima County and across the world, but that hasn’t stopped residents from walking the planned community’s sidewalks and trails each evening. Nor has it stopped them from checking on one another, whether on the phone, from their porches, or from the community’s Facebook pages.
Residents Patricia and Ron Canady, a retired couple in their 70s, moved to Civano in 2001. They’ve been married 57 years. This year, the pandemic has moved their Father’s Day celebration online.
“We usually celebrate together at one of our houses and this year it will all be on Zoom,” Canady said. “None of us in our family believe in the lifting of restrictions. We have a lot of doctor friends and nurse friends, and they’re all saying we opened up too soon.”
Canady’s children, all grown, live in the Civano community as well. She calls that a blessing, particularly in the era of the coronavirus.
“In March they brought us two giant boxes of food items, in case we got quarantined,” Canady said. “They really watch over us. We’re not getting together physically, because my son has an essential job and his daughter also works, but we check on each other. I drop off things and they drop off things without physical contact.”
Rather than Sunday dinners together, she said, they now get on Zoom to play Trivial Pursuit. Canady also takes part in “text trees” with other moms, both older and younger, where they send messages to check on everyone’s welfare.
Ron has kept busy during the quarantine with various projects, which includes renovations to both patios at their home.
When it comes to seeing each other again in person, Patricia Canady said they’re playing it by ear and listening to the experts in order to stay healthy.
“We’re being cautious,” she said. “While we don’t believe things should open up yet, we’re very cognizant of people needing money.”
The couple frequent the local nursery, adhering to social distancing guidelines while there, and order takeout from nearby restaurants to support local business.
Civano resident Ruben Cruz also plans to take precautions this Father’s Day, though he will make his famous tacos for dinner, as he does every year, with a recipe passed down from his father, Bennie Cruz. A second-generation Tucson native, Cruz remembers how the neighborhood would gather at his childhood home on taco nights.
“I still talk to some of them. Forty-five years later, the one thing they always mention is my dad’s tacos,” Cruz said.
The trick to amazing tacos, he added, is to slow cook the seasoned meat on a gas range. When he moved to Civano, he converted his electric range to gas for that purpose.
Like his father before him, who served during the Korean conflict, Cruz himself served in the United States Marine Corps in the mid-to-late 1970s.
Cruz said his father never got old in his eyes.
“He would still get up on the roof, do plumbing, whatever. He died when he was 79-years-old,” Cruz said. “I use to call him Superman.”
Cruz’s own children lived with him until their early 30s, he said, and only recently moved out to raise families of their own.
“It’s a cultural thing for us, but I really miss them. We’re following the CDC guidelines. The kids do pop over sometimes on the weekends. We have a very strong connection,” Cruz said. “With COVID-19 there’s going to be a separation. I don’t know if everyone’s going to come, but if they do we do have areas in the back where we did a lot of construction and people can be separated.”
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced on Tuesday, May 12, the lifting of the state’s stay-at-home order, which has been in effect since Tuesday, March 31. Those official restrictions on non-essential businesses eased Friday, May 15.
