During the time the people of the Arizona Territory were pushing for statehood, some congressmen in Washington were calling Arizona worthless. After a long struggle statehood was granted in 1912. At that time there were only 14,000 residents in Phoenix, the town which would grow to be the state capital.

This "worthless" state is now filling up like a theater on opening night. It is a vacation destination for hundreds of thousands of people each year. They are learning what we natives have known all along -- hot or not, Arizona is beautiful. From Four Corners, the spot where one can touch four states at once to the famous red rocks of Sedona. From the Grand Canyon to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument with its more than 500 species of cactus, From the forbidding deserts to the lush pine covered Mogollon Rim and Zane Grey country, Arizona is beautiful. Even in 1990 when the news flashed across the country that Phoenix hit 120 degrees, and the next day hit 122 degrees, travelers still came.

Why? Because there is an equalizer -- air conditioning! Air conditioning, or A/C as it is commonly referred to, makes living in the Arizona desert comfortable. Folks go from their air-conditioned houses to their air-conditioned cars and drive to air-conditioned offices, schools, and shopping malls, On days off there is swimming. Many homes sport backyard swimming pools, and most communities have a public pool. It wasn't always so. Years ago, folks relied on evaporative coolers, commonly called swamp coolers, which cool air by forcing it through large pads soaked with water. Before swamp coolers, or if you did not have electricity in your home, you hung wet sheets in windows and doorways hoping for a little breeze. Often, we slept outside at night, again hoping for that elusive breeze. During the days before pools were common, young folks swam in the irrigation canals, and on farms and ranches they cooled off in stock watering tanks or ponds. If you were lucky, Mom would let you go to a Saturday movie. In the darkened theater the story unfolding on the screen, the popcorn and soda, and the air conditioning helped you forget for a few hours that it was 115 degrees outside.

We had a swamp cooler on the roof of our little house on the desert. Water from the cooler dripped into a pan on the ground at the North side of the house so it was shaded in the heat of the day. It wasn't really cool, but it was fresh and the animals could be found there on hot afternoons. We iii always had an assortment of dogs and cats, and at night the occasional ground squirrels and other little desert animals. The ground around the pan was always damp so a little desert grass grew there. It made a nice spot for a dog on a hot day. Daddy was an amateur radio operator, a 'ham' as they call themselves, and built a little ham shack in the back yard to house his radio equipment. This little building had an extended roof on the side facing our house, and this shady area was where we kids played. On one end of the little building was a swamp cooler which dripped water into a pan. A few feet away from the pan a desert shrub sprang up and grew to about eight feet tall, Between the building and this bush, the damp area around the pan was always shaded making it very cool, The animals shifted their resting spot to this area and soon after, Daddy placed a circulating pump on the large cooler on the house.

We managed. In fact, we thrived. And most of us wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Since 1945 more than five million people have moved to Arizona to join us.