For those of you who don’t know, I’m once again an expatriate. I’m living in the hottest little city in the United States – Bullhead City, Ariz. That means I like hot temps, low gas prices and the Laughlin casinos just on the other side of the river.

It also means I’m no longer one of “Jerry’s Children.” You know Jerry – your governor. He must be so very proud today, because he signed the bill that says all single-stall restrooms must be gender-neutral. Yep … all major airlines already have this. Ever go to an event with a lot of portable toilets and see a “gender specific” sign? Me, neither.

Right in my old hometown of Mentryville, there is a “portable” that is also not marked. It is just a place to do what a person has to do. (I had a play on words worthy of a 5-year-old, but…) Felton School in that old town has a boys’ and a girls’ outhouse. The girls’ outhouse has a cement sidewalk to go to it. The boys had to walk in the dirt. I’ve used both of them. When I lived there.

Two of my favorite restaurants in Newhall have gender-neutral restrooms. I think maybe since they opened for business. No problems there that I know of. but the guys who go there remember to raise the seat and then, if they are thinking at all, to lower it when done.

Yesterday we were out testing the four-wheel drive on the new pickup truck, and I had to go something fierce. So I stopped the truck and got out, taking care not to let my pistol catch on the steering wheel, and did what I had to do. Not very gender-specific out in all that sand and rock. And yes, I do often carry my .45 ACP semi-automatic Model 1911 on my hip since it is legal in the state of Arizona. That includes shopping in the local stores and going to restaurants, too. Yet another reason I’m no longer one of Jerry’s Children.

So I’ve a few questions to ask all y’all. Here goes:

1. Will the California High-Speed Rail cars have gender-neutral restrooms?

2. Does this mean all of your home bathrooms must now have signs that state they are for whatever gender one wants to declare?

3. Doesn’t Gov. Jerry have better things to fix in the state of California like the looming pension deficit, bad roads, health care issues, water and the drought? The list goes on.

But I’m in Arizona. We have all those kinds of problems but tend to deal with them on a little more personal basis.

If you’re going to rob a store here, you’ve got to think twice. With so many folks armed, you might walk into a gunfight with only a knife. One of the reasons for low crime rates here. Yes, granny can and usually does have a gun for self-protection.

We tend not to worry so much about little things like gender neutrality. It isn’t a matter of discrimination but more of a “don’t care” attitude. Let someone use whatever toilet they want to use. Just put the seat down when you’re finished, guys.

Yes, I’ll always be a Californian by birth, but I am a “Zonie” by choice. It is a place where they realize the rights specified in the United States Constitution are not given to us by the government but entrusted to us by the Creator. That is the distinction between the two states.

I have legally emancipated myself from “Daddy Jerry” and all of his edicts that want to grant rights that are not his to give or take.

One other question: What is he really doing and trying to hide when he signs bills like he just signed? All of that smoke-and-mirror work seems to be paying well for him. Y’all still have a high-speed rail being built … someplace … in the middle of nowhere … going no place.

At least you can be assured to have a place to sit or stand and not be bothered by whatever other genders y’all might have around you. It wasn’t a real problem in Newhall or Mentryville, so he made it a problem and signed the law.

The one thing we love to do here in Arizona, because so many of us have escaped California, is to laugh at what all y’all are doing to our former home.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley for a spell. Now he hangs his cowboy hat in Arizona. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].