YOURS SINCERELY

Yours sincerely THE ARIZONA:

Today I received my September issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Turning through the pages I found one of the greatest stories ever told: that of the Battleship Arizona. From where I am sitting in the superstructure of the Yorktown writing this letter, I can see the Stars and Stripes as they wave in the cool afternoon breeze on the short mast erected atop the Arizona.

This time tomorrow I will no longer be able to see her as for the third time I am headed toward the Far East. But each time that I have entered into Pearl Harbor, and passed the Arizona, I have seen men stand at attention, then bow their heads in silent prayer. Each knows the agony and pain suffered by the crew of the proud ship Arizona, and all respect her.

Many, who knew her in her sailing days, knew the pride in which she sailed. Now all who have seen her since her defeat feel the pride in which the Stars and Stripes flutter above her.

Though no longer sailing, she is the pride of the memorials.

C. L. Kip Miller, LI-2 U.S.S. Yorktown CVA-10 Pearl Harbor, T. H.

GOOD MEDICINE:

The August issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS came today. This number is of great personal interest for I knew Charles M. Russell during my high school days in Great Falls, Montana.

One of my treasured books is "Good Medicine," a compilation of many of Russell's letters, with his sketches and paintings in color. "Good Medicine" was published in 1929 by Garden City Publishing Company. The bookis lovingly dedicated to the West and to Charlie's friends," by Nancy C. Russell, his wife.

Will Rogers wrote the introduction. His closing tribute to Russell is: "I think that everyone of us that had the pleasure of knowing him is just a little better by having done so he not only left us great living pictures of what our West was, but he left us an example of how to live in friendship with all mankind."

Some of these letters are written to friends of my girlhood years. Among them are several to Miss Josephine Trigg, our young high school music teacher. One of them, written on Los Angeles Hotel Biltmore stationery, has a colorful drawing below the letterhead. This letter is dated March 27, 1924. He writes: "Dear Miss Josephine: Thank you for the birthday card. Old Dad Time trades little that men want. He has traded me wrinkles for teeth, stiff legs for limber ones, but cards like yours tell me that he has left me my friends and for that great kindness I forgive him. Good friends make the roughest trail easy. The above sketch is before California was taken by the Iowans. Your friend, C. M. Russell."

During later years, I taught kindergarten in the Browning, Montana, public schools on the Blackfeet Reservation near Glacier National Park. Here again, in that region Charlie Russell knew so well, the home of the Blackfeet,the Bloods, the Piegans, and the Crows, I met many of his old time friends.

I wish to thank Mr. Homer E. Britzman for his fine authentic and sympathetic story of Charles M. Russell. It has brought me real enjoyment and the renewal of many happy memories.

Mrs. Arthur R. Rutherford Seattle, Washington

A LONG TRAIL:

To one who has spent many years of his life in the strip from Arizona to Montana as a Cavalry Officer of the Regular Army, I am in a position to appreciate the splendid job you did in August issue of your fine magazine in devoting such a substantial part of it to Charlie Russell and his contribution to the West. Possibly you could not have used it, because I understand that my copy is an original. It is a water color showing two horsemen, one of them leading a pack horse. Obviously, the one with the pack horse is starting off to the Great Divide and bidding his friend farewell. Printed on my copy are the following lines, which always have seemed to me to be about foolproof.

"Here's hoping your trail is a long one Plain and easy to ride. May your dry camps be few And Health ride with you To the pass on the Big Divide."

Brigadier General Brice P. Disque, Retired Spuyten Duyvil, New York

RUSSELL PAINTINGS:

The absorbing account in your August issue of Charles M. Russell, from the pen of Homer E. Britzman is worth more than a full year's subscription to your valued publication. I desire to congratulate you and him for such an outstanding performance.

Well do I recall, while art critic on the Chicago Record-Herald, the notable exhibition of Russell's Indian paintings. They were the talk of the art world here at that time....Now, to see them again printed in color is like running across a long-lost friend. Thank you so much for presenting it to your subscriber audience!

According to the reproduction of Mr. Russell's own portrait, I should almost place him among the aborigines himself-could it be, I wonder, whether he really might possess a strain of Indian blood.

Maude I. G. Oliver Chicago, Illinois

OPPOSITE PAGE

Egg Tempera, 40" by 48". Collection Roswell Museum. The artist says: "Here I have tried to convey something of the excitement and grateful elation which we of an arid land feel when the great cumulus build-ups appear in early summer, dappling the landscape with enormous, swiftly moving cloud shadows." This landscape was painted from a hillside overlooking the Ruidoso Valley near San Patricio, New Mexico.

TO A SHARED TREE

My neighbor shares a lovely tree with me; Its branches bend beyond my garden wall. The wind that whispers in its steeple tall Chimes things that make my heart pray gratefully.

The birds' sweet singing wakes me at the morn, They, too, have found this tree a place of peace, And day or night their singing does not cease; They've built a home where downy babes are born.

But best of all my neighbor talks with me Beneath these gracious branches bending low, And here we learn to understand although We very often find we disagree.

God speed the day when nations share a tree, And all the whole wide world good neighbors be.

CAROLYN WHEELER AVERY

SPRING IN FALL

Today, By every calendar, is fall. And yet It could be spring. For down the velvet breeze The sparrows call; And everything Is bathed in melted sunny air. See the way the leaves move Slowly on the vine, Lacing all the trellis edges Like a valentine. And though I know It could be so, That grapes are ripening; The calendars may all be wrong. I'm sure it must be spring!

ISABELLE Cox

LEAVES BEYOND DARK

A morning holds its leaves immersed In silence; for a day well-versed In weather-lore begins its span According to an ordered plan.

By twelve o'clock the clatter starts As a sudden wind-comb deftly parts The higher branches, fanning them out Like peacock feathers to preen and flout.

The sunset burns the last leaf seen, Charring to black the living green. So morning, noon, and sundown dust Cycle and settle as all time must.

But night has given ghosts to less Than leaves that hang in lifelessness. I see their phantoms walk the wind Fragilely luminous, silver skinned.

ISABELLE Cox

BACK PAGE

This picture, made May 3, 1953, shows Burro Creek near its crossing of US 93, about 50 miles northwest of Congress Junction. This new highway to Kingman, which will provide central and southern Arizona with a rapid and direct route to the popular Lake Mead and Lake Mohave recreational areas, also opens up some seldom-seen areas of great scenic beauty. For some reason, the most photogenic Ocotillo, which make good "frames" for pictures of this sort, always seem in spots reachable only at great peril.