Shorts and the Salt River Valley

Located just south of the center of Arizona, the Salt River Valley is home to the huge Phoenix/Mesa Metroplex. It is called a valley because it is encircled by low to medium high mountain ranges. The city has grown so large that some of the outlying suburbs are actually out of the valley entirely and in different watersheds.

I remember distinctly one of my first entries into the Salt River Valley. I was living in a small town in Eastern Arizona called St. Johns when my parents decided to move to the Valley. Although I had lived in Boston while my father was going to school, my only real memories were in and about St. Johns, high on the Colorado Plateau. I was only eight years old and just starting to discover the world. My grandparents lived in Salt Lake City, Utah and my mother was expecting a baby (who would turn out to be my first brother) but I didn't know that at the time, of course.

We packed up and left for Utah. In those days, traveling to Utah was an adventure. So was living with my grandparents for many months. Finally, it came time to move to Phoenix. My father had purchased a house and moved everything down from St. Johns in our absence, so I had never seen the house. This was long before freeways, and we had to drive down Highway 89, we drove into the city on Grand Avenue and I remember seeing the State Fair Grounds at the time the Fair was in full swing.

We arrived at our small house at 12th Street and Oak, on a street called Edgemere. This was a "newer" subdivision at the time, but today is in the very center of the oldest part of Phoenix.

I quickly started at Whittier School, since it was well into the year. The first day of school, my mother, thinking we were now living in the big city, sent me to school in shorts. Now, children may wear shorts today to school, but in Phoenix in 1953, that was phenomena. I had to hide behind a door at recess to avoid being mobbed. Needless to say, that was the last time I ever wore anything other than Levi's to school for the rest of my life.