It was 1935, I was 5 years old, and I began hearing the words "Phoenix" and "Arizona" spoken a lot because we were going to move there! My father had taken a job at the new, exciting, and very cosmopolitan Westward Ho Hotel in the up and coming Western city of Phoenix.

My parents and I were native Santa Barbara, Californians, so this move to the hot, dry desert was certainly going to be a change. No more ocean breezes, but sometimes hot winds and dust storms. Even so, I remember how pleased my mother would be when the clothes she hung on the line were dry in half an hour instead of taking all day.

We arrived in December, so we had the winter to become accustomed to the climate before the heat hit, and we learned to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful Arizona springtime. We had fun with our visitors from Santa Barbara, showing them the surrounding desert and hills, always warning them not to step on rattlesnakes and other dangerous critters.

Central Avenue was the main street extending from the dusty community of Sunnyslope on the north, where many recovering tuberculosis patients lived, all the way to South Mountain. Right at the center was this shining jewel, the "high rise" Westward Ho Hotel. Even its name evoked feelings of action and energy, and it seemed to tower over the city like a giant guardian.

My dad was a musician and had been Paul Whiteman's first drummer when Whiteman started his jazz band in the '20s. Although his job at the hotel was ordering, receiving and inspecting food deliveries for the dining room, Dad never forgot his music background. It was just a matter of time before he organized a dance band to play in the hotel's Fiesta Room and he named the band The Arizonans.

Our neighbor across the street was a talented young man who attended the junior college, which later became Phoenix College. He was the band's manager and recruited others from the college so that the orchestra was made up entirely of students, with the exception of my dad.

"Ray Pinkham and his Arizonans" were popular and busy every Saturday night, special holidays, and each New Year's Eve. I remember listening to "The Hit Parade" radio program with my dad to hear the latest songs, such as, It's a Sin to Tell a Lie, Hut Sut Ralston on the Rill-a-ra, Maresy Doats and Red Sails in the Sunset.

Sometimes the band would rehearse in the tiny living room of our duplex on Mitchell Drive, a quiet, pleasant, tree-lined street. We lived a few minutes from the corner of Central Avenue just north of Osborn Road. I attended Osborn School, where the Financial Center is now. Across Central was the Central Avenue Dairy, where Park Central Mall was later built.

At that time, the city had a streetcar line and the tracks went from the Phoenix Indian School south on Third Street to Washington, west all the way to the Capitol building where it turned around, returned to the Indian School and repeated the trip. We would walk to the corner at Third Street, take the streetcar downtown to the Fox Theater or shop at Korricks, Goldwater's, Penney's, Newbury's or Kress'. As a 9-year-old, I would even ride by myself to Sunday school at the Christian Science Church on Roosevelt.

When World War II started, Ray Pinkham and the Arizonans broke up, most of the boys went into the service and my Dad left the hotel to pursue other interests. Today, the streetcar tracks are buried under pavement, the lovely old shade trees that lined Mitchell Drive and all but two small brick houses have been replaced by treeless parking lots and office buildings, and all that remains of a comfortable, safe neighborhood are memories.