|
The first things that come to
my mind all have to do with the weather. The elephant-hide feet that could walk
on hot cement and asphalt---nowadays I take a great deal of trouble to get rid
of such things! Sailing "boats" down the gutters whenever it rained---we never
stayed inside when it rained, it was so rare. Getting carried across Sweetwater
Ave. by the school crossing guard one year when it rained a bunch. And, worst of
all, the year it actually SNOWED in Phoenix and I had the chicken pox and was
not allowed to go outside! Never saw it snow again 'til we moved to New Mexico.
– Julie Mitchell Munday
Still my favorites are the Sahuaro carnivals and
the trick-or-treats with Carl Bueker in his Halloween mask sitting in a chair on
the driveway with a bucket of candy. Others would be Konnie Russell playing the
piano with her toes and a sleepover at the Russell’s with "One of These Nights"
by the Eagles blasting on the stereo in a black light living room.
– Jennifer Hesketh Boyle
My favorite memory of Joan De Arc is the loving
care and support I received from everyone the summer of 1969 when Bill was ill.
I don't think I could have made it through that year without all the support I
received. Prior to that time, I remember the lawn parties in the evenings, the
coffee klatches many mornings, and the Christmas Eve get together at the
Russell's to put together the girls' toys. Joan De Arc was by far the best
neighborhood I have lived in.
– Hazel Dickey
When we all lived on Joan De Arc, we got together
with our neighbors on a regular basis and saw a lot of each other during the
week while the men were at work and the kids in school. One day at my house
while we were having coffee, I showed my friends the Garnier coat of arms that
my sister researched and painted for me in watercolor and then framed and sent
us as a Christmas gift. This was my mother’s ancestry.
I thought it had great novelty appeal and was a
great conversation starter. Konnie Russell thought it was pretty hokey and said
so. Well!
When Carl came home that week from his travels, I
told him about the incident. As usual, Carl knew exactly what to do.
He asked me for an old pillow case and spent an
entire afternoon painting the coat of arms on the pillow case in great detail.
He cut out a hole for his head and ripped out the sides to get his arms through
and wore the pillow case to the party that evening at the Russell’s.
The pillowcase coat of arms was a big hit –
everybody laughed and laughed and Carl wore it all evening long, and that was
that! So there!
Many years later, my sister-in-law and my
neighbor did some research on the “Garnier” family. They discovered that the
name had only been used for two generations in the 1840s-60s, when everything
French was considered so “ooh-la-la.” John Garner actually came from England in
1649, and the family changed the name back to Garner after the Civil War.
So the “Garnier” coat of arms was out the window,
so to speak. Actually, I like the rampant lion on the Stewart coat of arms
better anyway.
– Barbara Bueker Stewart
Most people on Joan De Arc would remember my
sister and myself as “The Babysitters,” as they were either the people who hired
us to do the job, or the reason we were hired to do it. I personally babysat for
nearly every family on the street (at least the ones with kids younger than
myself, and there were plenty of those); the Russells, Humphries, Dickeys,
Mitchells and occasionally the Varners. I sat often for a family who lived a few doors
down from the Wells, and all I can remember about this family is the dad drove a Chock
Full ‘O’ Nuts coffee truck and they had a huge bible in their living room.
One of my favorite memories from those
days would be the day I babysat for the very first time. I was all of 10 years
old, and someone actually thought I was responsible enough to be in charge of a
kid even younger than myself. So I was hired to watch Kathy Mitchell for a few
hours while her mom ran errands (Julie was not home; maybe she was with her
mom).
The moment her mom closed the door, good
ol’ Ladmo (as she was affectionately known on the street) began to beg for a
snack. “My mom said we could have cookies,” she insisted. Okay, I thought,
let’s have some cookies. So I began to rifle through the cupboards until I found
her favorites, and we dug in.
When the cookies were gone, Kathy decided
that her mom had also said we could have some ice cream. Wow, I thought, this is
great! So we chowed down on ice cream as well. We ended up going through every
single sweet treat in every cupboard and hidden away in the Mitchells’ freezer,
and whiled away a very pleasant afternoon, in my 10-year-old opinion.
Of course when Mrs. Mitchell came home,
she was horrified at my complete lack of control and my acquiescence to the
wishes of her five-year-old. I think my mother got an earful as well, and it was
a long time before I returned to the Mitchells to watch Little Miss Sweet
Tooth. “Oh, I was supposed to say ‘no’?”
I still love cookies.
– Barbie Bueker Formichella
I’ll never forget the
remarkable waves of tumbleweeds that would blow in from the fields surrounding
Surrey Heights during summer dust storms in the early years on Joan De Arc. The
things would absolutely inundate our street. One year, the Humphreys kids took
advantage of the phenomenon and built a very cool fort on the east side of their
house entirely from the weeds. I think the thing lasted for about a week. Hey,
it was pretty dang impressive.
