humor

Yuma's Sizzling

The screws of August tighten. I don't know how much more of this I can take, the blasting heat, the languid air. Even the tinkling of Grandma's wind chimes, a pretty song in April, is turning my nerves to barbed wire. I've got to get to the beach. I'm going to Yuma.

A few days later, I'm standing on the bank of the Colorado River in the far southwest corner of Arizona, in actual sand, on an actual beach, in honest-to-goodness Yuma, when something comes over me.

I start walking, eyes fixed on the sparkling water, shedding possessions as I go. Wallet. Cell phone. Keys. Others on the beach eye me, thinking, "Holy catfish! This nut-log's going the distance!"

It never entered my mind until I spotted the water, but then it was beyond my control. I'm wearing Levi's, a stylish jersey from the executive collection at Target, and Dock-siders, and without a hitch in my stride, I walk fully clothed into the Colorado and plop down up to my neck.

As soon as my flesh hits the water, the river emits a sizzle, like a beef kebab over at the Hungry Hunter Restaurant, only it's writer kebab, and a puff of actual steam billows over my head. When the fever breaks, I hurry back to my beach towel and cell phone, and call my friend Paul."

"You're where!?" he asks. "But it's summer! Yuma in the summer is a four-letter word!"

"No way, man, I'm shivering here. I'm gonna track this heat legend down."

"Legend? Yuma's the hottest place on Earth. Everybody knows that. It's historical fact."

Paul knows everything about Arizona. Mention a subject, and he's got a file on it. I hear his computer keys clicking over the line, and pretty soon he's reading a blurb from the Arizona Sentinel, 1872: "[Yuma is] so hot in summertime that wings melt off mosquitoes, the Indians cover themselves in mud, the Mexicans crawl into their little huts, and the Americans stand in the river half the day and keep drunk the rest of the time to avoid death by melting."

Paul pauses. "Hmmm. I guess half your work's done."

But I have my own favorite clip. I've got it stashed right here in my beach bag, next to my tube of Coppertone and my Caribbean Petite cigars.

It's from the May 24, 1911, issue of the Yuma Examiner. Seems the day before, the weather bureau out of Washington, D.C., named Yuma America's hottest city at 102° F. The story was telegraphed around the country, causing the Examiner's editor to pitch a front-page fit.

He lambasted the bureau, calling it the "rottenest of all government departments," and he proposed raising $5,000 to lobby Congress to shut it down. "It's enough to make the average citizen of intelligence sick," the paper thundered.

Even with river water in my ears, I'm cracking up reading this. Then there's the one about the Yuman who died and went to hell, and the next day sent back for his blankets.

The legend runs wide, deep, and right up to modern times. In 1983, when the producers of the Star Wars trilogy wanted

Summers

a blazing, desolate, sand-ridden inferno in which to blow up Jabba the Hutt's battle cruiser in Return of the Jedi, they knew just where to go: the dunes outside Yuma. Trouble is, just like I told Paul, it's bunk. Down here at the bottom of my bag, right next to my thermos of pink margaritas and the latest bodice ripper from novelist Danielle Steel, I've got some statistics from Arizona Public Service, the utility company. Let the record show, finally and forever: Phoenix is hotter in the summer than Yuma. By a little less than two degrees. (During a 10-year period, the mean summer temperature at the Phoenix airport was 90.4°; at Yuma's airport it was 88.2.) Butch Opsahl, president of the Yuma Chamber of Commerce, says even Lake Havasu is hotter. "But they were smart enough to put a lake in front of their name, so nobody paysattention," he sniffs. "I think we should change our name to Lake Yuma. And from now on when someone calls the chamber, we're giving the indoor temperature only." It is understandable that Yumans get a bit defensive, hearing their beloved burg trashed so often. Another common libel is that it's the end of the Earth, a cluster of shacks surrounded by three weeks of desert. Bob Werley, retired from the Yuma Daily Sun after 46 years as a reporter and editor, says, "We're not the end of the Earth. But you can see it from here." Nothing makes a desert summer longer than not being able to laugh about it, and Yumans have become experts at that. Some years back, in need of a photoThey Say the Heat's So Intense You Have to Go to Prison to Cool Off, but That's Just Part of the Legend

Werley took a stainless steel reflective plate used by the Sun to dry photographs and give them a glossy look.

He leaned the plate against a palm tree across the street from Crescent Center, which, at six stories, was then Yuma's tallest building. By twisting the plate, the image distorted and gave the impression the building was melting.

Werley's clever artwork went out over the wire. It was 120° that day. Some writers will do anything for a story, I think, as I scoop another fistful of sand from my drawers.

But the exertion saps my strength. Ah, the heck with it. I think I'll have another cool drink.

