Cowboys Can Be Sentimental Too

SENTIMENTAL, JOO

Of Brooklyn, roping fireplugs with his mother's clothesline. He affected the speech, mannerism, and philosophy of America's own mounted knight. As soon as life allowed, John drove his Model A Ford westward "to enroll in the outdoor universities of New Mexico and Arizona." He became a leading painter and sculptor of the cowboy theme. Tom lost his life in an automobile mishap south of Florence, Arizona, in 1940. A statue of a horse, saddled but riderless, trailing its reins, marks the place. John Hampton is very much alive at his home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their handmade holiday cards reveal yet another trait these two men shared: cowboys are sentimental, too.

May your stack of chips grow taller, May your shooting e'er stay true, May good luck plumb snow you under, Is always my wish for you.

Christmas

Text continued from page 15 globe. You find it goes right through Gila Bend, Arizona. Bethlehem is at the same latitude as Tombstone; Jerusalem the same as El Paso, Texas, Nogales, Arizona-Sonora, and Ensenada, Baja California.

Still, newcomers to the low desert sometimes long for a white Christmas, remembering traditions from northern lands the Christ Child never saw. In cities and small towns Southwestern traditions blend with imported customs to yield new ways of saying Feliz Navidad.

Frosty the Snowman stands on an emerald-green rye lawn before a suburban ranch house silhouetted with luminarias. Frosty is made of three white-painted tumbleweeds stacked one atop the other, his black Styrofoam eyes and red nose peeking out beneath an old top-hat. A saguaro cactus acquires a beard of angel hair and a red felt suit, and suddenly it's Santa Claus. Starry white lights twinkle in the branches of olive trees, and rugged Aleppo pines serve as living Christmas trees hung with colored lights. A turkey roasts on the barbecue in the backyard while the family gathers around the pool.

Pageantry and plays animate the Western Christmas. In New Mexico, medieval mystery plays depicting stories of the shepherds, the Magi, and the Annunciation are performed. Throughout the Southwest, villagers present Los Matachines, (the Butcher's Dance), a polka-like reel alive with Indian symbolism. Singers go caroling in the streets much as their forebears did in northern Europe, and across the land human voices celebrate the blessing the shepherds in the desert heard on that first starlit Christmas night.

And suddenly there is with the angel A multitude of the heavenly host Praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men.

How America Embraced THE GREETING CARD BY MAGGIE WILSON

Seven billion greeting cards for all occasions are mailed annually in the United States. Statistically, that's more than a hundred for each family.

These handy, relatively inexpensive, and effective communications are as all-American as baseball, denims, and apple pie, but we Americans didn't originate them. We adopted greeting cards as accessories to our mobile life-styles.

Until 1920, it was an unusual American who traveled much. Sure, the West was slowly being settled, but we were, essentially, a nation of homebodies. Then came the inexpensive automobile, improved highways, universal education, and greater affluence. In the 1930s and '40s we hit the road in what some claim to be the greatest mass migration in history. Right down U.S. Route 66, and other westering trails.

The Great Depression accelerated our displacement. Fathers were forced to scout ahead for employment. And sometimes whole families pulled up stakes to go where the jobs were. Or weren't.

World War II sent millions of us overseas. Rosie the Debutante of Duluth became Rosie the Riveter in a war plant at San Diego, California. The old homestead and friends we grew up with, suddenly were far, far away. Result: keeping in touch became a national imperative, and the sentimental, endearing, touching, whimsical greeting card came into its own, a perfect substitute for personal contact. Particularly at Christmas time.

By the 1980s card manufacturers pinpointed their best customers: 29-year-old women who select 20 cards with just-right illustrations and messages each month: cards for birthdays, new babies, Valentine's Day, condolences, improved health, and some for no occasion at all such as: "Hi, guy" and friendship greetings. Rhyming verses (Roses-are-red-violets-areblue, etc.) have given way to direct simple statements like "Love ya lots."

Some modern messages address issues we simply didn't talk about 20 years ago-intimate thoughts and feelings too difficult to express in our own words. One best-selling modern card carries the simple, but all-inclusive message, "Thank you for last night." It, like most American greeting cards, passed review by its publisher's "biddy committee" of women volunteers. Such Americanisms not withstanding, greeting cards originated long ago and far away - as long ago as the sixth century B.C. and as far away as Egypt. Perhaps earlier in China. The first greetings were New Year's messages scribbled on clay tablets or papyrus scrolls, warm-hearted and elaborate salutations for a happy and prosperous year ahead.

The early Romans traditionally exchanged gifts and messages at the year's beginning. Gifts of olive branches symbolized peace; gold, prosperity; lamps, a bright future. Popular, too, were "lucky pennies" of copper with the two-faced likeness of the god Janus. One face looked back, one forward - past and future, endings and beginnings. Also from ancient