Leolinda Bowers Phoenix, Arizona Retirement Communities

Aloha! I am the Designated Broker, Realtor® at Leolinda Realty in Sun City Grand. Licensed as a Realtor since 2004, I specialize in real estate sales in Arizona West Valley Golf Retirement Communities.

I have Bachelor of Science Degrees in Chemistry and Biology and a Masters Degree in Business Administration with Project Management concentration.

As a year-round Sun City Grand resident and full-time Realtor®, I can help you buy and/or sell real estate in the golf retirement communities of Sun City Grand, Sun City West, Corte Bella, Arizona Traditions, Sun City Festival, PebbleCreek and Trilogy at Vistancia.

Buyers and sellers receive what they desire when selecting me as their estate agent: an experienced, dedicated, well-educated, professional local Realtor® who specializes in real estate in Arizona golf retirement communities.

Please stop by my office anytime. I am located in Sun City Grand at 14800 W Mountain View Blvd.

I live here, I work here, I know this community!

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$385,000

2 Beds2 Baths1298 SqFt

Sun City Grand in Surprise, AZ

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SUN CITY WEST, AZ

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Thank you, Little Big Man

April, 2022

This is the story or a remarkable little man. I’m not sure he is even alive anymore, and I don’t even remember his last name. But I owe him his moment. Our paths crossed briefly at the baggage claim counter in Calcutta, India, in 2008.

My trajectory from the States to Calcutta (now renamed Kolkata) included a half dozen different countries, airlines, and terminals. Now, at the Calcutta terminal I waited for my over-stuffed duffle bag to appear in the round-about. It never did. Somewhere in our hop-scotching around the world it had taken a different route. I sought out the baggage claim office.

The sole baggage man’s battered name tag told me his first name was Sanji. He spoke very clipped Victorian-style English, influenced perhaps by past British Colonial occupation, and he juxtaposed the honorifics “Sahib”and “Mr.” His office was a stark concrete cell, no bigger than five by ten, dimly lit by a single naked lightbulb dangling from a ceiling cord. Tight against one wall was a battered desk, and on it a very old computer. The rest of the room was stuffed with huge piles of unclaimed luggage, jammed so tightly even this agile little man could hardly maneuver.

We threaded our way through to his desk. “We will find that bag!” he proclaimed loudly, arm in air like brandishing a sword. Then, with a one finger, seek-and-peck flourish, he blasted away on the keyboard of a very dirty, very outdated computer, trying to coax out of its fluttering screen the mysteries of my lost bag. He sighed and moaned for fifteen minutes, then shouted triumphantly, “Yes!”

“You found it, Sanji?”

“Come look, is this not it?”

I strained to read the blurry screen. It did note a duffle bag from Los Angeles International Airport. However the rest did not match.

“Sorry, Sanji, wrong name and wrong color of bag.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite.”

The little keeper and seeker of unclaimed and lost bags shook his head sadly. But then he brightened. “Ah, perhaps it’s already here.” Then, like a human auger, he drilled into the mountain of bags stuffed in the room. Finally, he came up smiling, lugging a navy blue duffle. “Could this be it?”

“No, my friend, mine is black.”

“Are you quite sure, sir?”

“Quite.”

The little man mopped his brow with a threadbare handkerchief. With a grunt he attacked the piles again. Bags were flying everywhere. “Ah-ha!” he finally screamed from the recesses. He surfaced like a mole from the earth with a dark brown bag half triumphantly over his head. “From L.A.X.” he beamed.

“My bag was supposedly transferred and loaded for the International flight from there, so you’re closing in. But my bag is black, quite, completely, and utterly black.”

“This dark brown is very close to black. Are you quite sure this is not your bag, sir?”

“Quite.”

The baggage claim man’s shoulders slumped. I felt sorry for him, so said, “Rest now, my friend. The day is exceptionally hot and humid. You’ve been at it for over an hour.”

“But I have not yet found your luggage, Sahib.”

“But you will in time. I am sure of it. For now, you have done well. Exceedingly well in fact. So far you’ve matched the right style, the right material, even the right departure point. That is far better than anyone has done at any of the other stops across the globe where I inquired about my bag. You alone have come closest to finding it.”

The man beamed, and said, “I SHALL find that bag sir! No black duffle will defeat me!”

He puffed out his bony chest, head held high and proud. “Check back with me in a week please.”

That baggage handler had been an ant trying to lift an elephant, impossible from the start. But he tried most diligently, a dark sweating man in an overly-tight white dress shirt, slim black tie, and dark navy blue gabardine suit, threadbare at cuffs and elbows. What a glorious little man. I tried to tip him for his Herculean efforts, but he backed away horrified, like a cobra had reared up in the luggage pile.

“Twenty seven years I have worked at this job, sir, and never taken a tip! The company pays me enough.”

It was obvious to me they did not. But seeing the look on my face, the proud fellow continued, “Sahib, my joy comes not from tips but in personally being able to return a lost bag I have found to its owner.”

What an amazing and beautiful thing to say. I was stunned. I finally was able to stammer,

“I hope then, my friend, that eventually you may find my bag so that once again you may know that deep joy.”

The little man beamed, and thanked me in advance for that blessing. With the stub of a pencil that he wet on his lip, and on a tiny slip of paper, well in keeping with one who knew the value of it, he jotted down his name and hope number, and handed it to me, saying, “Many bags, but I will find. Call. Two days. My number.”

Two days later I called that number. Sanji answered. When I identified myself, and asked if there had been any luck finding my bag, he said: “Come quickly, sir. Joy. JOY!”

Sanji had indeed somehow recovered my bag. On one side it was ripped and shredded, like a tiger has used it for a toy, or it had been dropped from 1,000 feet. But amazingly, every single item, though some suffered from whatever had befallen my bag, was still there!

What a remarkable man. Why did I share his true story? Because, in truth, countless Sanji’s bless our lives everyday. They give much, ask little, mostly go unnoticed. We take them for granted. They landscape our yards, wash our cars, deliver our mail, groom our pets, paint our toenails, pick up our trash. And they do so with quiet, dependable dignity. We may not know or even remember their last name. But they deserve their moment. And, a heart-felt, humble,

Leolinda Bowers Phoenix, Arizona Retirement Communities

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