A Malady Peculiar to Men

SEPTEMBER, 1935. ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 23 A Malady Peculiar to Men

IN THE days of our forefathers, people did not have to hustle the way we do at the present time. Then they could be more deliberate and to a very great extent could enjoy life along with their daily toils. But now, it is a different story we work under pressure. Because of this kind of abnormal living, the men of our country have become affected. Emphasis on this statement because women are seldom, if ever, affected. Sometimes symptoms appear early in the life of a boy, but his trouble never develops fully until manhood is reached. The most aggravating cases, and the most difficult case to do anything with, are among the old men, particularly the business man and the professional man.

The malady has a very peculiar and outstanding characteristic it is seasonal. It is much harder to control during the summer months than any other time of the year.

It is not difficult to detect men that are blighted with the ailment. For instance, if you see a robust man sitting on the corner of a desk at his office, talking with a great deal of enthusiasm to a group of friends and making motions with his hands indicating various lengths, you can rest assured that he is a victim of the disorder.

This disorder seems to affect the mentality of the sufferer. It becomes very difficult for him to keep his mind on what he may be doing, and it frequently causes him to be forgetful. Therefore, if you are a patient in need of surgical operation, it would be foolhardy indeed to employ the services of a surgeon who has contracted the disease, because he might forget and leave you with a pair of scissors after the ab dominal invasion.

How to treat this ailment is a much discussed subject in all circles, particu larly the wives' circles. It is the consensus of opinion that to treat the disease the patient must first be taken to the proper geographical location where the climate is agreeable and where surroundings are ideal for outdoor life. In addition to the proper geographical location, certain equipment is necessary to aid the patient in taking treatment. The most commonly used device is a kind of jointed stick with a handle at the lower end, weighing perhaps five and one-half ounces. It must cost all that the patient can afford, so

Painful Disease Attacks Certain Types During Certain Seasons

that the proper mental reaction will be obtained. A jointed stick costing $75.00 has a much better psychological effect than one costing only $25.00.

Attached to the jointed stick is a device with a crank on it. Some people call it "Satan's Egg-Beater". Attached to this cranking device and extending beyond the end of the jointed stick is a string.

Any kind of string might seem adequate to the uninformed, but here again, unless the string costs at least $10.00, and unless it tapers at one end, it will make the application of mental therapeutics much more difficult. Attached to the end of the string is a piece of steel that has a barb on it. It also has a very carefully calculated radius gyration which only engineers can appreciate.

Patients usually carry a kind of pouch with a rectangular hole in the top, which is suspended from the shoulder by a strap, and in nearly every instance, it is used only for the repose of a ham sandwich.

Equipped in this manner, the patient is taken, or takes himself which is generally the case, to the proper geographical location to begin his outdoor treatment.

Upon arrival, he puts on a pair of rubber pants closed at the bottom under the feet. Dressed in this manner, he enters a pool of water, holding the jointed stick in his right hand with great confidence, after having camouflaged the piece of steel with an insect or an embryo of some kind. Immediately upon entering, the patient fills his pants with water so that he shall suffer no ill effects due to temperature changes while making portage from one pool to another.

With great expectation, the patient waits patiently for an under water touchdown by a salvelinus frontinalis, or perhaps a cutthroat. Should this occur, the patient will be benefitted immediately by accelerated heart action, whereupon he jerks the string from the water, and, if he was successful in selecting the proper pool with ideal surroundings, the string will catch on a bush or tree, thus automatically providing a vent for unprintable personal expression.

If this does happen, the patient enjoys great relief and the evacuation is very complete because he is conscious of the fact that there is no one to witness what is being said, and consequently no restraint of any kind. This is a great relaxation after many months of business confinement where the exercise of self-control is a very important factor.

If the patient is successful in securing a great many attachments to the piece of steel, then his case is apt to become highly aggravated and probably incurable. If, however, the patient experiences few or no attachments, then there is every possibility that his outdoor treatment will do him a great deal of good and he will probably emerge from the experience a cured man.

In cases of this kind, the patient, upon returning to his bonafide domicile, goes into seclusion in order that he might evade his friends and admirers with their eternal questions, "How many?" "How long?" "How much did the largest one weight?"

ARIZONA'S DESERT CARPET

(Continued from Page 12) low mesquite and creosote bushes in an attempt to rid themselves of the tormenters.

The writer once saw a team of fine horses run away on the desert near Phoenix. They became entangled in a huge bunch of bush Chollas, throwing both animals on their sides and covering them with spines. As they were crazy with pain and utterly unmanageable, it became necessary to shoot the horses to put them out of their misery.

