Life in Arizona, 1950's

Life in Arizona, 1950's - 1960's

My seventh-grade school portrait.

By eighth grade, I had learned enough English to start fitting in. I am the blond boy in the middle of the second row.

My father (in hat) with Mr. Bakker, a Dutch friend my parents met shortly after we arrived in Arizona.

One of our first sightseeing forays into the desert.

All newcomers to Arizona must pass through the rite of having their photograph taken with a Saguaro cactus.

Our first Christmas in Arizona. To this day, I still put real candles on the tree, following the traditional German custom.

My brother Rüdiger and my mother in the living room of the house we rented from our sponsor. The furniture had been provided to us as well.

Another view of the living room. It would be years before my parents regained the few nice things that they had left behind in Germany.

With my brother Rüdiger and Kristal’s daughter Petra in front of the TV. I learned a great deal of English from television, especially The Mickey Mouse Club, and never tired of watching Annette Funicello.

The Salt River Project still releases water from the canal to irrigate the householders’ lawns once a week. Most people who grew up in Phoenix have fond memories of wading through their yards.

With my parents on our front lawn.

Gunther with my mother in the back of our first home in Arizona, which backed up to a citrus orchard. It was a revelation to me that oranges grew on trees.

I felt like a real man of leisure in the bedroom I shared with Rüdiger.

Rüdiger and I were thrilled to find ourselves in the real “Wild West” when we visited the ghost town of Jerome.

Sky Harbor Airport in the late 1950s.

A proud participant in the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Soap Box Derby.

Building a go-cart that actually worked was great fun.

My parents at the Verde River. The frequent outings we took with friends like the Bakkers provided respite from the brutal heat. And “tubing” was a unique thrill.

Gunther, Rüdiger and me in our front yard.

Top row fourth from the right. Sports were an important part of high school for me. They taught me the endurance I would later apply to my studies in med school.

When I got the opportunity to work for Jack in the Box my senior year in high school, I jumped at it. It was a step up from working on Mr. Reynolds’s chicken farm.

I worked at Jack in the Box until I graduated from ASU in 1967. The experience confirmed my belief that hard work always paid off.

My mother poses with our first car, a Buick Roadmaster, in front of the house we called the “Shed.”

On the front porch of the Shed around the age of sixteen.

With my first car, a Ford, at our third house in Sunnyslope. It lasted about six months before a mechanic forgot to refill the oil and the engine burned out.

Gunther and I pose with our VWs in front of the Sunnyslope house in the mid 1960s.

I felt all American when this photograph was taken around my junior year in high school. The professional photographer who took it wanted a representative group of American kids.

In front of the Sunnyslope House before my graduation from Central High School in 1963. I considered myself a lucky guy to be heading off to the university.