Q: Why are there no tall buildings around here?
A: No tall bildins? Golleee, mister, why this here newspaper bildin its own self is 10 whole stories tall. Why, that’s taller than two silos!
Sorry, we couldn’t resist slipping into our world-famous Gomer Pyle imitation.
Why are there no tall buildings around here?
Located at the heart of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve and Dreamy Draw Recreation Area, Piestewa Peak serves as a prominent landmark along State Route 51, just minutes northeast of downtown Phoenix. The summit of this 2,608-foot peak offers 360-degree views of the Valley.
Piestewa Peak is about 14 million years old, relatively young in geologic terms. It’s primarily composed of a metamorphic rock called schist.
Now encased by cityscape and a smattering of lavish homes, the area surrounding Piestewa Peak was once a center for mining and grazing around Phoenix. The city took possession in 1959, and it later became a local hub for day hiking and recreation.
The summit trail is one of the most popular hikes in all of Arizona – and even the nation. According to the City of Phoenix, the trail receives 4,000 to 10,000 hikers per week.
Q: We thought we left cockroaches behind in Chicago. Instead, we find they’re huge out here. My wife is completely freaked.
A: Oh, yeah, and you’re not freaked? Perhaps no crawly thing, aside from the Legislature, invokes more horror and disgust than a big old sewer roach skittering around your bathtub or grazing on a box of saltines in the cupboard. Or coming at you across the sheets.
Roaches. We hate ’em. God probably had some good reason when he created them, but it’s a mystery to mortals.
Perhaps it was to keep us humble. Scientists have said their survivability is such that, in the event of a nuclear holocaust, roaches would dominate the charred new world. This raises an interesting question:
If we wiped out our world with nuclear bombs and only roaches survived and evolved, would there be, in a gazillion or so years, a roach Jerry Springer Show?
Anyway, we’re infested with three kinds here in the Valley and, reflecting our diversity, they are the German roach, the Turkestan roach and the good old American roach.
If there’s any doubt that Max’s Sports Bar and Restaurant is actually a sports bar, the suspicions are allayed immediately after entering the establishment and meeting the Jocko Bird.
It is a fierce-looking creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a beer-bellied athlete who wears football, baseball, golf, hockey, bowling, basketball and lacrosse gear while standing guard at the front door. The late Max Beyer, original owner of the place, created the “bird” in the 1970s to serve as a mascot for the sports fans who gathered there.
Q: What are the canals for, and how do they work?
A: Bibbity, bobbity boo. Next question, please.
Oh, all right, we’ll tell you: Farms and gravity.
Really.
The miles and miles of canals maintained by the Salt River Project were put there to bring water to thirsty acres of alfalfa, cotton, citrus and dates. Although there are a few pumping stations along the way, nearly all the system operates on the principle that water flows downhill.
That’s what worked for the Hohokam, who dug the first canals about 1,300 years ago to water their corn, beans and squash.
The ancient ones had quite a little civilization going—check out the Pueblo Grande Museum in east Phoenix — before they vanished about 500 years ago, probably chased off by a long drought. By the time the Europeans arrived, the desert had reclaimed the Hohokams’ 135 miles of canals.
In 1867, Jack Swilling, a former Confederate soldier living in Wickenburg, realized what those lines in the sand meant. He formed the Swilling Irrigation Canal Co. and dredged out one of the canals. A
meager harvest resulted and—voila!—agriculture was reborn in the Valley, and Phoenix had a reason for being.
The subsequent flood of farmers expanded and improved the canal system, but they lacked what the Hohokam had lacked: a way to tame the Salt, which actually had water in it in those days. The problem
was, it either had too much water or not enough.
