Wallenda’s Wire Walk

By Annmarie Dean

Ever since I was a little girl, my mother would tell us one of her favorite childhood stories. While vacationing in the Adirondacks in 1963, my grandparents took their children to The Enchanted Forest theme park to see The Flying Wallendas. After performing, as my mom says, “they wanted me on their laps for a picture!” I’m sure they invited all their fans to do this and she wasn’t just hand-picked from the crowd, but I’ll let her have her moment. So there sits my four-year-old mother, in the laps of arguably the most famous and talented circus family in the world, grinning from ear to ear. Flash forward almost 50 years and there sits my mother, my brother and I covering our gaping mouths while holding our bated breath as we watch Nik Wallenda crossing the mighty Niagara Falls on 2-inch thick steel wire.