Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 87

A Diary THE Arizona Republic fizona SUNDAY May 28,2000 SECTION In Arizona, there are 23 national parks, monuments and wildlife preserves; 25 state historical and recreational parks; and 67 natural and manmade lakes. Have a great weekend. ARIZONA DIGEST Author C.E. Poverman ESS- Every week we scan books, magazines, newspapers and 5ti On the magic of water in the desert STATE LINES 3- .4 Each week, a published author with Arizona ties writes an essay for Arizona Diary on some aspect of life in the 48th state. Today, C.

E. Poverman writes about finding being an earthbound observer to his daughter's diving. Ai t1' 9 wAw 3 sk i 1 By C.E. Poverman Special for The Republic In November, a friend of mine from back East came to Tucson for a first visit. Late in the afternoon, we went to pick up my 12-year-old daughter from diving practice at the University of Arizona diving facility.

The desert air was dry and cold, and in the fading light, the heated water threw a cloud of vapor into the chill. To stay warm, the divers hung along the gutter until the last possible moment, then ran onto the 1- or 3-meter boards. A moment of concentration, then the approach, the hurdle, the explosive thud and rattle of the board as it hurled the diver into the air. My friend silently took it in; I noticed that between dives he kept looking up at the tops of the palm trees outside the pool, the 10-meter platform, the enormous sky darkening overhead. As my daughter finished and wrapped herself in a towel, he smiled and opened his hands to the scene.

"This is wonderful. It's another world." We'd grown up together under the occluded, often-white sky of Connecticut. By this time of year, swimming and diving, and in fact, most sports with the exception of football and soccer, had long gone indoors for the next six months. Beyond the bizarre, otherworldly beauty of the scene, beyond being able to dive outdoors in November, I believe that what had most captured him had been the sight of the divers hurtling into the huge Arizona sky. My daughter discovered diving when her brother went 1 to take a free diving lesson at Hillenbrand Pool.

It was love at first sight for her. That was over two years ago. Since then she has, with relentless devotion, been diving two hours a day after school, five, sometimes six days a week, twice a day in summer. She has worked out in the blazing heat of June and July, the freezing days in December and January with snow white on the Catalina Mountains overlooking the city. She has gone to pools all over the state and competed.

Whatever the conditions, she has loved it. I've asked her what she loves most about it, but there seems to be no one thing. Perhaps she showed it best in a picture she made one afternoon. The entire painting is a luminous, watercolor blue; in the background, there are soft white clouds. The IOmeter platform, cement gray, ascends the right border.

Arms flung wide, blond hair standing up as it often does from the whip of centrifugal force, a diver flies overhead into the center. Lost in the blue sky, she is simultaneously rising and falling. She has a big smile on her face. See POVERMAN I Page F3 Photos by Linda Poverman Author C.E. Pover-' man was first the Internet to see what people are saying about Arizona.

We'd be happy to have you, too From a May 23 Seattle Post Intelligencer story on the closing of Jules Maes Saloon, a landmark bar that has been open since 1888: The place is a neighborhood joint during the week. People who work and live nearby have lunch there or a beer after work. On Friday and Saturday nights, the saloon buzzes. The dance floor in back is full. Still, the place is no one's idea of a gold mine.

"It's a non-profit organization without the benefit of an endowment," said the owner, June Espeland, with a laugh. She turns 65 soon. A relief bartender died. Good help has been hard to find. So she has been working 70 or 80 hours a week.

Her legs have had it, she said, and she longs to retire to a woodsy spot in Snohomish County. "All my friends are retired and moved to Arizona. And I'm still working," she said. At least they're reading From a May 21 New York Times Book Review story on bookseller Amazonxom's purchase circles: The purchase-circle lists also neatly reinforce stereotypes. In Sedona, known for its love of all things New Age, they're reading Sanctuary: The Path to Consciousness.