A few random favorite
memories: tossing the football with my dad out in the street in front of our
house; the endless afternoons of fun playing Army, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lost in
Space, Star Trek and Time Tunnel with my Joan De Arc playmates; the sheer joy of
the last day of school at Sahuaro each June; tetherball matches in the backyard;
the family Jeopardy! tournaments; … well, I could go on and on and on…
– John Bueker
During the
years while my mother was completing college, one of my chores around the house
was the laundry. Now, I didn’t mind this so much, even with a big family. And
even though we had a dryer, I often hung clothes out to dry on our clothesline.
Mother loved the smell of clothes that had dried outdoors. To me, they just
smelled dusty. One time I lost my grandmother’s gold ring out there. It took
months for me to find it again.
One hot day in
August of 1969, I was doing my thing, taking down the dry laundry. The clickers
(cicadas) were in full cry that day. Suddenly, one was inspired to fly across
the yard where it became tangled in my long hair. It was making a horrible
racket, and I was absolutely terrified! I couldn’t get it out of my hair, so I
started to run, screaming and barefoot, to the arcadia door.
Well, we had
stickers (bullheads) in our grass, so as I was blindly heading for the house, I
was also accumulating bullheads on the soles of my feet. To be honest, I don’t
know how I survived. It was almost as bad as the time I ran out the front door,
only to step on (and squish) a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest that
was in one of those crazy Surrey Heights bird houses that were built into the
façades of each house.
That’s it.
Hopefully I can think of a more upbeat memory the next time our esteemed editor
comes up with this idea!
– Susan Bueker Maselli Bielenda Strommen
Nolan
We had a pretty serious problem the day we moved
in—blocked sewer drainage, which meant that any of our water usage, such as the
shower, would not drain. We therefore used the tiny 4 x 6 foot cement slab
outside the back door, along with the garden hose, to bathe each and every one
of us.
During this splash event, we could see all the
way to Sahuaro School, since this was well before the other houses were built.
We were later told the blockage was caused by wood chips and sawdust from the
home building construction.
– Bill and Helen Mitchell
For many years I was in the
habit, on the way home from school, of swinging myself around the Joan De Arc
street sign pole that stood on the corner in the Humphreys' yard. As I was walking by, I'd grab
it with my right hand, give a little hop, and orbit impossibly around the pole
2, 3 maybe even 4 times before having to touch down on the ground again. If I
tried to do that now, I'd never leave the ground. Plus, I'd bend the pole.
An odd, seemingly random memory, I know, but emblematic of the changes to
the street and its residents over the years. I don't think a street sign even
sits on that corner anymore.
– Charles Bueker III
I remember watching Marge Hesketh’s efforts to
keep the birds away from her apricot tree when the fruit was ready. The first
year, it was a few strips of foil entwined with the fruit. Didn’t work. Next
year, it was clay owls and rubber snakes. Didn’t work. Next year, it was a
complete covering of the tree with little plastic bags that would sway in the
breeze. Jean Humphries came walking down the street one day and said, “I see
Marge’s plastic bag tree is blooming.”
One morning, little Chris Dickey knocked on my
door and said “Mrs. Russell, they’re picking potatoes!” He’d been riding his
bike past the field to check on the harvest, so that we could go gleaning. Many
of the neighborhood children gathered at my house around noon, all had their
paper bags from A.J. Bayless, and off we went to the field to pick potatoes.
Julie Mitchell started high school and went to
history class. She came over one evening and asked me how Christopher Columbus
had died; it was a question for extra credit. I was unable to answer the
question for Julie, but her teacher revealed the answer at the end of that week
– venereal disease.
Lastly, there was John Bueker playing the drums
on the Bueker’s brand new garbage cans and placing a “for rent” sign in his
bedroom window, obviously destroying property values on the street.
– Konnie Russell
The bread man had a candy drawer in his truck
with a large selection of sweets, and he had an infinite amount of patience as
children made their selections. We also remember the ice cream man, who would
short change the younger children, which irritated Red Russell, who chased the
man down the street and strongly suggested that he increase his change-counting
accuracy.
There were the little black beetle bugs that were
fun to collect in paper cups, and the locust noise in the Mulberry trees every
summer. Oh yes, and our mud pies decorated with pyracantha berries.
– The Russell Daughters
I grew up on JDA in the '60s and '70s and as I look back, it was
a great place to be raised! There were lots of kids on the street. We played
hide-n-seek out front, did tumbling in the yard, drank water out of the hose,
walked to Revco next to TG&Y and sat at the soda fountain and had an ice cream.
Always cut through the Honeywell lot. Seems like we were always barefoot, too,
running across the driveways to the next grassy yard. I loved it there...still
do. You were lucky if you lived on that street.
– Nancy Varner
|
