Pockets of Life

Bread cooked in the ashes; squash, pumpkin, ground corn, parched corn. We'd boil some meat and put pumpkin and acorns into it. My mother would boil the squash then mix it with butter, salt, and pepper. The salt we used came from sacred salt caves along the Salt River," she said. The family had a small farm in Cibecue where they grew their vegetables. They gathered piñons and acorns in the fall. "The acorns we used came from around Globe and along the Salt River," she said. "They say if you're a real good person the acorns don't taste bitter after you grind them on the metate. We'd only use a certain kind of acorn. The ones that are yellow inside and brown outside." Velita said her father still makes bows and arrows. "The family still gets together every year to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Flying V with traditional Apache foods, but it's getting more modern. My sister Marie makes pumpkin pies now. We still sing songs and give thanks to Ussen for giving us such a bountiful life."

Giving thanks around a table is only part of a ranch Thanksgiving. A cowboy carries it in his heart all year long.

As Pete Ellsworth said, "I guess I'm kind of an outlaw as far as religion goes. But every day that I'm in the saddle is a pleasure to me. I'm just grinnin' with joy, especially if I happen to ride up on a big bunch of wild turkeys or a herd of antelope. I'm kind of an odd individual. I'm always happy when I've got a good horse between my legs... lots of wide open country...fresh air. I'm thankful every day. I guess I just enjoy living."

Pride and tradition prevail on an Arizona ranch Thanksgiving Day. Somehow, the ones who made it possible are always there. Memories waft from the kitchen with the smell of pumpkin pie and venison-son, mincemeat, wild turkey with cornbread stuffing, homemade noodles, suet pudding. The summer garden greens again with each bite of peas or green beans; the orchard breathes again in peach preserves spread thick on homemade yeast rolls. It may be slim pickin's part of the year, but at Thanksgiving, there's plenty for all.

And if a winter storm is biting at the heels of dark clouds, listen. You can almost hear the pounding of a herd of range cattle and the far off cries of men and horses bringing up the drags. Coming home. Coming home.

Joan Baeza, a staff writer for White Mountain Publishing, currently is at work on two novels. She has lived and ranched in Navajo County, Arizona, for 35 years.

THE RITUAL MASKS OF EL ZARCO GUERRERO

In ancient times the mask was a magical means of covering one's own soul and assuming the identity of a god in ritual dances.

Working out of his adobe studiogallery in Mesa, Arizona, nativeborn artist El Zarco Guerrero designs and produces original ritual masks in much the same fashion and with similar motives as his Mesoamerican ancestors thousands of years ago.

To create his ritual masks Guerrero uses a paper pulp of 100 percent cotton, forming the blended fibers to a plaster mold cast from an original clay sculpture. Each is elaborately hand-painted and adorned with found objects: feathers, furs, bones, shells, and gourds.

Young, green-eyed, and vibrant, Guerrero began his art career as a painter and sculptor. At 23 he was artist-in-residence at Stanford University, with a one-man show at the famous Instituto de Bellas Artes, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to his credit.

While visiting Mexico, Guerrero was attracted to the colorful masks used in native ritual dances. His interest grew, and, in 1973, he moved to Tepoztlán, south of Mexico City, where he immersed himself in the myths and legends of the land. He also took up the study of the Nahuatl language (Aztec) so he could speak directly with the Nahua Indian mask makers of Guerrero, Mexico. "... Guerrero masks," says author and maskauthority Donald Cordry, "surpass those of any other state in Mexico... in terms of the... high quality of the work."

authority Donald Cordry, "surpass those of any other state in Mexico... in terms of the... high quality of the work."

The older Nahuas told me their children were not interested in mask-making," El Zarco Guerrero says. "They encouraged me, as a fellow artist, to take up the tradition.

Now, I have assumed the tradition myself."

Today, Guerrero continues making important contributions to the preservation of ritual mask-making as art. The task is a lonely one. It's possible that, here in Arizona, he and the Yaqui Indians alone are keeping this ancient tradition alive.

