Art Greene

ART GREENE A Friend by the Side of the Road

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOSEF MUENCH The letterhead of Canyon Tours, Incorporated, the main concessionaire at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on Lake Powell, reads: Art Greene, President. That makes him a big wheel in a very going concern, designated by the National Park Service to build and operate facilities in a fabulous water playground behind Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona. Letterheads notwithstanding, if I know Art and I think I do, he is not to be thought of as sitting behind a desk exercising his fingers with a pen. He is out among people in the sunshine of "his country" watching "his river" turn into a splendid lake, sharing a boundless enthusiasm for the mighty Colorado.

The calendar maintains that it was almost twenty years ago when we first met Art Greene, but the mental portrait I "took" of him then is so vivid, it might have been only yesterday. Looking back, I might say we signed a mutual agreement pact, his whole family and ours, after about five minutes of conversation beside the gas pumps at Marble Canyon Lodge in Northern Arizona. The friendship started, as some of the most valued ones do, almost by spontaneous combustion. Not that anything very momentous was said, but I can see Art standing there saying it. The ubiquitous cigarette was held in a particular way he has, and his big western hat with carefully casual brim turnup was pushed back above dark-rimmed glasses. The suggestion of a squint, twinkle in his eye, a grin spreading a mobile mouth clear across the face even to tuckering his chin, all added up to pure mischievous gamin. Don't quote me as saying his "face is his fortune" in the usual sense, but it is certainly his trademark and no matter how outrageous the crack that comes out from that facade, you can't help laughing with him and warming to the whole man. His mouth has been the despair of many a dentist and public relations man. One of the latter, trying to ferret out the secret of Art's "way with people," said he'd be willing to have his own teeth pulled and then throw away the dental plates, too, if it would do the same thing for him that it has for Greene. Art's retort was that he had long ago discarded style for comfort and people would have to take him as he was. They have, too, and are as easy as with an old friend right from the start. The only time I've ever found him at a loss for rebuttal was when I proved he wasn't the man he claimed to be. "You say you're Greene, but look at you. You aren't green at all, even with an "e" on the end of it." On that long ago afternoon, we had stopped at the station during our first run over Navajo Bridge and wanted to find a vantage point on the rim of the Marble Gorge for a picture to include the lovely metal span as well as swirling wirling brown water of the Colorado River, some 400 feet below. He gave us directions and then the assurance we could get dinner and a motel room. He'd get out his bull-whip, he promised, to make sure the women gave us the best-ever dinner. So before long we were sitting down to some of his wife, Ethyl's grand cooking and meeting the rest of the family. Their three daughters, Ruth, Grace, and Irene, were helping cook, serve, and make things lively in the dining room. The son, Bill, who is Art Greene, Junior, was in Hawaii, but we saw the big coconut he had sent, with the address inked right on the outer shell and heard about his no mean feat of climbing the Iao Needle on Maui. (We were at war with Japan right then and Bill, along with Art's three sons-in-law were all in the armed forces.) That evening Art showed slides of the interesting country round-about, sparking in us a desire to see more, which has kept us coming out there to photograph and explore ever since. We had stopped to ask one question and stayed a week, which is probably about par for the effect Art has on people. Not that he begged us to stay, but each morning had another place we really should not miss photographing. In the Lodge living room he was the perfect host. I've seen him josh an irate or disgruntled traveler back into a pleasant human being with one dis-arming admission, or take the wind out of a blowhard with a single pungent verbal hit. Then there was the bundle of "rubber checks" returned from various banks which he had accepted out of a compassionate heart. "I'm saving them up until I get a good one," he'd quip. No, there was nothing green about this sharp-witted westerner, hospitality bred in his bones, and a deep-seated understanding and feeling for people. Born in Telluride, Colorado, he had come to have a feeling for the desert as well as the higher sheep country he'd first known, growing up with his cousins, Harry Goulding (of Monument Valley fame) and his brother, Charlie Goulding of Durango. Art speaks of having been a cow-poke and sheepman before the Colorado River threw its potent spell on him, but seldom mentions attending a military academy, being an officer in World War I, a self-employed carpenter and builder in Denver, or operating restaurants, Indian trading posts and motels during a busy career which has culminated in the title of President of Canyon Tours, Incorporated. The cousins, by their own account, were young hellions, though they dearly loved sweet Aunt Molly, who raised them in lieu of their dead parents. Among their milder exploits was a hoax train holdup, armed with water pistols. Aunt Molly lived to see her boys all grown up, each with his special charm and a significant place in the world. But they still love a joke. When Joe Muench went to see, for business reasons, a friend of Art's in Salt Lake City, the perfect stranger greeted him by jerking off his necktie with the apology, "Art Greene told me to take it off as soon as you came in the doorway so you'd feel right at home." That reminds me of one occasion when a joke backfired. While one of the regular-run bus-drivers was lunching at Marble Canyon Coffee shop Art slipped a few spoons in his pocket and then retrieved them openly as the mortified driver was leaving the crowded room. When a letter on an airfield company stationery arrived a week or so later, Art had no reason to be suspicious of the announcement that seventeen planes would arrive at Marble Canyon on a certain date and require lunch for the pilots and pass-engers. When the day came and home-cooked pies were cooling on a shelf and other supplies laid in, the planes were plastic toy ones, sent through the mail. During the first week we spent at Marble Canyon Lodge, Art took us to see the buffalo herd, to a huge sink that no one else seems ever to have heard of, and down into the stygian blackness of a huge cavern where we found a prehistoric yucca torch and the remains of a woven sandal. He showed us prehistoric relics up in House Rock Valley and back up into Soap Creek Canyon. Another day we went down to Lees Ferry, looked at the old Mormon Dugway approach, boated down to Navajo Bridge, in our first glimpse of Glen Canyon. Art really knew his country and loved to show it off to appreciative visitors.