Right now I'm watching a guy and his best girl in a paddleboat out on the river as I read my copy of The Complete Book of Yuma Heat, a collection of stories, jokes, and practical tips put together by the Daily Sun staff.

Keep your perfume in the fridge, they say. It'll give you a burst of coolness when you dab it on. When you rest, place cucumber slices on your eyes. The sensation will cool you off all over. And in case you were wondering: Yes, you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, but the hood of your car works better.

If tremendous heat doesn't result in delirium, it seems to produce a certain wisdom. Bill Moody, a real estate appraiser who grew up in Yuma, follows a basic summertime edict: "Never make life decisions in July and August. When you get that gritty feeling on the back of your neck, it can affect your judgment. Wait a few months."

Another Moodyism: "Don't hide from the heat. That's the worst thing you can do.

You'll get cabin fever."

The signs? If you see a guy with cucumber rings on his eyes, his pants on backward, and all he can talk about is watching reruns of "Mannix" on cable, you're looking at cabin fever.

But what about hearing waves lapping at the shoreline? I'm enjoying that sooth-ing sound right now, and I'm still halfway rational.

The beach I'm sitting on was built by the City of Yuma and opened in the summer of 1995. The site used to be a jungle of weeds, but the City cleaned it up, trucked in a few tons of sand, and now it's the hottest attraction in town among locals.

Tourists haven't discovered it yet, but they will. The theory is, if you can't knock down the legend, market it. Sell the heat.

Believe it or not, in small ways, it works.

Twenty-three percent of the town's annual retail sales comes in June, July, and August and a portion of that is tourism.

A common sight in Yuma these days is a bus pulling up at curbside in old downtown, late August, eggs snapping and popping all over the sidewalk, and out pour German and French tourists.

They've seen Glenn Ford in the classic 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, read Louis L'Amour's Last Stand at Papago Wells, and they're ready to slap leather.

"These Europeans honestly believe there are still cowboys and Indians the only establishment in America where the wall hangings include paintings of topless women next to portraits of Gandhi.

Another downtown draw is the Territorial Prison. They called it a hellhole in Arizona's frontier days, but today it's the best way to break Yuma fever. Try this test: Sit in one of those tiny block cells, and imagine what it must've been like there in the depths of August, five other guys with no fashion sense and bad attitudes lying on steel bunks around you.

You'll feel so much cooler when you leave. It's like a burst of air-conditioning without the bill.

The prison attracts a hundred visitors a day in summer, and judging by the departing com-ments scribbled onto the guest register, the heat brings out the humor in them, too, just like ments scribbled onto the guest register, the heat brings out the humor in them, too, just like

Samples:

"I prefer Holiday Inn."

"More fun than marriage."

And in a child's scrawl: "My dad wants me to stay per-manently."

The best part of my informal summer tour is that you can brag about it to your friends. You survived Yuma in August. Think of the stories you can tell.

Speaking of which, I dial up my buddy Paul again. "Can you Fed-Ex me some more Coppertone?"

"Are you hallucinating yet?"

"Don't be ridiculous. It's only 107°. Hey, there goes Amelia Earhart."

"I've been doing more research," Paul says. "I've got another story for you."

An easterner is traveling on a cool Pullman car through Yuma. He's heard tales of the blistering summer temperatures and asks the porter, "How can you tell if it's hot outside?"

The porter grins. "Mister," he says, "if you look out the window and see a coyote chasing a jackrabbit and they're both walking, it's a hot day!"

As for my sudden dip into the Colorado, I have a confession to make. The part about my body actually sizzling and tossing off a cloud of steam didn't really happen. I made that up to show how those darn legends get started.

Author's Note: To inquire about Yuma's attractions, and to find out the day's temper-ature, call the chamber of commerce, (520) 782-2567.

"Here," says County Assessor Joe Wehrle, an-

other Yuma native. "They're disappointed

when they find out we use silverware."

They could come in winter, when the population swells with the addition of 80,000 snowbirds, the town's two ballets are up and running, the community orchestra is in full roar, the two Indian casinos are jammed, and the two colleges are offering a full load of classes.

But they prefer that searing Glenn Ford bad-guy heat. "The Germans and French

are comfortable as can be here in the summer,

mer," says the chamber's Opsahl.

They shop in the specialty stores in Yuma's revitalized downtown mall, a strip that was

practically vacant 10 years ago. Fifty shops

have opened there in the past few years, and more are starting every month.

Then they visit Yuma Crossing State Historic Park, the site of Yuma's original Army post and the point where travelers ferried across the river to California. The site includes an extensive visitors center, a refurbished quartermaster's depot and horse corral, as well as cottonwood, paloverde, mesquite, and eucalyptus trees dotting a picnic area of actual grass.

Lunch is at Lute's Casino, a landmark bar, pool hall, and restaurant, and probably