When his service ended, my father originally wanted to retire in the area of Cape Cod. However, he had emphysema and his doctor told him he should move to a more dry area. He picked Arizona. While the house, my family’s first permanent residence, was being built, we stayed in an apartment on one of downtown Phoenix’s major arteries, 7th Street. A street, 15 miles in length, that’s home to a Denny’s I’ve visited innumerable times and whose parking lot is home to one of my racier memories. A street where a number of concerns that I’d check during my later employment as a mobile security guard were located.
Opposite my parents’ apartment, on the other side of the building’s horseshoe shape, lived an elementary school teacher. She was young and attractive and it wasn’t long before we got together when I came home on leave from West Point. She told me she had a heart issue. This came to the fore one day as we attempted to consummate our relationship. As our actions gained intensity, she suddenly became unconscious. She regained consciousness quickly enough to stop me from calling for help. I no longer recall when our relationship came to its inevitable end, although it was before graduation.
My work group, all of whom work from home, had a team lunch in downtown Phoenix recently. Instead of taking the Interstate back, I decided to take a detour up 7th Street. Immediately obvious was the modern day, lane choking traffic. It wasn’t enough, however, to deter me. Some time ago I had passed by the location of the old apartment building and was surprised that, after all this time, it was still standing. Dad died in 1991, but as I approached the apartments on this day he stood there on the sidewalk, grinning, one hand on his hip and waving to me with the other. In my otherwise empty car, as I cruised by, I smiled.
Where 7th street meets Dunlap Avenue (the street off which my parents would eventually settle), is the origin of North Cave Creek Road. It proceeds northeast from 7th Street’s northern trajectory. This road was home to a bar called The Haunted. Its theme was such that the payphone inside was in a coffin propped against a wall. It was a favorite stop for myself and a classmate when he spent that magical 60 day leave after graduation with my family. We would drink, play pool, chase tail, and remain in ready anticipation of the barroom brawl which never materialized. When nostalgia caused me to inquire, I learned that The Haunted had burned down in the early 80s.
And so it goes.
If you go to the West Point Class of 1975 Yearbook home page, if you have your browser’s audio turned on and your speakers turned up, you’ll hear Simon and Garfunkel welcome you with their Bookends Theme. If you listen until the end, you’ll hear the harmony of that eternal gem, “Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you”.
~ Dempsey 🌵
Chalk Dust 