Sing a Song of Serenity

One of the pleasant things about Western living, Arizona style, is that one has room enough in which to live. That may or may not sound important but it really is. In too many areas on this battered old planet of ours the "no vacancy" sign is a forbidding deterrent to tell you to be on your lonely way. Put the tape measure on our beloved state and you'll readily agree we have room enough to burn. Ours being the sixth largest state in the Union, not even an Alaskan will suffer from claustrophobia on entering our portals, and Texans, being among our finest citizens, feel they have elbow room enough in which to snap their suspenders. We could bore you with comparisons such as how many eastern states could fit comfortably within our boundaries, or that we have counties bigger than some states, but comparisons are drier than cereals without cream and we'll spare you such monotony. Take our word for it: come out this way and you won't feel all hemmed in.

Despite the almost miraculous growth of our state during the past ten years (fastest growth by percentage of population of any state in the U. S. A.) ours is still a relatively sparsely popu-lated state. If all the people in Arizona (including our Indians) lived in one community, there would be many cities in our country larger than ours. Folks with statistical turns of mind, predicting our future growth on past growth trends, do not come up with alarming astronomical population figures for Arizona even for the good year of our Lord A. D. 2,000. Ours will be a healthy growth in the years to come and there will be room enough for all of us to do the rock n' roll, if we feel inclined to do so, without jarring the sugar bowl off our neighbor's table.

The point is this: Out here in Arizona the great outof-doors is all around us, a friendly, good neighbor offering us surcease from the pother (there is such a word) and bother of every day living. Supposing you live in either of our two largest cities, Phoenix or Tucson. In no time at all you can be out in the desert enjoying a barbecue, in blessed solitude, under the stars, or in a couple of hours' drive on a weekend you will find lovely and remote places where all of Nature's enchantment is a precious treasure for just you to enjoy.

If you are lucky enough to live in one of our smaller cities Douglas, Bisbee, Nogales, Ajo, Safford, Yuma, Miami, Prescott, Williams, Cottonwood, Sedona, Kingman, Mesa, Flagstaff, Holbrook, Show Low, Springerville, Clifton to name a few just a few minutes of driving find you in a world of your own, a world apart, close to the everlasting sky and an intimate part of the gorgeous landscape. All of this is a small but important phase of our style of Western living you can spread your elbows without bumping your neighbor in the ribs or you can have your cup of coffee without someone breathing down your neck.

In analyzing our population growth it has been found that most of our new residents are from densely populated areas in the Middlewest, Northwest, and California. In a recent survey, surprisingly as it may seem, the larger percentage of new citizens were from California, an understandable fact, indeed, when you consider the unhappy formula of fog plus smoke equals smog and who, for Heaven's sake, wants to live with smog and the attendant watery eyes, dripping nose and scratchy throats. And then, too, those crowded, free wheeling freeways are enough to drive a person to distraction unless you are accustomed to torture and are inured to murder, mayhem and suicide. A couple of days on those freeways and country boys like ourselves would be howling candidates for the straight jacket or we would become neophytes in some secluded monastery forever dedicated to solitude and meditation and to eternal gratefulness that we have survived the ordeal.

Living close to Nature is living rather removed from mankind. Thoreau, by practically being a hermit, discovered the satisfying life. Some satisfying life. Some philosopher, with long, gray beard dripping with wisdom and pontifical sayings (is there anything as dull as philosophers with long gray beards), must have said "There is nothing the matter with people except people." And if no philosopher ever said that, some modern day sage should soon make that pronouncement and live forever in the memory of men as being a wise and learned man. People have the uncomfortable habit of messing up the landscape and where you find a portion of the landscape uncluttered by people you have discovered a world all of your own. Not satisfied with cluttering up our own planet, people are even now prodigiously trying trying to clutter up the moon. Leave the moon alone, we say, because except for young lovers on starry nights and except for song writers trying to find a rhyme for June, that poor, old moon hasn't hurt anyone we know of. Maybe it would be better for us to make a better world of this one in which we live before poking our noses into the business affairs and lives of our planetary neighbors.

pronouncement and live forever in the memory of men as being a wise and learned man. People have the uncomfortable habit of messing up the landscape and where you find a portion of the landscape uncluttered by people you have discovered a world all of your own. Not satisfied with cluttering up our own planet, people are even now prodigiously trying trying to clutter up the moon. Leave the moon alone, we say, because except for young lovers on starry nights and except for song writers trying to find a rhyme for June, that poor, old moon hasn't hurt anyone we know of. Maybe it would be better for us to make a better world of this one in which we live before poking our noses into the business affairs and lives of our planetary neighbors.

The psychiatrist and his couch are commonplace in this day and age, almost a necessity in this harried and hurried age of ours to keep one adrift in this sea of emotional disturbances which we call modern living. Far be it from us to circumvent their kind ministrations. A cooling hand on the fevered brow, a few understanding and sympathetic words can work wonders for jangled nerves and tortured temperaments. We recommend to you, if you find modern living a trifle exhausting and perplexing, a habitat less strenuous than that of the bustling cities with their jostling crowds and frantic freeways, the air over which is a cloying admixture

"To A Well-Earned Rest"

of gasoline fumes, crowded humanity, and burnt oil. Nature can be the greatest tranquilizer of all, more potent than a bucket of pills dressed up in fancy names, some to put you to sleep, some to keep you awake, and some to keep you in a state of suspended and blissful lethargy, neither awake nor asleep.

What do we offer in our formula of Western living, Arizona style, which we think is more satisfying to the mind and soul than most places have to offer? Well, not much! Just a few simple things!

A mountain meadow filled with flowers in the spring. The desert, the mysterious desert, full of silence and sunshine. A road winding through the hills, carefree and cautious. A battered butte, old and grizzled with the wisdom of the ages. A wash, shaded by sycamores, whose sands tell of the comings and going of small creatures hidden from your approach but not resentful of your presence. A canyon here and a mesa there. A water hole and a fishing stream. We do not offer much, perhaps, but we promise they'll be all yours.

There are a few truths known only by the very, very young or the very, very old. These are that a simple life is a pleasant one and that God in His infinite mercy is good and that the gifts He has bestowed upon us are many.