THE M A G A Z I N E - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

HIS month I am glad to report that the long debate over
Southern California's Anza desert park project finally
ended in a victory for the sponsors of the park. This
means that there will be established along the western rim of
the Colorado desert a public playground of nearly a half million
acres—belonging to you and me.
During the various hearings much was said about the fertile
farm lands and rich mines in this area. But I wouldn't advise you
to waste time looking for them. The prospectors and homeseekers
have been combing that region for a hundred years and
with the exception of a few small tracts, never found enough
water or mineral to file on.
But there is wealth there—the kind of values prized by men
and women who find spiritual wealth in close contact with Nature,
and whose lives are enriched by hours spent in tramping
the remote desert canyons in quest of rare plant and animal life
—or just getting acquainted with themselves.
* •* *
Thanks to Barry Goldwater of Phoenix for a desert photograph
which would win first place in any exhibit in which I
was a judge.
The picture is a close-up of two Saguaro blossoms on the
same trunk, with a third in the bud. It is a beautiful print of one
of the most exquisite subjects on the desert. Such artistic photography
does not come without effort. Barry wrote: "Have
just returned from a long vigil on the desert getting a portrait
of Saguaro blossoms. I sat up all night for three successive
nights to photograph the opening of the blossoms in motion
pictures, taking one frame every 12 seconds. I learned a lot
about the way these flowers bloom."
* * *
If the headlines of war abroad and disorder at home cause you
to wonder sometimes if the whole human race is going to the
bow-wows, here is a paragraph from Marshal South that may
help bolster up your faith. Marshal writes:
"It is a good thing that the Great Spirit in His infinite
wisdom sees fit every once in a while to drastically upset
the order of things. Else there would be no development
of mind or soul or initiative. Just a ghastly lock-step—
everything growing more and more crystallized and
stereotyped and patterned until the whole universe mummified.
After all, it is disaster and upheaval that are the
stuff from which real progress is built."
* * *
During August the desert people will present three programs
worth traveling many miles to see—the Hopi snake dances, the
Gallup inter-tribal ceremonials, and the Smoki dances at Prescott.
If you ask me which is the most interesting, I will answer that
it depends on your taste for entertainment.
The Hopi rain prayer is not a show. It is an impressive ritual,
given by people who are following the ancient religious customs
of their tribe. There are few seats, you may get caught
in rain, and there will be snakes crawling on the ground not far
een Ifou an
By RANDALL HENDERSON
from your feet—unless you pay a dollar for standing room on a
housetop. But for all that, you'll be glad you saw these dances.
There is nothing like them in America.
The Smoki people at Prescott present a beautiful and impressive
pageant in a stage setting that will make you thrill with enjoyment.
They are not real Indians, but they present a show that
in my opinion surpasses anything ever produced in Hollywood.
At Gallup you will rub shoulders with Indians from all over
the Southwest—thousands of them. They dance for the fun of
it—but the Indian is a good actor, the tom-toms will give you a
thrill, and the ceremonials are presented in a stage setting much
more colorful than on the reservation.
My suggestion is that sooner or later you should see all three
of these annual programs.
* * *
Harlow Jones of Twentynine Palms told me recently of a
new palm oasis—a small group of native Washingtonias in the
Little San Bernardino mountains that has never appeared on
any map. His information came from an old prospector, and
appeared to be authentic.
Harlow and I have a date to go looking for the palms as soon
as the weather cools. If we find them, Desert Magazine readers
will have the story with pictures. If the palms are not there—
then we will have had the fun of exploring the canyons in an
area that is new to both of us.
# * *
Recently the Metropolitan water district of Southern California
opened the valves at the end of the new 242-mile aqueduct,
and coastal residents for the first time began drinking
Colorado river water.
Some of them said it was okay. Others turned up their noses.
According to a L. A. Times reporter the various opinions
summed up as follows: "It tastes like bicarbonate of soda, rain
water, spring water, dish water, sulphur water, fine water, impossible."
Now I am not trying to pick a quarrel with anyone, but I want
to protest against that "dish water" classification. I've been
drinking Colorado river water several times a day for 30 years,
and I will offer expert testimony that there ain't no better water
nowhere.
During my first winter on the desert I drank it straight from
the river, without all the processing of a municipal filtration
plant. In those days it was described by the old-timers as "too
thick to drink and too thin to plow." But we drank it, silt and
all, and if there were any ill effects they haven't become apparent
yet.
Colorado river water is distilled from the snows of the
Rocky mountains, aerated and cleansed in its plunge through
the great gorge of the Colorado, filtered by the sands of the
desert and purified by the violet-rays of a desert sun.
Any person who couldn't be satisfied with that kind of
water is in no condition to be drinking water. He should go
down to the corner drugstore and get a bromo-seltzer.
46 THE DESERT MAGAZINE