Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce tourism event led to a lifelong friendship
As a city councilmember and longtime Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce member, I often participated in activities designed to promote our city’s tourism industry. I particularly recall an event in the early 1970s when the chamber teamed up with some of the major airlines and brought a number of European travel agents to Scottsdale for two or three days to sample our hospitality and check out our accommodations.
My wife, Cora, and I shared a table with an English couple — the Townsends — at a Pinnacle Peak Patio program. The dinner was great, but the program began to drag a little. Our guests wanted to leave but since they’d come with the group on a bus, they couldn’t. I suggested that we go down to Los Olivos for dessert, and I informed the bus driver of their change in plans.
Clive and Sylvia Townsend, who owned one of the larger travel agencies in London at the time, enjoyed some fried ice cream and sopapillas, which seemed to sit well on top of the Pinnacle Peak steaks. Los Olivos’ roof was open, and the May evening was perfect. We talked and listened to the mariachis until almost midnight. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
Later that fall, we got a call from Clive and Sylvia. They had flown to Arizona, this time without a group, and wanted to get together. We spent four or five evenings with them the two weeks they were here. Clive played golf almost every day, and Sylvia drove his cart. I introduced him to some of my friends who golfed, who joined him on the local courses.
The Townsends so enjoyed Scottsdale that they visited once or twice a year for several years, and we enjoyed their company. We communicated with them between trips and planned several side trips from Scottsdale. These included a few days on a houseboat on Lake Powell, a trip to Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, and a trip to the White Mountains, driving home down the Coronado Trail. Another time, we met them in Puerto Vallarta, where we enjoyed a great week. I drove the golf cart there.
In September 1978, Clive rented a flat for us in Chelsea. We flew to London, staying until Thanksgiving. We did side trips to Port Isaac and Tintagel in Cornwall and Devon; to Cork, Waterford, Dublin and Galway in Ireland; and trips to the English Midlands, Wales and Scotland. We also enjoyed weekend trips to various shores and small towns that Clive and Sylvia knew well.
We continued to visit back and forth into the mid-1990s. Clive and Sylvia bought a home in the Boulders in north Scottsdale. For a time they rented it, with plans of eventually retiring here. But the house became so valuable they eventually sold it and retired to Port Isaac. This is an area where the English climate is best and the golf courses are plentiful. We visited them there also.
It’s funny how a chance meeting at a chamber event led to Cora and I developing such a treasured friendship with two British citizens. Our lives were greatly enriched by those exchanges across the pond.
Reared on a local dairy farm, former Scottsdale city councilman (1971-76), state legislator (1979-85) and honored oral historian Paul Messinger founded Messinger Mortuaries in 1959. He can be reached at 480-860-2300 or 480-945-9521.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Former state lawmaker Paul Messinger honors friend Clive Townsend