Author's note: Guerrero's Mascarada (Dance of the Ritual Masks) is performed in early November by the Primavera Dance Company at the annual Day of the Dead Festival at Pioneer Park, Mesa, Arizona. For information, write: The Xicanindio Artistas Coalition, P.O. Box 1242, Mesa, AZ 85201. Telephone: (602) 964-6171.

Christine Keith is a freelance photographer-writer. She also teaches photography at Yavapai College in Prescott.

Arizona's SECRET POCKETS OF LIFE

The Southern Arizona desert is long, brown, and seemingly simple. An eagle-eye view reduces the highs and lows to a grizzled jumble of dark lines and thinly peppered mounds.

There are, of course, seasons that swell the washes and frost the plains with grama grass and wild flowers. And eastward reach vast acreages of perpetual green. Yet, on balance, the land flaunts its stamina and spunk in a sturdy resistance to heat, drought, winds, and dust.

If we're very lucky there's more than a bit of magic to such a land. In Southern Arizona, we are and there is.

Fragmented by time, the desert harbors tenuous pockets of wildlife. Small secrets stowed away in the heartland. Otherworldy niches, beyond the vagaries of millenial change, prosper oasis-like in fault breaks, fractures, and crevices.

There exists more here than the folding of old seabeds. More, too, than the expulsions of ancient volcanoes. There is water. And water makes all the difference.

The isolated mountain chains of the southern desert nudged upward sometime

in the last 12 million years or so. Their drainage into broad alluvial basins spawned matchless slices and slivers in the landscape we define as riparian. What remains of these is a quarter, maybe less, of what we started out with only 100 years ago, says Frank W. Reichenbacher, plant ecologist and wetland specialist with the Arizona Natural Heritage Program.

"These communities shelter a large number of living things that don't exist in other habitats, or occur only sporadically. They're unique in a way that's just beginning to be realized here in the Southwest."

Unique fits Sycamore Canyon. A steep slash in the Pajarito Mountains of lower Santa Cruz County, Sycamore measures close to seven miles - four by air-from the western slopes of that range to the Mexican border and beyond, a few hundred yards. The main source of water, Hank and Yank Spring, spills first out of a west-facing hillside about a third of a mile in from Ruby Road. From there the walls slant to the canyon floor, and the same spring slips out here and there as a permanent surface flow.

I first became enamored of Sycamore Canyon late one autumn afternoon. Live oaks scattered in the grass by the roadside blurred in the failing light. Blackened water pooled under the walls, dramatically offset by a sunlit cottonwood rising from a haze down the creek. The vision of it lingered like a door left slightly ajar. I knew then that I'd go back.

Leslie N. Goodding, first biologist to study the canyon, must have felt an even greater fascination. Goodding devoted 20 years from 1936 into the 1950s - to gathering the plant life of Sycamore and its surroundings. In the process he tacked on a number of new species to the inventories of both Arizona and the United States. The Forest Service created the 540-acre Goodding Research Natural Area in 1970 to encourage similar work.

"On anybody's scale, Sycamore Canyon would have to be considered one of the most interesting small areas in the United States," says Larry Toolin, botanist with the University of Arizona's Paleoenvironmental Laboratory. One of many who have followed the Goodding lead, Toolin knows the canyon equally well. He knows permanent water alone has not made Sycamore all it is.

Physical arrangement is the key. Sycamore rises in the Sonoran Desert uplands, part of a huge mostly low, hot region glutted with creosote bush. From oak-shaded grassland, the canyon snakes through a narrow, cobbled corridor to the mesquite steppes and desert scrub of northern Mexico. There it opens up and drys out, becoming more of a wash than a canyon.

A running line of S curves makes Sycamore favor a variety of living things. Some slopes tilt into the sun; others incline to shade. One may be broad and gentle; another steep and slender. Sycamore offers just the right spot for almost any taste, subtropical to warm temperate.