Some varieties of the Cholla bear flowers of various hues, yellow, brown, green, and crimson.

There are several species of the well-known Prickly Pear Opuntia, known also as Tuna, a flat-leafed Cactus. These also bear flowers of different hue and make a colorful desert picture. The large purple pears come in August; and many a hungry cowboy, sheep herder, and Indian finds in them a fairly pleasant fruit on a hot day. To get them off the plant, one whittles a sharp stick which he plunges into the soft fruit. Detaching it with a twist, he carefully wipes off the hair-like spines with a handful of grass or weeds. At best from the burning sensation in the tongue, the eater is conscious of spines which have eluded the careful brushing.

The larger Opuntias furnish excellent cattle feed. Many an old range cow was saved in years of drought, when the cowboys fared forth on the range armed with burning torches, hastily improvised. The riders would singe off the sharp spines so the cows could eat the fruit or leaves in comfort. The rapidity with which these old range cows learned to follow the men with the torches from plant to plant, greedily eating the broad, flat leaves, was amazing.

However, but for these protecting spines there would be no prickly pears, for every animal, large and small, eats them when bereft of their spiny armor. That is why the so-called "invention" of the spineless Cactus by Luther Burbank was a failure for cattle feeding; everything from mice to cows ate them from the instant they poked their green leaves above the ground. Horses cannot be included in this as far as my experience goes, as I do not recall having seen a horse eat prickly pear leaves.

The glorious Yucca (Yucca lineata) makes the desert fairly radiant with its splendid bunches of pure-white, spike-head blossoms, 16 or 18 inches in length. The plant throws up a central stalk which grows 8 to 10 inches in a single day. These stalks are at first like huge asparagus plants. The long, sharp bay-onets furnish ample protection, but in spite of that the cows will work for half an hour to get their noses deep into the center to secure the choice morsel nes-tling there. They have also learned to "ride down" the tall stalks to secure the flower heads.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Perhaps the glory of the desert is the Palo Verde Tree, Spanish for "green tree." It grows to a large size on the desert, especially along desert water courses and dry washes. No Arizonan will knowingly build a fire of its wood if anything else can be found, for the odor when burning is something long to be remembered. "A dead skunk's a bunch of posies alongside a palo verde fire," most truthfully remarked a cow-boy who was unable to secure other dry fuel.(Continued from Page 14) time, a band of Havasupai, traveling upriver from the next canyon west of Ike, came acalling. If there is any one thing a redskin likes more than offal it is strawberries, so they waded right into Ike's gather.

TUSAYAN IKE AND THE PORCUPINES

But remember, it takes several hours in the fruit to subdue a porcupine quill and those were fresh gathered. Can you picture the pained look on the faces of those poor Indians? I can. A kid chum once got a fish hook imbedded in his tongue. I'll never forget the tor-ture that kid endured while I worked the barb through and out the other side. The upshot of the matter was that they captured Ike, sat him down on a fat porcupine where it would do the most good, then left for their hogans where they lived on soup for weeks. I have an idea that is how they got their unique name Havasupai. String it out. Have-a-soupy.

SEPTEMBER, 1935.

But imagine Ike's predicament; a stern full of quills and no one to pull them out. He could have sat in a basket of strawberries for a few hours, but in his condition I can't imagine doing it. He resorted to a bottle of Bucking Liniment which he had on hand for lum-bago, but that only made matters worse so he took out up over the rim, bucking at every jump.

You may wonder how Bright Angel Trail was made. I think Ike should receive some credit, for the dust hasn't settled yet from Ike's wild scramble out of the big crack.

Ready to Help You Do you want business action at some point out of town? Reach for your telephone. It will take you anywhere in a moment.

Low station-to-station night rates are now effective at 7 p. m. instead of 8:30 p. m.

On the 5th of July, 1935, the Caterpillar Tractor Co. placed its franchise, for Arizona, with the Crawford Tractor Co., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This latter firm has leased a portion of our premises at 138 South First Avenue. Temporarily our office is located at 19 West Jefferson: Our Service and Parts Headquarters at 134 South First Avenue. Our stock of tractors and other machinery is located at our yard (which we have had for several years) just south of Six Points on 19th Avenue. We expect to continue serving our customers in much the same prompt and efficient manner as we have been doing for the last decade.

ARIZONA TRACTOR & EQUIPMENT CO.

AT&EC MADISON AT 1ST AVENUE AT&EC PHOENIX