On May 19, 1969, while shivering in my front yard in Jamestown, North Dakota, with a shovel in my hand, a well-rehearsed litany of curses emerged from my frosted lips as I set about removing a small portion of the foot of snow that had plopped down upon us the previous evening. But then, as I swore and shoveled and shoveled and swore in rhythmic fashion, a strange calm came upon me with the realization that life is too short.
Another Arizona character who delighted locals and visitors alike was John Hance. In the old days they used to say that anyone who visited the Grand Canyon and didn’t meet Captain John Hance had missed half the show. For some 20 years, Cap Hance provided lying and lodging for the tourists. His brand of humor was a windy nature. The dudes never knew just how much of Cap’s stories to believe, for he always led them down the paths of plausibility…
Looking down into the Grand Canyon has always been a test for those vertigo because it’s thousands of feet from the top to the bottom.
And now, in what would appear to be an attempt to make it even scarier, the Hualapai Indians have the Skywalk, a glass-bottomed walkway that allows those with a high queasiness quotient to view the Canyon from 4,000 feet while they’re jutting out over the sheer drop into the thin air that surrounds the gorge.
It’s pretty safe to say that a large amount of residents consider Arizona the “Grand Canyon State.”
State nicknames like this are commonplace around the nation, and many of us thought the massive hole that juts through the northern part of our state supposedly gave us our moniker. Yet it turns out, this isn’t our official nickname, and a crafty little girl from California brought it to light.
