Sunshine for Sale

Mr. Clarence Budington Kelland, the author, is an Arizonan from away back; not too far back in time, but right up to the hilt as far as enthusiasm and interest goes. Chance and circumstance brought about his first visit here. He was motoring through the state when car trouble forced him to stay over for a few days. He got sand in his shoes, as the oldtimers say, and since then he spends most of his time here.

In ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, for August, 1938, Mr. Kelland graciously penned a short essay for us on Arizona. This famous author caught the flavor of our state as well as it has ever been done. We now reprint part of his essay. What Mr. Kelland wrote in 1938 is just as fitting today, for time has not dimmed one bit the lustre of our state or his words. He wrote: "Some states are winter states, offering climate and entertainment for tourists during that season; some states are spring states, some summer states and some autumn states. But Arizona is a twelvemonth state, and could be a thirteener if we could get another thirty days crowded into the year. There is no day in the 365 when you cannot find a climate to delight you somewhere in Arizona. And wherever you find that day, be it in the north, east, south, or west, there is something amazing, something stupendous, something startlingly beautiful to look at and something for you to do that you will never forget.

"Arizona is so crowded with wonders that it is a bit embarrassing. But it is not our natural wonders alone that make Arizona the ideal vacation land of the worldit is the air we keep our wonders preserved in. I, personally, never understood what a pleasure ordinary breathing is until I got my first sniff of Arizona air.

"I never understood what complete contentment was until I went to live for a while on a remote cattle ranch and chased big cows and little cows and medium sized cows over so much landscape that I became aware of my own littleness. I, who always regarded a horse and a tarantula with equal aversion, discovered that a saddle is a sort of pulpit from which you preach to yourself, and the subject of your sermon is: 'I am the Captain of my soul.' "So, if you have been booted around by the cock-eyed world and the addle-pated cookoos who are trying to magnify its simple cat-fits into convulsions, come out to Ari zona. In twenty-four hours you will have discovered the vastness and the permanence of the world. You get a sense of proportion. discard fear. and repossess yourself of common sense.

"That is what Arizona will do for you."

Just a few months before that issue, we asked Mr. Kelland why he chose Arizona for his stomping grounds. In April, 1938, issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, he answered that question. We thought then his answer was pretty interesting and we still do. Not long ago we were looking into some of the old files and came across Mr. Kelland's article. Why did you come to Arizona, Mr. Kelland?

Here is Mr. Kelland's answer in part: "It is a question both easy and difficult to answer. I could get out of a dilemma by telling you that it is because of the climate, because of the sunshine, because of the beauty of desert and mountain, and of fertile, irrigated fields, and groves. I could do that and stop, and I would have given sufficient reasons for anyone to do as I have done.

"I could enlarge upon the subject of climate, comparing it with the many winters I spent in Florida, and the winters I have spent in the neighboring state of California. I could tell you that there is something in the air of Arizona that no other air seems to contain. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it makes you feel as it does make you feel, but it is there. It is the only air I know, from having seen most parts of the habitable world that seems to be able to take the gleam and sparkle out of the sunshine and blow it into your veins. Which sounds silly, but probably isn't.

"But I think that perhaps the most appealing thing about Arizona is its nearness to everything. You are near to summer and you are near to winter. You are just a few hours drive from the salt waters of the Gulf of California. You are a couple of hours drive from great mines, and from the open range. In a few days time you can visit with as finely cultivated a people as you would care to

(Please turn to Page Twenty-nine)

A portrait of the life and times in the sun country of Arizona is one of color and gaiety. It is a portrait of sunshine, blue skies, the big, friendly out-of-doors. Here is the informality of the range and ranch, the hospitality and neighborliness of the old west. Winter may rage elsewhere, but bere the days are long and warm and Old Sol is a merry companion. Here is fun in the sun, relaxing recreation, tonic for the nerves, a way of life that makes Arizona's sun country superb.

(Continued from Page Sixteen) meet, or travel back into a civilization that has changed only on the surface since Columbus discovered America. You have mountains, rocky and bare, desert, beautiful under the sunshine, vast plains where cattle range, lofty wooded mountains, rivers, lakes in the most infinite variety.

"It seems to me there is more to see in Arizona than in any other state in the Union, and it is all so accessible. It would be difficult to be lonesome here. Any day that time hangs heavy on your hands you have only to get in your car and drive. Every mile is a refreshing mile. I like outdoor things.

"Why, tomorrow I'm going deep-sea fishing! And, say the folks back East, Arizona is a desert. But the day after tomorrow I shall be in a foreign country, out in a boat on salt water catching enormous fish. At any rate my friends say I shall. That is just an added inducement to the list of things to which Arizona is near.

"It is a thing you can't describe exactly. All you can do is say it's the kind of something that calls you back; that makes you want to stay. It isn't any one feature, but it is a combination of a large group of desirable things that seem to promise you the sort of life you want to live.

"I suppose as any man clambers out of youth and young manhood and hovers reluctantly on the edge of venerability, he begins to see that the best thing that the future can hold for him is contentment. You want to find a spot and settle down in it. You want to discover a place that is exactly the place you want to be, and not forever be travelling from one spot to another in search of excite ment or happiness, or beauty, or whatever it is that keeps folks milling around over the earth's surface. Well, as I came down into the Valley I got the idea that I could be doggone contented here. I stayed a couple of weeks and was contented. I was certain the contentment would con tinue. So here I am. Contented. And knowing it is going to last.

"I am contented because I have everything I want. I have everything that is modern and convenient if I want it; I can walk a couple of hundred yards and sit down and die of thirst in the desert if I happen to feel that way. It has all the glamour of distant places and all the handiness of culture and civilization and electricity. It is the only place I know where you can have your cake and eat it." We might add by way of postscript that nine years after the above was written Mr. Kelland continues to have his cake and eat it.... R.C.