Young, Arizona

Young, Arizona, has been in the news the past few days.  There is a forest fire burning six miles north of the tiny town.  So far, Young itself has been spared, but the huge plumes of smoke created by the fire are drifting all of the way up the rim and into Heber, Show Low, and even Snowflake.  Last evening I gazed off into the smokey southwestern horizon and thought about Young, one of my favorite places to go when I was a girl. 

Young is a little town in a big meadow covered with tall, waving grass.  In the beginning this area was named Pleasant Valley, and it's easy to see why.  When a post office was established in the late 1800's it was named Young, after the post mistress, because there was already a Pleasant Valley, Arizona.

There is only one paved road through Young.  It is actually part of a gravel road that extends from Highway 260 up on the Rim, across the Sierra Anche mountains, down onto the desert, across the edge of Roosevelt Lake, and eventually to Globe.  When my family first started coming to the cabin this was the road we used.

Young hasn’t grown much since the first time I saw it, and it is still just as quaint. 

Coming up from Globe, the first view of Young is from a point where you come out of the mountains and look down over the whole valley.  It is a pretty, pastoral picture of meadows, ranches, and town.  The road drops down into the valley and passes a picturesque water hole, covered with green water lilies.  At times, there has even been a row-boat tied to the bank and a raft out in the middle of the water.  

“What’s that?” I asked, the first time we drove by this little pond. 

“That’s Henry’s Lake,” Dad answered.  He often named things, and people, Henry.  That was one of his grandfather's names, along with Horace, and he thought they were good names to tease us with.  "Henry’s Lake" stuck, and we’ve called it that ever since, but I suppose whoever owns that water hole would be mighty surprised to hear it called that.

Just down the road from the pond is an old country store.  It stands under a gigantic cottonwood tree, and has a hitching rail in front of it.  Beside the store is a single gas pump with a small building standing behind it.  Back in the 1960's this was Ottis and Betty’s store, and they had neat things inside.  Once we found a book-rack with paperback books, and Mom bought The Middle Window, a book she had read years earlier and loved.   Mom read it aloud to us and it became one of our favorites, too.

Beyond Ottis and Betty’s, on the other side of the road, stands the Antler Bar.  It lives up to it’s name by displaying Elk antlers all over it’s exterior.  Past that, the road turns east. Today the LDS chapel stands on the north side of the road, but when we were little this was all just green meadows. 

A mile or so down the road, just before it turns sharply north at Cherry Creek, is Hogland’s store.  It stands off the left side of the road on a little hill and isn't occupied any more, but when I was a child Hoglands was an old fashioned general store right out of the history books. 

In front of the store was a tall, round, glass topped gas pump.  Inside, Hoglands had wood floors and a long counter behind which you could buy everything imaginable, from fruits and vegetables to clothes and tools.  An old, bright red bacon slicer stood on the counter, and behind it the shelves were full of interesting things, including bazooka bubble gum so hard it would break your teeth.  At the front of the store was a table under a big window, with a pot bellied stove close by to warm up checker players as they whiled away long winter afternoons.  The floorboards were so old that you could see through the cracks into the basement below.  When Mr. Hogland had to go down there to get something he would take a flashlight, and we could watch the light moving around.

We always stopped at Hogland’s and did most of our shopping there until it closed.  One day Dad decided Linda and I needed some bib overalls Mr. Hogland was selling in that little store.  While we were trying them on in the back room we discovered a whole family of little kittens.

“Dad, dad,” I begged.  “Can we have a kitten, please.”

“Please, dad,” Linda chimed in.  “They are sooooooo, cute and they would catch the mice in the attic.”

That was a pretty good argument, because there were always mouse droppings on the beds and cupboards and sinks when we first walked into the cabin after a long absence.  At night, when it was really quiet, we could hear mice scrabbling around up in the attic.  One night, a little mouse even peeked it’s head around the bathroom door and stared at me!

Mr. Hogland heard us asking for cats, and he quickly joined in.

“Mr. Russell, you can have as many kittens as you like.  I have more than I know what to do with, and I’d love to get rid of them.”

Dad shook his head firmly, and steered us out of the back room. 

“No cats,” he said.

We didn’t give up that easily.  We turned to Mom, who was trying to count out the money to pay for our pants, and looked pleadingly into her face. 

“Mom, Mom!  You’ve got to come see the kittens,” we begged.  They are so sweet and little.  Please, please, can’t we have one.”

By this time Keith and Phillip had been drawn to the back room to see what all the fuss was about.  Keith wasn’t impressed with the kittens, but Phillip picked up a little fuzzy ball of fur and laughed as it tried to climb up his arm.  . 

Mr. Hogland sensed that he might get rid of some cats if he played his cards right, so he began telling a long story about how his cats kept the store free from mice and rats.

Mom quickly finished paying for the pants and grabbed our hands, pulling us out the front door.  Dad thanked Mr. Hogland, took the kitten from Phillip’s arms, and pushed him toward the front.  Keith followed.  He was the only one who wasn’t cross as we drove back to the cabin that day.