Until the trail scrambles past a large rock-bound pool a mile or so downstream, hiking is easy. Grasses, seep willow, and sedges crowd around hints of permanent water. Manzanita, catclaw, and blackfurrowed silver-leaf oak are packed into short, deep side canyons. Alder, ash, and sycamore, cottonwood, black walnut, and willow shade the streambed.

Below the pool the canyon tightens, and the going becomes a greater challenge. Tooling and others believe Sycamore may well be the richest place in the country forrare plants and animals. Here, in these down-canyon narrows, lie many of the very rarest. Asplenium exiguum for one. This tiny Sonoran fern is found nowhere in the United States outside of Sycamore Canyon and nearby Garden Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains. It thrives below the border, a fact suggesting something else peculiar about Sycamore: the Mexican Connection. Tributaries of Sycamore Canyon slice the uplands of Mule Ridge, the Atascosa Mountains, and the western slopes of Summit Ridge. But unlike most neighboring desert streams, when there's water to be moved, Sycamore pours it south toward the Gulf of California. As headwaters and only Arizona segment of the Río Magdalena of northern Mexico, the canyon serves as an avenue for wildlife migration into Arizona. The Sonoran chub, for instance, survives even the driest months in a handful of upper pools. Sycamore's only fish species, it is otherwise found only in the basin of the Río Magdalena. Much that is rare in Sycamore is Mexican by nature - the long, thin vine snake, the delicately marked blue-tailed mountain skink, the spotted Tarahumara frog, the handsome five-striped sparrow. But Sycamore's plant life outstrips all. Over 660 species are cataloged. Seventeen, including the Gentry dalea, Mexican lobelia, and ruby bundleflower, are not known to grow in any other American locality. Cataloged and recited, the names tumble over each other - Gentry indigo bush, woolly fleabane, Alamos deer vetch, bigflower blue star, false Indian mallow, nodding blue-eyed grass, common bee bush, whisk fern, silky pony foot.... Month to month, season to season. It wasn't always so. For centuries miners sleuthed for silver and ranchers grasped for grass. Like John (Yank) Bartlett and Henry (Hank) Hewitt, homesteaders on Sycamore's northern entrance in the 1880s, many had a tendency to overdo, especially livestock grazing. Hank and Yank were ex-Army scouts and muleskinners. Only after a near-fatal brush with marauding Indians did they pack up, leaving behind melteddown traces of adobe walls. Sycamore had to stay and tough it out. Even after the Forest Service took over in 1907, grazing continued for half a century or more. The lower canyon, below the pools and the boulders, remained more or less undisturbed. It was the upper sections,

