EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is excerpted from the November 1952 issue of Arizona Highways. We wish you and yours a lovely holiday.
November is one of the most pleasant months of the year. The warmish days of Indian summer have passed, leaving a delightful interim between fall and winter. In the higher altitudes the good, rich soil has produced good, rich crops; so the soil is allowed to rest until warming days of spring. The days grow shorter and shorter, welcoming the longer evenings of hearth and home. There is a chill in the morning and evening air, reminder of colder days to come.
This is the month of Thanksgiving, one of the happier holidays. All the roads lead to home, when family and friends gather to renew the ties of love and devotion. Thanksgiving is traditionally an American holiday, observed since the very founding of our Nation. The Pilgrim Fathers were humble and thankful before God, who smiled on their efforts to wrest a living from the harsh New England hills. Today, we are thankful, too, for the favors of Divine Providence, who continues to smile on our efforts to build a happy and prosperous America, and we are no less humble before the largess of the land and the gifts bestowed upon us.
Thanksgiving is essentially a family holiday, when we glory in that institution that is the structure upon which our American Democracy is built. In a world full of discordance, of dissonant political philosophies, the American home is a citadel of serenity, a fortress and a haven for the dignity of the human being.
Millions of Americans will gather in millions of homes to observe the Thanksgiving holiday this month of November. The happiness to be found in those homes, the sense of comfort and well-being and reverence and affection that warms those homes and the people in them, best portray the greatness of America, for which we should all be thankful.
— Raymond Carlson, Editor