I looked like Beaver Cleaver when I was a little kid, with the freckles and the brown hair. I was only seven years old when we moved to Tucson. Before that age I’d have to scratch my head and think hard to remember. As a seven year old, moving to Tucson was a great adventure.

In 1961 Tucson was not very large at all. If I remember right it might have been about 250,000 people. We had all this wide open space. I remember it being so hot that you could fry an egg on the sidewalk during the summertime.

My parents built a house in a new development that had an in-ground pool. There are pictures of weak kids having our swimming lessons. We had orange and grapefruit trees in the backyard. In Tucson at that time you built walls, not fences, around your backyard. I remember in the side yard we used to dig forts. We’d crawl down inside and put plywood over the top Anda play army games.

When my parents went to register me for the catholic school, Saint Joseph’s, everyone cut in bite me. There just wasn’t any room for me. For about three months I went to the public schools; I was the ostracized one who went to the public school. But it wasn’t too long before I got into the catholic school.

I liked going to catholic schools. I never had any issues. I hear a lot of stories about people having problems with the nuns but I have very fond memories. I was an altar boy and I remember my first communion well. I always got along well with the priests.

As a matter of fact there was a priest by the name of father Rourke. He wasn’t our parish priest but another priest. He introduced me to a great baseball player named Ron Santo. He was a third baseman for the Chicago Cubs.

The Cleveland Indians used to train at Hy Corbett field in Tucson, while the cubs trained in Scottsdale. When ever they came down, father work would bring Ron to our house for dinner. Sometimes other players such as Glenn Becker or Don Kessinger would come. What a thrill for an eight or nine year old to meet a great baseball player!

The difference between kids today and my childhood is that we still had free time. We played baseball in the park and everything wasn’t quite so organized.

I was a cub scout and then a boy scout. I tried the music thing in school as well but I didn’t stick with it. I probably played the clarinet for about six weeks or so. Now I know why you rent those instruments and don’t buy them right away.

Back then we didn’t have as many types of athletics, but I played little league baseball and I ran track in grade school.

I remember as a young boy going from the minor leagues to the major leagues. I discovered it wasn’t all that great. I discovered that I spent a lot of time riding the bench. It just wasn’t as much fun when you didn’t get to play very much.

These were all great experiences.

Tucson sits in a valley that is surrounded by four different mountain chains. We used to go up to Sabinol canyon and hike, have picnics, and play in the streams.

Then there’s a place called Old Tucson where they used to film a lot of old western movies.

At that age we also did a lot of bike riding. We wrote our bikes everywhere around the neighborhood. It was obviously a different era and what we’re experiencing now. I remember building cages and capturing lizards to put in there before we realized that they could squeeze through the wire mesh.

One day a big desert tortoise showed up at our house; of course we named him Frisky. We kept him in our backyard. One time, his picture was in the newspaper because he was able to stand up on his hind legs and open our sliding screen door. He got into the house. We had him for a long, long time.

I remember also having pigeons. I thought I could teach them to be homing pigeons, but when I let them out they never came home!

My dad never, ever contained me with us. He was very mild-mannered and even-tempered. But he commanded respect and we were always on our toes around him.

We had a neighbor with whom we got along, sort of. The father was a huge man and he came knocking on our door one day. He accused me and another neighbor kid of throwing stones into his pool. But we never did that. Still, that was the closest thing I recall to my dad giving me a smack. But when he found out that we actually weren’t involved in this he actually apologized to us.

As a young boy, you don’t expect to hear that from an adult. That was a life lesson for me.

When we lived in Findlay there’s a story about the sitting in church. I got out into the aisle and taunted my parents saying: “you can’t catch me! You can’t catch me!”

They walked out the back of the church and eventually they caught me. I don’t remember what the consequences were, but I’m sure there were some.

My brother Mike was the really good runner in the family. He’s six years older than I am. He ran track during high school while I was still in grade school. He was a fine distance runner. As his younger brother I was trying to emulate him.

Back on Tucson for a moment my father had gotten into real estate and land development. The rest of the country was booming, but Tucson was the opposite.

Things were getting tight so my father felt that he needed to get back into the brewing industry. He ended up taking a job with a place called the American Brewery in Baltimore. This was a small brewery that had been operating in the red for a long time, and dad got them back into the black within two years.

Then he got picked up by the Schaefer brewing company and became vice president and general manager of the plant in Baltimore. As a high school guy I remember him working in the brewery industry.

Also as a young kid I remember an unwritten rule in our family. We never went out drinking. If we had gotten caught it would ruin my father’s career. He made that rule very clear.

I was also close with my mom. While I was growing up my dad worked hard and wasn’t home a lot. He didn’t focus a lot on the kids but I still have very fond memories.

But mom was the type of person who was always there. She would always bake cookies and take care of us. She came to all our events and was probably a den mother while I was in Cub Scouts.