POCKETS OF LIFE

rare plants and animals. Here, in these down-canyon narrows, lie many of the very rarest. Asplenium exiguum for one. This tiny Sonoran fern is found nowhere in the United States outside of Sycamore Canyon and nearby Garden Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains. It thrives below the border, a fact suggesting something else peculiar about Sycamore: the Mexican Connection. Tributaries of Sycamore Canyon slice the uplands of Mule Ridge, the Atascosa Mountains, and the western slopes of Summit Ridge. But unlike most neighboring desert streams, when there's water to be moved, Sycamore pours it south toward the Gulf of California. As headwaters and only Arizona segment of the Río Magdalena of northern Mexico, the canyon serves as an avenue for wildlife migration into Arizona. The Sonoran chub, for instance, survives even the driest months in a handful of upper pools. Sycamore's only fish species, it is otherwise found only in the basin of the Río Magdalena. Much that is rare in Sycamore is Mexican by nature - the long, thin vine snake, the delicately marked blue-tailed mountain skink, the spotted Tarahumara frog, the handsome five-striped sparrow. But Sycamore's plant life outstrips all. Over 660 species are cataloged. Seventeen, including the Gentry dalea, Mexican lobelia, and ruby bundleflower, are not known to grow in any other American locality. Cataloged and recited, the names tumble over each other - Gentry indigo bush, woolly fleabane, Alamos deer vetch, bigflower blue star, false Indian mallow, nodding blue-eyed grass, common bee bush, whisk fern, silky pony foot.... Month to month, season to season. It wasn't always so. For centuries miners sleuthed for silver and ranchers grasped for grass. Like John (Yank) Bartlett and Henry (Hank) Hewitt, homesteaders on Sycamore's northern entrance in the 1880s, many had a tendency to overdo, especially livestock grazing. Hank and Yank were ex-Army scouts and muleskinners. Only after a near-fatal brush with marauding Indians did they pack up, leaving behind melteddown traces of adobe walls. Sycamore had to stay and tough it out. Even after the Forest Service took over in 1907, grazing continued for half a century or more. The lower canyon, below the pools and the boulders, remained more or less undisturbed. It was the upper sections, within a mile of the road, that took the brunt. More recently Sycamore has been blessed. Grazing was discontinued in the 1970s. Plant life is making a remarkable comeback. Sonoita Creek was less lucky. Before 1890 much of the stream glided through a broad, marshy plain of sedges, grasses, and isolated groves of Frémont cottonwood and willow. Most of that has changed. The Papago word sonot, from which Sonoita takes its name, means "place where corn will grow." That probably says it all. Sonoita has been fine farming land for centuries. Through its history march cattle buyers, ranchers, farmers, rustlers, and outlaws. Everyone went to Sonoita. Lower portions, farmed by natives, were included in Tumacacori's mission lands. The San José de Sonoita grant took in much of the upper stream, and the first boundary ofBaca Float Number Three settled over both. During the mid-19th century Sonoita was a favorite Apache war trail. A few AngloAmerican families hung on in the valley to supply groceries to a stubborn string of military camps and forts. Sometime after the Civil War, a second wave of Anglo settlement produced the Chiricahua Cattle Company. The Three Cs Empire Ranch reigned well into the 20th century.

POCKETS OF LIFE

Baca Float Number Three settled over both. During the mid-19th century Sonoita was a favorite Apache war trail. A few AngloAmerican families hung on in the valley to supply groceries to a stubborn string of military camps and forts. Sometime after the Civil War, a second wave of Anglo settlement produced the Chiricahua Cattle Company. The Three Cs Empire Ranch reigned well into the 20th century.

For decades, then, Sonoita was exploited and reshaped. We prize those parts that have a more natural hold on life. The Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary (PSCS) is one of these. Sonoita Creek drains 240 square miles of Southern Arizona. This includes the west slope of the Patagonia Mountains, the east slope of the Santa Ritas, and the southern edge of the prairie-like Sonoita Plains.

A corridor of mesquite, cottonwood, catclaw, hackberry, Goodding and seep willow climbs from the open desert where the dry wash of Sonoita meets the Santa Cruz River. Upstream, in gentler surroundings, oak, velvet ash, and sycamore clutter the stream banks. Hillsides to left and right are dotted with alligator juniper, white oak, mountain mahogany, and mesquite. Tufts of bear grass sprout from a cover of sideoats grama.

Much of the river's water rises in Monkey and Cottonwood springs, just below the town of Sonoita. Most flows underground until slightly above Patagonia. There, a shallow and permanent watercourse slips through the sanctuary. The PSCS, established as a preserve by the Nature Conservancy in 1966, protects 312 acres of prime Sonoita bottomland.

Frémont cottonwoods dominate PSCS. They canopy the river for over a mile, some towering to 100 feet. Foraging cattle damage cottonwoods, but this sweep of trees has grown to probably the finest stand remaining in Arizona, due, in part, to the absence of recent grazing.

"The cottonwood is among the original seed plants evolved shortly after or during the extinction of the dinosaur, 67 million years ago," Frank Reichenbacher says. Those gigantic trees out there in the middle of the desert are the same species found along streams in Minnesota. And very closely related to similar ones in Siberia. They're all over the world, repeating cycles 67 million years old.

