We don’t usually recommend specific entertainment performances, but we recently had the pleasure of attending a Las Vegas impersonator show called, “The Concert That Never Was”. We went reluctantly, because we’ve never been thrilled with fake stars, a feature in Las Vegas designed to drag money from seniors. You can’t go anywhere in Sin City without running into a pseudo Elvis hosting a supermarket promo, singing at a wedding chapel or crooning in a hotel bar lounge. Or a phony Madonna dealing blackjack, or a fake Dolly Parton serving drinks. All part of the glitzy Vegas scene, but who needs it?

This program applies to all seniors, of course, but if you’re from the baby boomer generation, it could have special appeal to you. Did your parents take you to the new Disneyland in 1955, or the opening of Walt Disney World in 1971? Do you remember the excitement? Of course, you went to have fun and meet Mickey. You didn’t give a hoot then about what happened behind the scenes.

The city is in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, rimmed by the Catalina Mountains, and the nearest body of water is 80 miles away on the coast of Mexico. Springtime in Tucson is delightful, because the nights are very cool and, by early February, the days are sunny with temperatures in the 70s and 80s. That’s my kind of town, and we’ve been here since we retired and fled the cold, humid, clammy East in 1991. If you have arlthritis, you should bring it to the desert heat of Tucson. It won’t cure the nasty ailment, but the dry climate will certainly make it much easier to live with.

If you want to experience the fun and excitement of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, you’d better be making plans to be there now. The event this year blasts off on Fat Tuesday, February 24, and promises to be the very best in the two-century history of masks, music and mayhem of the always wild event.