The Colorado River has a strange power of taking hold. Physically this is easy to explain because its heavy fine silt penetrates and makes heavy most objects falling into the water. The grip it takes on men's minds is not so easily catalogued unless we acknowledge the river's personality, combining rugged beauty, power, swift changes of mood. Art had long been infatuated and in 1947 invited Joe to come as photographer, together with my-self and our young son, David, on the maiden voyage of an airplane-motored craft. The inverted "C" bottom and square hull had been built to his design and named the "Tseh Na-ni-a-go atin," meaning "Trail to the Rock That Goes Over," in Navajo. The Rainbow Natural Bridge was to be the climax of the trip and river an easy trail to reach it. The boat was a bold innovation and successful. Its eventual abandonment was due to the incidental drawbacks: too much noise and too small mileage for the fuel needed on the some 138-mile round trip. The idea had some earmarks of genius and Art provided cotton for ear stopples and a notebook for messages since conversation was impossible so close to the thunder of the engine. We skimmed like birds sometimes on several inches of water, shortening the trip to the bridge while provid-ing plenty of power to haul a whole boatload of people. It was Art's suggestion that we go until only enough gas was left for a power landing on the return, since we didn't know how much fuel would be used upstream. Characteristically, though, he insisted that each member of the party, down to little David, have a vote in the decision. We were with our captain to a man, or I should say, to a boy, and the whole adventure was an unforgettable thrill. I maintain that camping is one of the best tests of a man's mettle and Art's showed up well on the trip. With one whole night and day to go, and four smokers aboard, (Art the most assiduous) we were down to just two lone cigarettes. He slept in the boat and woke frequently, while the two "smokes" lay on a shelf within reach of his hand. They must have, even unlighted, burned holes in him that night, but in the morning we found them still intact, to be halved and doled out. Having established with the Tseh and other craft that upstream travel was possible and there were many who wanted this chance to see river and bridge, Art kept experimenting and offering his chartered trips. Meanwhile he moved his family from Marble Canyon to Cliff Dwellers Lodge, a few miles along on U. S. Highway 89. Near the quaint little house built into a great rock, they built modern motel units with restaurant and gas station. It was a bright spot for travelers along the road to the Kaibab Plateau and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, nestling close to the manyhued Vermillion Cliffs which lift behind. From the cafe windows the visitor has a long look across sloping land where the irregular edge of Marble Canyon wrinkles up now and then, only hint that the third longest river in the United States is going steadily about its business and shortly (sixty-five miles below Lees Ferry) about to enter the Grand Canyon. At sunset, the long line of the Echo Cliffs bursts into ruddy flame or smoulder, glowing like the embers of a dying fire as the whole world sinks into soft darkness. Time and again we have dropped down over the flanks of the San Francisco Peaks, where Flagstaff sits among the Ponderosa pine forests, headed for Cliff Dwellers. My favorite time is late afternoon when yellowing tones of the sun play in spotlights or flooding curtains over the Painted Desert and antelope may make specks of movement on the wide sloping landscape. Then, beyond the Cameron Trading Post and turnoff to the South Rim, across the Little Colorado, the Echo Cliffs stride along beside the highway, trimmed with paint-pot colors, heaped like mineworks. Indian cornfield and hogans of "The People" together with small flocks of sheep remind one this is the Reservation. As the road winds, spreading with the year's increasing traffic, rather like an aging dowager, it mounts Cedar Ridge where snow can lie briefly in winter and we could look across to find little pin-pricks of light far across and knew they spelled the home lights of Cliff Dwellers where the "Greene Gang" would be waiting.

Art's family was growing. His son, Bill, with his petite, chic wife, Evelyn and their daughter Judy, were at the busy Navajo Trading Post at Rough Rock. Grace, now Mrs. Mel Schopmann, lived in Kanab where she and her husband had built a house. There were three children there, Betty-Jo, "Butch," and little Johnnie, or at Cliff Dwellers, as often as not. Ruth's pastry et al could compete with Ethyl's and her husband ran the gas station or was busy with any of the things needing to be done in the motel complex. They had a daughter, Linda, who would soon be starting school in Kanab. Earl and Irene Johnson had added Mike, solemn and towheaded to the community and later little Jody, who had inherited her grandfather's once vivid carrot-top. Earl was the river pilot gaining on trips up and down the capricious stream in Glen Canyon more than ample experience and knowledge for the expansion of boat travel which lay in the future.

In the early fifties the uranium rush swept the whole region and the Greenes learned new words, staked out various claims and even succeeded in wresting something from the rocky treasurehouse which loomed overhead. Now they catered to a flood of prospectors who came by air and land. Art hosted people less interested in river travel than in the jump of the Geiger counter and for weeks at a time, a survey crew which set its helicopters down almost beside their motel rooms. I can recall the look of mixed thrilled delight and apprehension on Art's face (through field glasses) when a pilot set the runners oh so gently, onto the very edge of the cliffs above us so that the "bubble" seemed about to fall on his own roof. Across the highway but still on their land, the Greenes had roughed out a strip where small planes could land. One eager pilot, wanting to "sit down" even before the field was leveled had to use the highway itself for landing strip. After coffee-and, Joe and I stood on the road near the lodge and Art drove up ahead to halt cars from either direction long enough to get the "bird" back up into the air.

