The Allens often joke that their town was so small it didn´t have a town square, it had a triangle, and Berea was just such a town. Big Jim was well known as one of the city´s letter carriers, and the Allen children could not get away with too much that wasn´t reported back to Dad, often with surprising speed! Small towns are like that. The downtown area held the most important store in Chris´ early childhood, Gorman´s Photo and Hobby and it became his piggybank. The money he made cutting lawns was deposited at Gorman´s for the latest Revel model airplane kit. If he raked leaves or shoveled snow he added accessories for his Lionel Train that his Dad had bought him while still working for Erie Railroad. But more importantly, every winter Gorman´s had all the latest Lionel trains on display in the store window. Not only were they on display, but the thing that brought every kid in town out was the fact that you could push a button on the outside of the store and watch the train circle the track, even when the store was closed! Many a winter´s night was spent looking over the Lionel catalogs of the day and wishing he had the money for that beautiful Santa Fe Diesel passenger set often displayed streaking across the southwest desert.

Another experience that had a lasting effect on Chris were the visits to his older second cousin, who was not only a Ham Radio Operator, but the Civil Defense Coordinator for his neighborhood. This was the late 50´s and early 60´s so it was very common to have fallout shelters and Civil Defense teams, but more importantly to this ten year old was the cool air raid siren on the roof of his cousin´s garage and all the glowing radio tubes and dial lights. This wasn´t science fiction, this was real cool stuff that he was allowed to touch and see. His cousin would often allow him to talk on the radio to other Ham Operators. Chris´ Dad was also caught up in this and when time allowed they built crystal radio sets in the backyard during the summer or he watched as his Dad built numerous Heath Kit electronic projects during the long winters. From this simple background the geek was born!

After working non-stop for over two years Hugh and Ruth decided it was time for a short vacation away from the kids, so leaving the children with the Messner family support group, headed to California for a short holiday with some friends. Hugh loved his automobiles and the freedom of driving so the new interstate highway system lured him early and often. On their drive home they agreed to stop in Glendale, Arizona to drop off a fragile item for their California hosts. On their way out of town taking the old Highway 60 they stopped in Tempe for some ice cream and some souvenirs for the kids. Their first impression of Arizona was the heat! How could people live in such a place? However they did like Tempe because it was such a nice and quiet small town. After another bad winter of carrying mail in the Ohio snow, Hugh drove the family on a vacation to Florida and to check out the possibility of transferring to a Post Office in "The Sunshine State". It rained almost non-stop the entire vacation and although both Ruth and Hugh grew up in the Midwest, they had never seen rain like this which, combined with the wind, seemed to be almost horizontal! When they were informed by the local folks that it only rained like this a few times a week, the dry heat of Tempe Arizona looked a lot better. Upon returning to Ohio, Hugh mailed a request to transfer to Phoenix and began a subscription to the Tempe Daily News. The months rolled into the New Year and yet another Ohio winter, With the Florida vacation behind them and Tempe clearly in their sights, Hugh decided that he would fly out to Arizona to find out what was the problem with his transfer as he still had not heard from them. Hugh had an excellent recommendation from his Post Office in Ohio so he was curious as to why he hadn't heard anything about his transfer. Aftewr arriving in Tempe Hugh was was informed they didn´t have to act on mailed transfers, all their jobs were filled by employees walking in the door just as he had done. After a quick on the spot interview Hugh was hired and was set to begin in two weeks!