HOBOS     Installed at Dorsey Station - Changes Series

    I remember seeing the hobos riding the rails, sitting in the boxcars.  That inspired playing "Hobo" with a pouch made from a bandana tied to stick.  Mom would put a peanut butter sandwich and maybe a Babe Ruth inside. There were times when The Hobos, or one, would come knocking on the back door, asking for something to eat.  Mom would ask them to wait outside under the shade of the mulberry tree, and I would help her make a peanut butter sandwich, or maybe even baloney.  I would get to take it outside and present the banquet, complete with a coke.  One time it was a cold beer, A-1 of course.  I suspect the fellow must have asked her directly for that one.

HALLOWEEN  Adapted and installed at Smith/Martin Station

    The Hobos were also the great inspiration for one of my early Halloween costumes.  It was pretty much my everyday-growing-up-in-Arizona garb of Levis and flannel shirt.  Mother would dirty me up with charcoal about the eyes and face.  Vasaline applied to the jawline and patted with coffee grounds made a grand three day beard!  Halloween in Hudson Manor was just so fun.  Even at a young school age we were out on our own after dark to canvas each and every three streets, every house.  On Williams Street there was an older couple who loved to have us kids come inside.  We were always eager to arrive and anxious to leave, lots more houses waiting for us. They would serve us homemade cookies and punch, some years popcorn balls, or little handmade rolls of pennies that probably amounted to a nickel or a dime.  I wish I knew their names, gentle and gracious, enjoying the night themselves.  Certainly they were neighborhood friends of my Aunt Willie and Uncle Henry who lived on that street.

TRAINS TO PLANES  Adapted and installed at Smith/Martin Station

    The train was important to us all.  Aside from squashing pennies, running out in the backyard (and later when we moved across the street, still running out through Tex's oat field) to wave at the engineer in the locomotive.  He would respond his whistle hello.  We would watch till the caboose passed by and wave again.  The train also brought my Grandma from Oklahoma every winter.  Our family spent many hours in the old Tempe Station, on the slick wooden benches, waiting for the train which seemed to get later and later every winter.  Then one year Grandma flew to Arizona on the shiny American Airlines.  That change of events started a new pastime.  We would drive to the old Sky Harbor, and park in the riverbottom at the end of the runway to watch the planes fly overhead.  It was thrilling.  But I still have my love for the train!!!

4TH OF JULY

    One more thought before I quit today.  Thinking of my Aunt and Uncle on Williams Street, I remember that on the Fourth of July every year, we had a family picnic at their house.  We played in the dollhouse Uncle Henry built for us, which is still there!!!  Uncle Henry made and gave us those stilts we walked around in for several years.  We played hide-and-go-seek in the dark, and got to turn the ice cream crank.  Then we all got up on the rooftop to watch the fireworks which were set off from A-Mountain (Tempe Butte).  Lived to tell about it!  1950s

DUST DEVILS

    Dust Devils, little growing big, swirling, dancing, who chasing who??  Paper scrapes and bird feathers flying higher and higher.  Run away, run away!  Hold my nose, close my eyes, try to dash through, sand stinging my legs.

    Dust Devils, ever present in the spring, growing larger in the summer.  Tumble weeds on the move, preceeding the hugh turmoil of desert soil, The Dust Storm...Marching across the horizon, looming higher in the sky, red or yellow or brown air engulfing my house.  Run inside, close the windows, turn the cooler off, put the towels along the doorsill.  Wind with fury, dense as ocean fog, this dust from the great sea of the desert.  Almost like clockwork, late afternoon.  Lightening will follow with mud drops falling, the perfume of the wet desert comes quickly and passes, and finally the clean rain arrives to wash the air once again.  Another August night has begun.     Hudson Manor, 1950's.....

TEMPE HIGH FIRE  Adapted and installed at Smith/Martin Station

My mom, Anita, graduated Tempe High in 1944. I remember watching it burn down in 1955 at the corner of Mill Ave and 9th St.