Reminiscing...

Chandler lies about 30 miles south of Phoenix, Arizona. 50 years ago when I was growing up there, it was a little town of about 25,000 people. It's now grown to more than 200,000 and that my friend - is a real shame... Every once in a while I go back to see how much it's changed.

Chandler still carries on a tradition that I remember back when I was a kid, they put up a "tumbleweed" christmas tree every year. The tree stands about 50 feet tall. They put up a chicken-wire frame, then attach tumbleweeds, spray paint it with silver flaked paint and wrap it with colored lights... It stands right in the center of town and is really beautiful.

The old "Parkway" movie theatre (where my father wthe projectionist and I always got to watch free movies!) is long gone now (what's left has been turned into a Mexican restaurant) and the part that hurts the most - the house where I grew up has been torn down (they took 4 city blocks...) It's now a baseball field for the high school...

The old swimming pool that was just on the outskirts of town has been filled in and it's become a motorcycle race track - and the old ice plant is long gone to... We used to live a block away from "Austin Field" where they used to have a big fireworks show every fourth of July, but even that's been moved to a park - outside of town...

I remember back when I was 7 years old all the kids in Chandler roamed all overd town, everybody knew everybody and we never had to worry about "stranger danger" or anything like that - things sure have changed... Life was a lot slower back then and in some ways I miss the old days - but then on the other hand, computers, the internet, cell phones and all the other thing we have now do kind of help make up for it...