WHERE EVER I HANG MY HAT- By Paris James White

Looking back on all the places that I have called home, it has truly been a wonderful life. I was born in Mesa Arizona, at a small nursing home, West of Chandler Highway and North of Southern. Mother went there early in the morning, but the Doctor was not yet there. In an attempt to delay the birth, the Nurses cruelly held her legs together, causing much pain. As a result, I was born with a badly miss shapen head. It had been forced into a point or ridge, which remained for several weeks. Mother was so worried that she piled weights on my little pointy-head for weeks trying to get it back to normal. But I still think that is the reason for no hair on my head. Mom and Dad were staying with Grandma and Grandpa White at the time, at a home on North Extension Ave. in Mesa, Arizona. Shortly thereafter we moved up to Eager, where we lived with Mom's folks, (Grandpa and Grandma Paris Ashcroft)-Grandpa Paris built us a small frame and stucco house on the corner of his lot. Uncle Henry and Dad dug a well next to the place, and with the addition of a one-hole outhouse, we had a home. When I was about 15 months old, we moved to Long Beach, California. My little sister Patsy was born there. One day I escaped. My worried folks found me at the police station happily eating an ice-cream cone with very messy pants. So began my life of crime. We moved back to Eager, here my sisters Marlene and Janice were born. I remember Aunt Eula driving all the way up from Mesa, to see the babies in her Model A Ford. The road was much longer, and narrower, with many more curves in those days.
We eventually left Eager. Moving to many small homes around Mesa, and even living for a while with Uncle Joe and Aunt Ethal in Tempe. Dad was a traveling salesman, I recall a little of Duncan, and then Benson, Arizona as well. We lived in a small Motor Court, with cabins surrounding a beautiful pond shaded with giant cottonwood trees. What a wonderful place for kids to get into trouble. Patsy and I caught giant Gold fish from the pond and tried to cook and eat the poor things over a small fire. I have hated fish ever since. We played hide and seek in an old refrigerator, had fun killing ants with a whole barrel of DDT that we found, and tried to electrocute each other by touching a bare electric wire, which we could reach by climbing a cottonwood tree near our cabin. Our Landlords Daughter touched it a little too long and couldn't let go. She was shaking violently until she swung from the wire, and fell to the ground. I told you I was always in trouble. I really feel that a whole troupe of Guardian Angels is still active until this day.
After being baptized in the small close-by town of Pomerene, I remember Mom giving me a big hug as I stood wet from the baptism and telling me that now I was as clean as a little baby. It wasn't very long until we moved to Tucson. We lived in a small house on the outskirts of town. There were many things to do. I explored places like dry washes, desert dumps, and a cement conduit where tramp's slept. There were many interesting neighbors there. One family had peacocks and parrots, which I watched with awe. Caring my sister, Marlene piggyback, I ripped on the sidewalk, and broke my left arm at the elbow. That was a long hot summer with a cast on. But I healed O.K.
We then moved back to Mesa. My Grandparents (Lizzie and James White) gave Dad a lot at West First Ave. Dad then purchased an old house, which had been a music room and a snack bar on the grounds of Irving School in Mesa. It was moved to our lot. It became our first real home. There were very high ceilings, and three rooms. A front room, a kitchen, and a very large room with a toilet in the corner. Dad had a wall built around that, and it became our bathroom. The ceiling was about four feet above that, so Dad removed that low ceiling and put a ceiling over the bathroom and with some stairs that became John and Gary's bedroom. The Girls slept near the bathroom wall. Mother put up a curtain across the middle, and that became my Parent's bedroom. I was left to shift for myself. I slept on the couch, then in the back yard during the summer. (Using the old ceiling boards, together with all the lumber I could scrounge up. I constructed a small room on the back of the house.) It sure wasn't much to look at, but with a cot, I had my own room. I nearly burned the whole place down one winter night, when an electric space heater was placed too close to my bed, and caught my blankets on fire. I smelled the smoke, and quickly stomped out the blankets. This home was were I finished high school, and started college at A.S.U.
I sure did look forward to a little brother to play with, but first came Patsy Jean, Marlene, Janice, and finally my brother John, but by then it was too late for him to be my buddy. My sisters were cute enough, but nearly useless as buddies. When my brother John finally came along he was more of a nuisance than someone to play with. And when Gary came I was nearly grown. These little guys really wanted to be my buddies, but I just felt like they were little kids usually of another generation and under foot. In my circle, there were no boys exactly my age. They were all either a couple of years younger or, as is the case with my good friend Joe O'Barr, a year or so older. I have often wondered about this, and have reached the conclusion that it mush have been a result of the great depression. There were just fewer babies born in 1935. I think that people just lost hope by then, the depression had started in October 1929, and really didn't end until World War II got the country finally rolling. So when I came along, things were pretty bleak.
My good friends and buddies while I was growing up were; Joe O'Barr, Lannie Horne, Karl Mortensen, Grant Smith, Arch Willis, Allen Klienman, Jesse O'Barr and Pat Goodman. Others were not so good friends, like Charlie Sutton whom I would have a steady fight with every time we saw one another. He would box pretty good, but he had a habit of biting on his finger as he slugged away. I couldn't box very well, but was a fair wrestler. So I would always take a few good licks till I could get a hold of him, and then it was my fight. I got so upset with his constant bullying that I would have killed him (or at least tried). If some of his friends hadn't pulled me off a few times. After many years away from home I was so surprised to return and find old Charlie to be an Elders Quorum President and really nice guy. So I guess people really can change. If Old Charlie could, any one can! We played a lot of war games, it was during World War II, and for the years thereafter, the Army or Marines was the goal of all young men. Anyway, it was tough to find kids my age. As a result, I spent my days as the gang leader of a bunch of younger kids, doing my own thing, or tying to tag along with older boys. I'm sure this had a great influence on who I am, and how I have behaved towards others in my life. I regret how I treated my little brothers, usually ignoring them, or worse, teasing them. I wasn't a very good influence upon my younger friends either, leading them into all kinds of mischief. I have always had a certain aloofness, which people seemed to take as being stuck up, or a better than thou attitude. I have never thought of myself as being that way, generally feeling rather insecure, and somehow not quite as good as other people, perhaps because of these feelings, and being so poor as a child, I have been driven, all my life, to be, or at least appear to be, the best at whatever I did. In some ways, this has been good, it has also created problems in my life. People didn't really like someone who thinks he's better than they are. It's hard to be friends with one who doesn't seem to mix. I suppose that it all comes down to just you are what you are, you become what you become.