When you open your paper this week, you’ll find a special section included that commemorates the 35th Anniversary of The Fountain Hills Times.

I have spent over half of my nearly 62 years producing the news you want to know in Fountain Hills.

So take some time, perhaps this weekend, crawl into your easy chair and reminisce about the early days of Fountain Hills. The 35th Anniversary Special Edition contains a year-by-year summary of the news events that have happened since 1974.

It also includes an overview of our 35 years of operation, stories by Editor Mike Scharnow and me on memories, a feature on our staff, information on advertising, a listing of our many awards and an update on our Website.

Enjoy reading it.

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On the front page of the special you will see a subscription offer that we would like you to consider.

If you live in Fountain Hills or the Verdes, and are not currently a subscriber, you can start receiving The Times in your driveway each week for a special rate of $25 for the year.

The offer is good through August 31, 2009.

And all of those people who subscribe will be eligible to win four tickets and a parking pass to one of four Arizona Diamondback games. There will be four drawings.

The earlier you sign up, the greater are your chances of winning.

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Maybe I should become a travel writer. It may be my imagination, but it seems whenever I write about traveling somewhere, more of you tell me that you really enjoyed reading my column that week. It happened again last week when I told you about my visit to New Jersey.

We even had a letter emailed to us from a woman in New Jersey.

I read where I missed some great weather here while we were sitting on the foggy beach in New Jersey.

Our weekly weather report showed nothing higher than 95 degrees for highs and all but one day in the 60s for lows. That’s perfect in my book, except my pool hasn’t been warm enough for me to get in. I can’t remember that mild of temperatures for the second week of June in my 53 years of living in the Valley. I heard we set a record for number of days in June under 100 degrees.

And June is when we record our highest temperatures. Remember that 122 degree day back in 1989.

We’re now officially into our monsoon season (it began June 15). And I understand conditions are coming together that we may get some thunderstorm action this weekend.

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Boy, it sure sees quiet around town. I had to wonder if everyone either left town or went on vacation while I was gone. There’s not much traffic on our streets. We’ve been able to park under a shade tree in places where we never thought we would get the chance.

But our businesses around town are telling us this is the worst it has ever been for the number of customers coming in. Diane and I had dinner at two of our local restaurants last week. In both cases, there were only two or three other tables being used.

If you are thinking of getting out of the kitchen for a night or two, give one of our town restaurants a try. We have to help them get through the summer.