When I was very young, my family traveled around the country because my father was in the Air Force (technically the Army Air Corps). For some years I lived in Massachusetts while my father went to law school. Some of my earliest memories were of places in and around Boston. My real life in Arizona started when I was about five years old and our family moved to a small town in eastern Arizona called St. Johns.
I was five years old and remember a few things about the trip across the U.S. from Massachusetts to St. Johns. If I had been any older, I would have had a cultural shock, moving from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts to St. Johns, Arizona population at the time about 1600 or 1700 people.
One thing I specifically remember is waking up in St. Johns the first day we arrived. The sun was shining and I could see out the window to the orchard, visible in the picture above. The windows of the house were rather large and low to the ground and I opened the screen with its little lock and climbed out the window to explore the backyard. As you can see, the trees were wonderful for climbing and the grass and weeds were high enough to form a make-believe jungle. It was an almost perfect place to live for a five year old.
The big elm tree behind me in the picture is long gone and so is the orchard. Almost all the trees from that time have died. Even the road that runs next to the property, in the background of the picture is gone. Since I ran out into that orchard, a lot of miles and years have passed by. I don't know when I realized it, but at some point I stopped feeling sad about how things were and started realizing I liked things pretty much as they are. I like Phoenix, I like Mesa, I like the big city and I like living in my suburban neighborhood. I no longer wish I could return to St. Johns as it was. But I will always remember that magic day with the sun shining on the orchard.
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