Managers at the United States Postal Service still have a few morale kinks to iron out, as a big seller there is Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed to Do and What to Do About It. And NASA really is filled with geeks reading Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Testing. Yes, but we have a swimming pool, too From a May 23 Detroit News story on how Tigers fans are not filling their new ballpark: Sixteen home games into the season, the Tigers have the lowest average attendance (27,249) to open any of the 12 ballparks built in the last 11 years. The next-lowest 16-game average was 33,397 by the Chicago White Sox at the new Comiskey Park. Six clubs (Toronto at the SkyDome, Baltimore at Camden Yards, Colorado at Coors Field, Arizona at Bank One Ballpark, Seattle at Safeco Field and San Francisco at Pacific Bell Park) averaged more than 40,000 in their first 16 games.

the beauty, the crime, the guacamole From a May 15 New Yorker book review of Michael On-daatje's new book, Anil's Ghost (Ondaatje wrote The English Patient): Anil was born in Sri Lanka but for fifteen years has been away, studying medicine in London and then the United States, learning her forensic anthropology in Oklahoma and Arizona. Fond memories of her American years flicker through her head the gallows humor in the lab, the after-hours bowling and visits to "wild suburban bars and clubs on the outskirts of Tulsa or Norman," the beauty of the desert, her friendships with a woman called Leaf Niedecker and with her lover, a science writer called Cullis Wright. Wright (not quite Mr. Right) is married and, after three years, she has left him; during a motel tryst, he tus-slingly refused to release her until she stabbed him in the arm with a little knife used to cut an avocado. Classified ad of the week: From the May 16 Lake Ha-vasu City News-Herald: PRICED TO SELL! Patio furniture manufacturing business.

Unlimited potential. Inventory, equipment and training. $35,000. Owner may carry. Call (520) 505-2875.

struck by the sight of divers flying into the sky more than 20 years ago. Today, his 12-year-old daughter (above) is intensely involved in the sport, and it would seem, judging from her artwork (left), that she sees the same lyrical, gravity-defying qualities as her father. "You don't have to be a diver to know that this is a place you've been in your dreams," Poverman writes. X. Meet the author C.E.

Poverman, a graduate of Yale University and a Fulbright Scholar, received his master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa. He has written two collections of stories, including Skin, a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and three novels, the most recent being On the Edge. He is at work on a novel. He lives in Tucson with his wife and two children, where he teaches writing at the University of Arizona. i The Arizona Republic Republic file photo Republic file photo 2000 1985 1905 IN CONTINUUM from the state library's bookmobile headquarters.

(And) the capitol faced a asphalt parking lot." The nearly 10-ton U.S.S. Arizona anchor was dedicated in 1976, two years before Bolin's death. For a while, it was a lone monument. By 1985, most of the blight vanished and the Capitol Mall emerged, with the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza as its centerpiece. It covers 10 aren't visible.

Several decades later, the area had become somewhat dilapidated, and state offices were scattered all over the Valley. An article published in Arizona Highways described the area: "Offices huddled near the capitol occupied the remains of a dingy, aging residential one-story structure on 17th Avenue, a tavern separated the liquor control agents' dispatching office east of the state Capitol and is named in memory of the late Wesley Bolin, who served as Arizona secretary of state for nearly 29 years. He also served as governor for four months in 1977 after Gov. Raul Castro's appointment as ambassador to Argentina. In 1905, trees lined both sides of street trolley tracks that paralleled Washington Street.

Spiked-up palm trees acres east of the Capitol. In addition to memorials that honor veterans of each war -from World War I through Desert Storm, the plaza includes the Arizona Peace Of- ficers memorial, the Father Kino statue, the Ten Commandments monument, the Armenian Holocaust memorial, the Arizona Workers memorial and the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. -Batty RflM 3r Wesley Bolin Memorial Park Long before 18 statues, monuments and memorials were erected at Wesley Bolin Memorial Park, vacant land surrounded the new Arizona Capitol. The memorial plaza lies If you've seen something you want to share, e-mail it to Diane.PorterArizonaRepublic.com or send it to 106 E.

Baseline Road, Mesa, AZ 85210. i ortt.