The ABCs of Arizona

A is, of course, for Arizona, an “arid zone” of airports and arachnids. A is for all my adolescence, acne faced boys at AMC theaters, acres and acres of ATV rides, and air conditioned August afternoons.

B is for backflips and cannonballs and dives, for blistered feet and burned-pink bums, beach towels and backyard barbecues and aloe balms to beat the heat.

C is for cactus, coyotes and copper mines, for creosote and citrus orchards and cotton fields, cowboys and cattle farms, and the grandest Canyon of them all.

D is for the desert, dusty and dry but dynamically death defying, and for my Dad, driving down dirt roads and digging up rocks.

E is for enigmas, for esoteric elements and extraterrestrial encounters and eerie events.

F is for our flag, one bright gold star on a deep blue background, striped through like a sunset, cut-and-paste construction paper on a classroom wall.

G is for Gila Monsters, the gentle giants of Arizona’s reptilian world, for gold veins and golden sunsets, for Gabby Giffords and Grand Canyon State generosity and greatness.

H is for heat; fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk heat; oven-mitts-in-your-car heat; record breaking, warmer than the Devil’s underpants, heady, sweaty, heat.

I is for the interstates, from I-9 to I-40, blacktop arteries connecting Arizonans to each other, long drives and trucker horns and antelope sightings.

J is for justice and her justices, for Sandra Day O'Connor and Lorna E. Lockwood, for Jessie Gray Bevan and Jean Maddock Clark.

K is for kids playing kickball on sun-faded grass, for kisses stolen under the waterslide, for KOOL FM and Kerri Strug.

L is for long summer days spent laying out, for laid back style, for lazy rivers and lizards and locusts.

M is for mesas and mountains, monuments of stone, massive megaliths, from McDowell Mountain to the Mogollon Rim, and the monsoons that drench them all when the summer heat breaks.

N is for our neighbor, Mexico; for Nogales, for Naco vs. Naco volleyball and No Más Muertes.

O is for obsidian, for opaque blades and opalescent carvings, for overflowing truck beds on rock collecting trips and oak cabinets displaying the most outstanding specimens.

P is for poolside popsicles and picnics under the palo verde, for prickly pear candies, peas still frozen and pineapples in packs of ice.

Q is for quail, their quivering lines of babies following quick-skittering mamas and quill-headed papas.

R is for ranchers, for riding horseback over rocky trails, for rodeo grounds and river rafting and railroad robbers.

S is for Saguaro cacti and the Sonoran Desert where they make their home, for scorpions and snakes and sagebrush and for the stewardship of the lands we have been entrusted.

T is for the tastes of the southwest: Tucson's terrific taquerías, tepin chile peppers, tacos and tamales, tortas and tortillas with Tajin on top.

U is for underground, for winding mine shafts and dripping caves, undulating sandstone stripes and unearthed fossils.

V is for vision-blurring vistas and visitors on vacation to vintage villas.

W is for Walapai, for winter snows and winding mountain roads, for Wyatt Earp and the Wild West, woven through our history and whispering into the present.

X is for Saint Francis Xavier, for adobe missions and altarias, tall candles and wooden rosaries and stained glass chapels.

Y is for Yuma, and Yarnell and Yavapai, for local words and ancient tongues, for yellow wildflowers and yucca cactus.

Z is for our one-of-a-kind, only-state-with-the-letter-Z, last-of-the-lower-48-to-join, Zia-records-founding, half-a-dozen-different-bio-zones zaniness.