One of the things they do best along the Sonoita is attract an extraordinary variety of birdlife - over 200 species. Many, like the gray hawk and the rose-throated becard, belong to populations centered in Mexico.

But before all else come the great trees themselves. I've watched them spanning the creek in autumn like gigantic saffron umbrellas. I've heard summer wind roar overhead with a sound like falling water. They're lime green and wet in spring; graybrown and stark in winter. Forever the same; forever changing. Durable and very special.

Like the South Fork of Cave Creek. A tangle of red and tan lines on the eastern side of the Chiricahua Mountains, the South Fork slices up from the yuccastudded Arizona highlands. With a ninemile cluster of caves, alcoves, overhangs, and pinnacles, the canyon frames the southern edge of Cave Creek Basin.

Porous volcanic rhyolite absorbs water like a sponge in the Chiricahuas. The South Fork is an exception. Water here runs along the surface, though in drier years it too may seep out of sight for lengthy sections.

Thick with walnut, willow, and ash, the gorge of the South Fork cuts from

ARIZONIQUES

Being something of an almanac...a sampler... a calendar...and a guide to places, events, and people unique to Arizona and the Southwest.

IT'S ALL A MATTER OF PRIORITIES

On the night of July 14, 1900, fire destroys half of the prosperous mining and cattle town of Prescott, including the block-long stretch of Montezuma Street known as Whiskey Row. All but two of Prescott's 35 saloons and gaming houses burn to the ground.

The Palace Saloon on Whiskey Row is one of the casualties of the fire, but the Palace's ornate cherry wood bar (which came 'round the horn then overland to Prescott) survives the flames - thanks to a few loyal customers.

As the story goes, several late-night revelers were topping off the evening when the cry "Fire!" was heard. Palace customers carried the bar, backbar, and bottles out of the blazing building, across the street to the courthouse lawn... where naturally they continued to drink.

Prescott recovered from the fire and quickly rebuilt - including the Palace on Whiskey Row. The cherry wood bar was re-installed on the ground floor and today the survivor of the fire of 1900 continues to serve as a centerpiece for historic downtown Prescott.

Fiorello Enrico (Henry) La Guardia, the hugely popular mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945, always considered Prescott, Arizona, his hometown. Although born in Greenwich Village, La Guardia as a boy traveled widely throughout the West with his Army musician father. He always spoke fondly of the six of his boyhood years spent in Prescott.

A FAIR BET

Autumn means State Fair time in Arizona. This year nearly a million people will flock to the fairground at 19th Avenue and McDowell Road in Phoenix, for prize-winning livestock and produce shows, midway rides, and nightly performances by top-name entertainers. See you at the Arizona State Fair, October 26 through November 6.

Where can you find that one-of-a-kind hand-crafted holiday gift and have a great time while you're shopping? In Arizona you have at least two choices this December when Tucson and Tempe hold their annual arts and crafts fairs. Both the Old Town Tempe Festival of the Arts, December 2-4, and Tucson's Fourth Avenue Street Fair, December 9-11, showcase artists and artisans from all over the United States selling handmade pottery, woodworking, custom clothing, candles, stained glass, and more. And while you're perusing the arts and crafts, musicians, clowns, jugglers, and mimes perform free. For more information call: in Tempe (602) 967-4877 and in Tucson (602) 624-5004.

Arizona is the third-largest nesting spot for snowbirds. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Arizona hosted 39,170 "non-permanent residents" in 1980, and only Florida, with 252,554, and California, with 43,056, drew more wintertime visitors.

Above are only a few of the fascinating events scheduled this month in Arizona. For a more complete calendar please write: Arizona Office of Tourism, 3507 North Central Avenue, Department CE, Suite 506, Phoenix, AZ 85012

IN SEARCH OF AUTUMN

This is the time to pack a picnic basket and escape to autumn in Arizona's highlands where the fall color is unequaled. Here are just a few great locations.

A FIESTA TO BOWL YOU OVER!

More than 70,000 fans will roar in Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, January 2, 1984, for an afternoon of howling football excitement at Fiesta Bowl XIII. But the Bowl is more than great college football. For two months prior to the nation's fourth-ranked New Year's bowl game, 33 Southwestern-flavored musical, athletic, and social events stud Arizona's holiday calendar all part of the Fiesta Bowl. Golf and tennis tournaments, judo, karate, wrestling, and swimming championships; a national band pageant; the state's largest marathon; breakfast, lunch, and dinner parties; and a nationally televised parade climax with top gridiron action under sunny desert skies.

For a complete calendar of Fiesta Bowl XIII events and ticket information, write or telephone: Fiesta Bowl, 5144 East Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85018 (602) 952-1280 The world's largest rosebush grows at the corner of Fourth and Toughnut streets in Tombstone, Arizona. The enormous white Banksia rises to a height of eight feet from a trunk 40 inches in circumference and spreads over a trellis 30 by 40 feet. Each spring the plant explodes with over 150,000 snow-white roses.

POCKETS OF LIFE

text continued from page 42 5200 feet through upland stands of pine and sycamore. The trail steepens after only four miles and strikes up through a dry prong to join the Crest Trail at 9000 feet. The South Fork is moist and bright. Fall arrives as rust for sycamore, bronze for oak, and scarlet for sumac and bigtoothed maple. The colors wildly contrast with summer's pea, mint, and grassy greens. Some of the rarest and most beautiful birds in the United States inhabit the South Fork. The fiery orange and black Bullock's oriole, the large blue-throated hummingbird, and the painted redstart, to name a few. Best of all, perhaps, is the elegant (coppery-tailed) trogon. Twenty or so of these large birds nest in the South Fork each summer. Trogon elegans has a back that is glossy green, a geranium-red belly, a bright yellow bill, an orange eye ring, and a long coppery-colored tail. By itself this solitary forest bird, native to the tropics, beautifies and soothes a landscape otherwise often worn to the bone.

And there are other places too. The marshlands of Canelo Hills. The cleft of Rattlesnake Canyon. The narrow Hassayampa gorge. These and other corners of the Arizona desert inherited an intangible and irreplaceable sense of wildness. In a land brown and bent, they provide precious pockets of life like uncut diamonds.

Dianne Ebertt Beeaff is a free-lance writer based in Tucson. Her specialties are Southwest history and environment.

An accomplished wood engraver for 50 years, Boyd Hanna has illustrated a number of books and is, he believes, the only practitioner of color wood engravings in the world. He lives and works in Tucson.

GETTING THERE...

(Left) Water is the key to the miracle of life. And when water flows continuously communities of plants attain a year-round lushness not often seen on the Southern Arizona desert. Jerry Jacka photo 1. SYCAMORE CANYON: To get to Sycamore Canyon drive six miles north from Nogales on Interstate 19 to State Route 289. Follow it 20 miles to the Forest Service sign marking Hank and Yank Spring. The spring, about a third of a mile from the road, is at the head of Sycamore Canyon. The area is within Coronado National Forest. While camping is prohibited in the canyon, you can throw down your bedroll just about anywhere else in the forest. Never, never camp within 300 feet of a waterhole.

2. PATAGONIA-SONOITA CREEK SANCTUARY: The finest section of the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary, approximately 18 miles northeast of Nogales, is owned by the Arizona Nature Conservancy. For information and directions write or call: Arizona Nature Conservancy, 30 North Tucson Boulevard, Tucson, AZ 85716, (602) 327-4478. Or, Preserve Manager, Robin Baxter, P.O. Box 815, Patagonia, AZ 85624, (602) 394-2400 after 5:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.

3. CAVE CREEK: For the easiest fully paved route to the South Fork of Cave Creek take Interstate 10 east across the Arizona-New Mexico border to Roadforks, New Mexico. There, turn south on U.S. Route 80 and drive 28 miles to the turnoff to Portal, Arizona. It's seven miles to Portal, and three more miles to Cave Creek. Forest Service signs will direct you from there. Camping is prohibited in the South Fork, but there are developed campsites nearby. By calling ahead, you may be welcome to stay at simple but comfortable cabins at the American Museum of Natural History's Southwest Research Station, (602) 558-2396.

