Tucson, the Town of My First Experiences in Life

by Ernie McCray

I read a woman’s critique of her hometown online the other day.

She couldn’t stand the place of her birth, saying that the town was backwards and too “white bread” to her liking. And she didn’t feel like she ever belonged.

I kind of understood, at some level, where she was coming from as Tucson, where I grew up, was not what anyone would consider “hip” and it was heavy with white folks who could sometimes be a “trip,” going way out of their way to make me feel as though I didn’t belong.

But with all that being said, unlike the woman whose sentiments I read, I actually loved and still do love my place of birth. With all I’m worth.

It’s the town where everything began for me, the place where I had so many first experiences that fleshed out and colored who and how I would be.

Tucson was the first place my feet ever touched the ground, a place where I saw my first sunrise and sundown.

It’s where I first uttered “Damn, it’s hot,” something we Tucsonans lamented a lot, and it’s where I first heard “We don’t serve your kind,” a sentence that always blew my mind and fueled my life long mission of turning such human conditions around.

It’s where I first hit a homerun or scored a basket or caught a pass for a first down or a touchdown; where I first enjoyed a picnic on the Fourth of July; where I told my first little white lie; where I first laid in a sleeping bag looking up at a beautiful mysterious black star spangled midnight Sonoran Desert sky; where I first spun a top or zoomed down the street on skates or played with a yo-yo or flew a kite or ran a mile or took a hike; where I first rode a car or a bus or a train or a horse or a bike or played shark island at Estevan pool on a blazing hot summer day; where I first got mesmerized by a movie or a concert or a play or got lost in a book for the better part of a day.

This town surrounded by mountains that have stood in the background of so many of my dreams, was where I scored my first kiss, a sloppy French one at that, a prelude to my first love, that of a pup, but it hurt like crazy when we nine year olds broke up.

Tucson was where I learned to drive, feeling so grownup and free inside; where I first felt the thrill of a carnival ride; where I first heaved a sigh of sadness for someone I had known who had died; where I first sang and danced and emceed or acted on stage; where I first felt outrage because of a police officer shooting an unarmed black boy, a friend’s brother who was pretty much only acting his age in a reckless way, choosing to do so, to say the least, on the wrong day.

A place of so many firsts. It’s where I penned the first love note I ever wrote. Where I lit the first cigarette I ever smoked or the first reefer I ever toked. Where I first registered to vote. It’s where I first went to school; where I first tasted booze and thought I was cool; where I first felt the lowdown dirty blues, not too many years, it seemed, after learning to tie my own shoes; where I first tasted treats like cookies and candy and ice cream and where I first made the team and where I first enjoyed the “thrill of victory” and suffered the “agony of defeat.”

Tucson was where my first child, a daughter, was born and where my first son was born along with their sister – all in the four years between my senior year of high school and when I earned the University of Arizona’s bachelor of science degree in P.E., paid for by my skills in scoring and rebounding which I did with a sense of glee.

And it’s also with merriment that I look back at all these experiences from my past, these necessary steps for building one’s identity.

I wish everyone, like the woman who hates her hometown, could see their town as I see mine because no matter its faults it gave me everything I needed to pursue and enjoy a good life.

I couldn’t ask a town for any more than that.