Each year more and more people floated downstream from Hite with Art and Earl, or went up from Lees Ferry under power. They camped on lovely now lost spots of sandbars, whistled and sang to hear the echoes in Music Temple, hiked up the narrow slit of Hole-in-the-Rock and all of them went to see Rainbow Bridge. It seemed that Art's dream had reached its full reality, bringing him recognition as riverman as well as welcoming host to road travel. Instead of lapsing into just another business, his vision enlarged and while survey crews were only beginning to tap red sandstone walls for possible dam sites, some time in the future in Glen Canyon, the Greenes took leases on a lofty peninsula at the head of Wahweap Canyon, upriver. It seemed the very end of nowhere, reached overland after a wash-by-wash battle from Kanab in a four-wheel drive, or by plane as soon as a strip could be hacked out of the desert shrubbery and smoothed of its biggest rocks. A row of little stone-faced cabins began to poke up looking out over a great landscape. Impractical, most businessmen thought. Bill had been airborne for some time by then and was in real estate in Phoenix, when he wasn't setting wheels down at Cliff Dwellers or bumping to stop at Wahweap. The women were preparing meals for hungry people at both places. Glen Canyon Dam was hardly more than a twinkle in the eye of the fathering Reclamation Bureau while the Greenes were slugging it out, making a useable approach, facing the cabins with stone, putting in waterlines after a well had been drilled. Someday the story of their pioneering will make a grand book by some agile writer who can hop from Phoenix to Cliff Dwellers to Wahweap and keep track of each member of this family which has preserved its unity through the effort of the varied members. He, or maybe she, will have to possess rare perception and a delicate touch to paint in the heartaches and temporary setbacks of each. Then there was the loss of Ethyl, Art's "alter ego." As vivid as my mental picture of Art's inimitable grin is one of his wife's sweetness of face in A frame of soft, short curls. Behind her would have to be mountains of cakes and pies, beef steaks and frenchfries and home-made bread set before people through the years. If Art's was the dream, Ethyl's was the cohesive force of love, holding them all together, sparking birthday celebrations, loving each new grandchild, and mothering them all. If one could measure the energy she had expended, it might be enough to move mountains, and perhaps it did. The present Mrs. Greene was a childhood friend of Art and Ethyl's and so welcomed into the family circle as no stranger to either the dream or the long labors which have brought it forth.

Now, in 1964, the Greene Saga begins another exciting episode. The river in Glen Canyon which Art dreamed about is a lake and the "Gang" officially Canyon Tours, Incorporated-concessionaire. A luxurious Lake Powell Motel sits by the roadside and Whit Parry provides the cuisine for which he has gained such a reputation at his Kanab Lodge, as it will be when the larger establishment is complete at Wahweap Lodge. Bill and Evelyn plan a move from Phoenix to be the business heads for the complex concession which will involve another one hundred motel units, contingent services for boat, plane, and car in the Recreation Area. Earl and Irene Johnson have their hands full with boating, now manning a fleet of excursion and smaller craft. Vern and Ruth Baker operate Cliff Dwellers Lodge.

And Art? He's a man who said with the poet, "Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man." His house has not been one, but many. Wahweap Lodge will just be largest and latest. He's had to build most of the houses and sometimes even the road beside them. River as well as highway have been his chosen road and now Lake Powell will be the broadest and longest with 1800 miles of shoreline for his boats to navigate along. Instead of hundreds, the visitors will be adding up to millions. From Wahweap Lodge Art can look out over a vast stretch of that scenery which has been so moving to this man with the mobile mouth and the ready wit, who wanted to share it. A wonderful dream and a wonderful country. Could any man ask for more? The river and the country Art has loved for so many years haven't changed and neither has Art.

A TOMBSTONE EPITAPH

He had ridden in from Carson, "Just passin' through," he'd said; Weary from the saddle, He stopped for food and bed.

Befriended by a miner, "Who was drinkin'," they all said. Each quick to name the stranger, When they found the miner - dead.

The law was quick and proper, They brought the rider in. There's a marker on the hill now, "Though the words are worn and dim.

Doesn't tell the stranger's story, Just gives the time and date, On a cross that's only worded, "Hanged By Mistake."

WIND CHIMES

The immigrant wind is many-tongued, Caught briefly in these flowered fingers Of singing glass; its medley slips Un-maestroed, in and out, then lingers Teasingly in a second's stillness. Whispering tongues of mystery, And lilting, lyrical tongues that ring In a tinkling babel of frailty.

FLASH FLOOD

So swift This downward tide Of rain on startled earth That all the desert floor becomes A sea.

THIS ANCIENT LAND

This land is old, the wind sings of it Forever, the sun and the skies above it, And the quiet stars and moons that love itThis ancient land.

Lofty the pines and long their growing, Deep are the beds of old streams flowing, Endless the dust through the ages blowingThis ancient land.

