Thrills
After six-years void, hearing from Hellin Heskela in Finland… Receiving a long distance phone call from Edna Hill in London…. Being asked by the National Geographic Magazine to do an article on the Arizona Sheep Trail… Studying the moon, and the distant views from our hill, with our new 42-power telescope… Attending the Sunday evening summer “Symphonies Under the Stars” in Hollywood Bowl… And (right now) after a long lecture trip, just staying home evenings—the three of us—playing games on the floor in front of the fireplace while it rains outside….
And if all goes well we shall end off the year with an airplane trip north to visit Karl Robinson and his family, returning just in time for the Pasadena Rose Parade on New Years.
Names In Our Guest Book
Ernest Thompson Seton: he visited us this summer and planted a tree in our memorial group at the Eagle Rock (a film of this event is in our archives). At 86 he was vigorous and looking ahead to new work. This grand old man passed away in October.
Mr. and Mrs. Burton Holmes: We have benefited much from knowing these two fine persons of the lecture world. They also live on a hilltop—over Hollywood way. Everyone knows what a great trouper Mr. Holmes is, but it should also be told that Mrs. Holmes is just as gracious and filled with the same zest for living.
Mr. and Mrs. James Pond: He is editor of Program magazine and a booster for Florida. California treated him to rain and fog throughout his stay.
Many lecture friends have made our Eagle Rock a rendezvous this year: Walter and Aloha Baker (the world’s most traveled woman); Karl Robinson (on his way to China and also after returning); the Mark Hass’s of Detroit World Adventure Series; the Wendell Chapman’s who filmed nature subjects; Bruce Thomas heading for the Bikini bomb tests; Clifford Kamen, Winifred Walker, and others.
Maynard Dixon
The sixth annual Chaffey Art Show—which we directed—was dedicated to Maynard Dixon, the “old master” of western art. It is Dixon’s cabin that we have been occupying up in Utah; we saw him for the last time on a trip we made to Tucson, Arizona last spring. Ten days after the close of this art exhibit dedicated to him Maynard Dixon passed away. He was probably the greatest painter in and of the west; he had lived in the shadow of the mountains and within sight of deserts nearly all his life. And his was a great personality, refreshing, unforgettable. This year we are giving up direction of the Chaffey Art Show and we are glad that this last exhibit, which we assembled, was dedicated to Maynard. Here was the message, written by himself, which came after his passing:
“At last I shall give myself to the desert again, that I, in its golden dust, may be blown from a barren peak broadcast over the Sunland’s. If you should desire news of me, go ask the little horned toad whose home is the dust, or seek it among the fragrant sage, of question the mountain juniper, and, by their silence, they will truly inform you.”
Neighbors
Several California friends shared the Dixon cabin in Utah with us this summer, Mr. and Mrs. Richardson (she was Adrienne’s 4th grade teacher); Ejnar Hansen’s, artists (he did some fine canvasses in Utah); and Ursula and Jan de Swart. He is a plastic sculptor and is also working on some exciting new inventions in plastic.
A new book by our close neighbors and friends, Mary and Conrad Buff, is new on the stands: “Big Tree”. It is written by Mary and illustrated by Conrad. Their book on Utah, which they did when we were with them up there a year ago, will be the next one off the press. So many of us from here have been in Utah lately that we have an annual Utah picnic.
After thirteen years of issuing these annual “Letters from the Lines” we were considering suspending publication, feeling that they might become a bore. Then, in November, I visited 79 year-old Mrs. Fishbeck in Michigan. She lives alone in a large house. Mr. Fishbeck is gone, and so are many of her other old-time friends. Mrs. Fishbeck went to a box in her living room and from it brought out back copies of all these letters—the whole 13 if I recall correctly.
If they mean something to Mrs. Fishbeck, and those like her, that is excuse enough to continue. And the rest of you-who are younger—will have to suffer.
So here is our thirteenth annual letter. And with it come our wishes for a lucky—and a sincerely happy year for all of you everywhere.
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