This day, February 14th, in 1912 the Arizona Territory became the State of Arizona. It was one of the last states to join the union, and in some ways, not much has changed. In other ways, a lot has changed.
In many respects, this is still the wild west. Although people no longer use horses as their primary mode of transportation, there are more visible horse owners here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
This is the only place I have ever seen somebody packing a pistol on the golf course. (The fellow said he would have better luck hitting the ball with the pistol than with his clubs.)
A lot of lawlessness still persists, though much of it is coming from south of the border these days.
The Grand Canyon is still the crown jewel of the United States National Park System.
Some things have changed a lot. Arizona has more major league baseball innings than any state except perhaps Florida.
Four major sports are played in the Phoenix metro area. The Cardinals went to the Superbowl and the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in the World Series. We’re still waiting on a Stanley Cup, assuming we can keep our team, and an NBA championship. Judging by the Suns play, we have a long wait for that one.
Phoenix is the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area in the country. (It keeps changing place with Pittsburgh.)
Right now, Arizona has a lot of problems. The area is one of the worst hit in this Great Recession, and is struggling to get back in shape. The state government is run bu extreme right-wing nut cases. It’s so right wing that I quit the GOP and declared myself independent in 2010. We have violent border crime. We have an egomaniac and possibly corrupt sheriff. We have wild west freeways. We have a bill in the legislature to punish teachers who say a 4-letter word in class and another to allow concealed firearms on college campuses.
We have a lot of great things and great people too. We have Kurt Warner. We have Alice Cooper, who is a great citizen and philanthropist. We have Stephanie Meyer and Diana Gabaldon and Michael A. Stackpole and Alan Dean Foster. We have saguaro cacti. We have 70-degree weather forecast this week, and a chance of rain predicted today. We have the Phoenix Open. we have the freaking GRAND CANYON.
Happy Centennial, Arizona. Let’s try to make this a better place to live as we embark upon our second hundred years.