Ever the feathered-ones silent flying, Eternal the rains and the deep snows lying, And always the old winds lonely crying, "This ancient land."

ASTRONAUT

Shod only with my ship, I will rise in thunder, step where stars are strewn, and pace the cold black desert dune of space, meander on the moon, then race back to you who wonder.

Yours sincerely INDEX FOR OUR MAGAZINE:

We are at the present able to supply a limited number of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Cumulative Index for the years from 19251951 at a cost of $2.00.

There are copies also of the Cumulative Index for ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for the years from 1952-1961, and in supplemental form for the year 1962, at a cost of $3.00.

Thus, the index for the period from 1925 through 1962 would cost $5.00.

Orders for the Index may be placed with Arizona Department of Library and Archives, Capitol Building, Phoenix, Arizona. Checks covering payment should be made payable to Arizona State Library Association. Any profit from the Index will go to the Scholarship Fund of the Library Association.

Marguerite B. Cooley Phoenix, Arizona

MANZANITA:

We want to congratulate you on article regarding Manzanita. We have been in the manzanita business since 1956 and have shipped to every city in the U.S.A.; also to Hawaii, Alaska and Canada.

We feel the Arizona manzanita is superior to that of any state.

M. S. Gibson Gibson's Bird Ranch 2744 E. Greenway Road Phoenix, Arizona

BILL RATCLIFFE:

Your October 1963 issue, containing "I Go Hunting With My Camera" by Bill Ratcliffe, has positively the most beautiful nature photographs I have ever seen. My warmest congratulations to both you and Mr. Ratcliffe on this fine work. I certainly hope to see more pictures of this kind.

Orval H. Ause H. C. Christians Co. Chicago, Illinois

Your bird feature in your October issue was thoroughly enjoyable. The photographs were excellent and the charming sketches by William J. Schaldach made the feature complete.

R. N. Rudell St. Louis, Missouri We agree that Mr. Schaldach's sketches added much to our bird feature in October. He is the author of that outstanding book on the desert: "Path to Enchantment - An Artist in the Sonoran Desert." This book was published late last year by the MacMillan Company, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N.Y. It sells for $10. We enthusiastically recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more of desert ways.

PAPERED WALLS IN AFRICA:

Perhaps you would be interested in the final disposition of our copies of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. My laundry boy asked if he might have the magazines when we were through with them, but since he can neither read nor write I asked what he planned to do with them. Very simple. Those were the prettiest pictures he had ever seen and he was going to paper his walls with them. I wonder if you have ever given thought to what appeal your good publication might have to an illiterate.

Mrs. Guido C. Fenzi Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa

Statement of ownership, management and circulation, filed September 20, 1963; title of Publication, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS; location of publication office, 2039 West Lewis, Phoenix, Arizona, 85009; Headquarters of Owner-Publishers, Arizona Highway Department, 206 South 17th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona, 85007; Editor, Raymond Carlson; Art Editor, George M. Avey; Managing Editor, James E. Stevens. I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete.

James E. Stevens, Business Manager

OPPOSITE PAGE

"THE PEACEFUL WATERS OF LAKE POWELL" BY JOSEF MUENCH. Lake Powell, America's newest playground, will open up to millions of people in the years to come some of the West's most spectacular scenery. Red Cliffs topped here and there by majestic buttes form the background for boat traffic on the lake formed by Glen Canyon Dam. The recreational possibilities of Lake Powell are limitless. Scenery, exploration, boating, fishing, and almost anything else you can think of, are offered here. 4x5 Linhof camera, Ektachrome, f. 10 at 1/100th second; 6" Xenar lens.

BACK COVER

"THE MOON RISES OVER LAKE POWELL" BY JOSEF MUENCH. Evening comes to Lake Powell, in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and another day on this beautiful lake comes to a close. At moonrise, while the sun still lights the scene, spectacular redrock "temples" are seen as background for the brooding, dark waters of the lake. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f. 11 at 1/25th second; 81/4" Zeiss Tessar lens.