YOURS SINCERELY Comments and questions from around the state, the nation, and the world.

Dear Editor, Thank you for the replacement copy of the August 1983 issue for the one mangled by the Postal Service. Too bad, the kind mailman folded the replacement in half and damaged it stuffing it also in the mailbox....

Dear Mrs. Griego, Sigh. A third copy is on its way. Everybody, stay tuned.

Dear Editor, But for a very good friend in the U.S.A., making us a gift of your magazines, I don't think we would have realized what a beautiful country Arizona is. The photography is absolutely lovely, and depicts the breathtaking beauty of nature at its finest. Perhaps one day we will be able to come and see for ourselves. Thank you again.

Dear Editor, For the past few years, one of my best friends has been renewing my Arizona subscription, much to my continuing delight! As I write, I am enjoying the sun on glacier-scoured basalt, with a Lake Superior panorama around me. Unbelievably beautiful, but nonetheless, my heart and soul longs for the West you so admirably present in every issue of your magazine. Each month, you fan the flames of my desire to head back to the part of America I love the most. Thank you for keeping alive that light in my heart.

Dear Editor, Enclosed is the front page of my very first issue of your excellent magazine. See what the post office can do!!! (thoroughly mangled.) I would appreciate a front and back cover to replace this damaged frontispiece.

Dear Mr. Meloche, We are sending you a fresh magazine as a complimentary replacement. No problem. We hope. See above.

Dear Editor, Please lose no time in adding me to the list of subscribers to your gorgeous magazine. I have traveled in Arizona, and I have been an ardent admirer of your magazine for many years. I don't know why I have denied myself this pleasure and privilege for so long. I beg of you, don't extend the delay any more than necessary.

Dear Mr. Johnson, Zip!

Dear Editor, When my son Brett was in the second grade in 1969 he was not showing much interest in reading. His teacher suggested we continue sharing books with him even if he only looked at the pictures. One day while in the grocery store Brett spied a Arizona Highways Magazine, which I purchased. We shared many happy hours enjoying it. Brett is the fifth generation native to Arizona from his maternal grandmother's side of the family. He showed interest in learning about places his relatives have lived and talked about to him. He also wanted to learn more about places we had camped as a family. I subscribed to the magazine for him that month and Brett is now a sophomore at Glendale Community College. He still looks forward to each issue. He has gained knowledge and found pleasure in each article which covers every phase of Arizona living. Thank you for the teaching tool you furnished to help a native son on the road to academic achievement.

Dear Editor, Greetings from one of the most beautiful towns of the European continent. Paris, c'est really magnifique. If you once come to Paris you got to visit the Folies Bergére.

Dear Editor, I've had the pleasure of receiving Arizona Highways as a gift subscription for several years from family members who live in Phoenix. I've seen quite a bit from the air, of the desert, Grand Canyon, several canyons, man-made lakes, etc. It is indeed beautiful country.

But now, I want to give some praise to the photographers: Josef Muench, Jack Dykinga, James Tallon, Dick Dietrich, David Muench, Carlos Elmer, Kathleen Norris Cook, J. Peter Mortimer, Jerry Sieve, and many others; their work is exquisite!

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

(Inside back cover) The Orange Tree Golf Club, one of Scottsdale, Arizona's newer 18hole courses, plays host this month (November 14-18) to the National Super Seniors Invitational tournament, featuring 45 of the best U.S. golfers, 50 years of age and over. At Orange Tree, golf in the sun comes complete with all the amenities, including dinner on the patio.

(Back cover) Emo (Alan Prewitt), a professional mime, entertains the shoppers and sightseers at Scottsdale's new Italian village look-alike, The Borgata. J. Peter Mortimer photos