The City The Grew Around Me

“When I first moved to Phoenix, my grandma took every opportunity to tell her friends that she was older than the state her grandson now called home.” When my chiropractor told me this the other day, I cocked me head to the side to consider the comment. But, indeed, his grandma (born in 1910) was older than the state of Arizona (which joined the union in 1912).

I grew up in a tiny town that, itself, grew up to earn the title of fast-growing, safest town, and best place to raise a family. The hay capital of the world had ceased to be so by the time I reached middle school.

The empty dirt lots where I once chased bunnies and searched for seashells were slowly replaced by big box stores, town homes, and scorching asphalt.

In many ways, 1980s Phoenix was still the wild, wild west. It was adventure and a glorious unknown.

My father moved to Phoenix in the late-1960s when his father was transferred from the Chicago Motorola plant. All five of his kids went on to work there, at least for a time. Growing up, it seemed that everyone worked at Motorola.

My mother moved to Phoenix as a child and was the youngest resident of the first age-restricted retirement community in the U.S. and, in fact, was the only resident under age 55.

My parents still have their ASU ID cards. They were the 5,000-somethingth students to attend. The monstrosity now welcomes 100,000 new students per year.

Both of my parents worked to pay their way for college and both, separately, were homeowners before earning their degrees. Real estate was cheap. They paid $20,000-$30,000 for houses just around the corner from ASU, house that are today listed at over $1,000,000.

If you look at aerial photos of Phoenix from the 1960s, when my parents’ families moved to out here, it’s a dense and tiny downtown surrounded by undeveloped farmland. Maps from the 1980s-2000s, when I was growing up, aren’t too different.

However, today, the Phoenix metropolitan area is a 6,400-square-mile block of homes, businesses, and roads. On the periphery, you can small patches of green. Those patches of green used to be just around the corner, and the smell of manure was pervasive.

Without the confines of natural barriers, the city just keeps expanding outward.

Every few years during my childhood, a highway would be erected a few miles up the road from my childhood home–first to the North, than the West, to the South, and finally the East. My uncle’s sister had her farm taken via eminent domain to build the freeway to the South. Seemingly overnight, our little farm town had replaced it’s cows with an endless streams of cars.

I grew up camping and taking road trips around the state. I participated in a Tombstone “shootout” before the ghost town turned into a tourist trap. I bought tumbled rocks and Mackinaw Island fudge in Sedona before it became an hoity-toity woo-woo town. I played at Slide Rock and hiked West Fork before there were long lines and and admission fees.

I remember when they replaced the tiny air control tower at the airport and when they built the new terminals. I remember when they built Bank One Ballpark, and how it seemed that everyone in Phoenix attended the Diamondback baseball team’s inaugural game.

I remember when my dad would call into the local radio station to answer trivia questions, frequently winning prizes, including tickets to see the Suns basketball team play at America West Arena. With only 2 million people in the whole metro area, my dad was probably one of just a handful of nerdy callers. I remember seeing Charles Barkley, Jason Kidd, and the gang up close, thanks to my father’s brilliance.

I remember when they built the Arizona Science Center and my grandparents bought all the grandkids a membership for the first few years.

I remember learning about the Five C’s of Commerce in Phoenix in school: citrus, cotton, copper, cattle, and climate. It’s the best litmus test to see whether someone grew up here.

I remember watching Ruby the elephant paint abstract pieces to raise money for a new habitat at the Phoenix Zoo. Everyone I knew had one of Ruby’s paintings hanging in their home. I remember how grief-stricken the entire state was when she died in labor.

I remember when the Phoenix Zoo erected a memorial statute for Hazel the gorilla, and everyone we knew would “go visit ” Hazel and tell the statue how much she was missed.

I remember seeing a sky full of stars every night. Nowadays, we’re lucky if we can see a planet or two and the big dipper, despite the always-clear skies.

I hated growing up in Phoenix.

Entertainment was limited and sparse. The nearest mall was 30 miles away. There wasn’t a nearby theater until I was in high school. And, without freeways, it took an eternity to drive anywhere.

Today, I hate that Phoenix has grown.

I once welcomed the growth, but the addition of 3.5 million new neighbors is a bit overwhelming, not to mention the homes and business built to house and employee these new residents.

I feel nostalgia for the empty roads, the stench of manure, and the humdrum boring days when we had to create our own adventures. With time, a sense of sadness has grown, like a water balloon on the verge of bursting. It breaks my heart to see the town of my youth consumed by concrete, now hardly recognizable.

I miss the small-town feel, and I don’t think it’s something I can recover unless I follow in my grandparents’ footsteps and move myself and my family to another small town, and hope that the big city doesn’t follow me there.