BOB CONSIDINE - PHOENIX ASCENDS

BOB CONSIDINE With Phoenix Ascending

PHOENIX As any fool knows, every 500 years a legendary bird named the Phoenix consumes itself in flames and rises again from its ashes. In the desert of Arizona, civilization rudely intruded in 1860 after the disappearance 500 years earlier of the Hohokam Indian tribe. The new white settlers named their first important settlement Phoenix."Today," flatly states Trans World Airlines' magazine, Getaway Adventure, U.S.A., '72, "the irrigated desert is a lush oasis with vast green fields and olive groves. Championship golf courses are warmed by dry desert air. Dude ranches and posh reserts flourish under an amber sun. For a desert vacation in a cool oasis, try an Arizona getaway."

Inasmuch as I'm on the lam after an unfortunate shoot-out at Chase Manhattan, where I failed to find a promised friend, I'm giving it a try. It isn't hard.This is great country. All the children are lean, brown and happy. Their mothers look like their older sisters. Their fathers and grandfathers look like a cross between Barry Goldwater and the horsemen from Marlboro Country.

TWA began running what it called at the time "quickie vacations" out here from Chicago and New York 25 years ago, to show tenderfeet that the horse was not extinct nor were wide open spaces, neighborly people, and rudimentary honesty. It did for Phoenix and Tucson, and later Scottsdale and now Carefree what Averell Harriman's Union Pacific did for Sun Valley.

Flying in from New York, where it was gusty and foggy on takeoff, it was an inspirational sight to approach Phoenix over square miles of verdant earth which made the previously-observed Arizona landscape a lunarscape. Never underestimate the power of a drop of water. As the plane eases into the oasis, one dreams of a day when desalination depots on the Pacific Coast will refine and pump untold billions of gallons of sweet water into this whole part of the U.S. making the desert to bloom as never before. There are lots of good vacation places in our country, from Nome to Key West via Hawaii and San Diego to Sen. Muskie's home town. It's hard to select one over another. But if you're looking for what is now called an "unspoiled" one try this part of the U.S.A. for a change.

The towers of downtown Phoenix, the Palm Beach grooming of the spas nestled around Camelback Mountain, the development of a town named Carefree only recently a wasteland founded by my late great friend Tom Darlington bring home with a clout the fact that this country is still growing magically. Haven't checked, but there's probably a Hertz-Rent-a-Horse agency somewhere down the nearest nice straight clean road. And some cowhand named Zeke to hoist you into a saddle so you can ride Old Pete into one of those catastrophic Arizona sunsets nobody can quite believe, not, even the editors of the purtiest picture magazine in America, "Arizona Highways."