2/14/2012

Living In The Grand Canyon/Copper/Valentine State

The "Copper Chopper", built for the Arizona Centennial.

"Happy Arizona Centennial Day!" is probably not the best thing to say to your wife on Valentine's Day morning.  Just sayin'.

My family moved to Arizona when I was about three years old, around 1955, and -- except for my 3-year stint in the Army -- I've lived here ever since.  So I've seen both the 50-year and now the 100-year anniversary of Arizona's statehood.  It may be simply because I've never known anything better, but I've always thought it's a pretty cool place to live.  (I do admit, though, that sometimes the attitudes and politics of the place lead me to think that -- after "The Valentine State"and "The Grand Canyon State" and "The Copper State" -- a good nickname for the place might be "WhatTheFuckizona".  Evan Mecham?  Really?  Jan Brewer?  Really?)

While I was in the Army, I spent some spare time embroidering the Arizona flag on a denim jacket.  Old-time fans might remember seeing it at some conventions.  I dragged it out of the back of the closet this morning for some photos:


close-up


Some grumpy old guy takes a break
 from chasing kids off the lawn to model the jacket.


The inside.  Back then I didn't know you were supposed to subdivide embroidery skeins
 into smaller, more manageable groups of threads, so the embroidery was done
 with the thread-bundles as they came off the skein. 
Getting that bunch of threads thru a needle was a bitch!


The "Copper Chopper" at the top of the post is something I saw on display during that fill-in shift at Cityscape I did a few months ago, so this is a dandy excuse to post a photo of it.  It was won in a raffle a few days ago by some young woman who's never had or ridden a motorcycle before.  Bikers everywhere are gnashing their bug-spattered teeth in frustration.

No comments: