Daredevil Tightropes Across Niagara Falls

Last night while at the bar, I had the choice of watching the Pittsburgh Pirates get their asses handed to them or highlights of the Miami Heat win. Needless to say, the television entertainment level that evening was particularly low. We had the barkeep change the channel and we stopped at some dumbass signing a suicide pact while attempting to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

The dumbass was daredevil Nik Wallenda and apparently he had been training for the event for a good bit. The entire bar became intrigued with the sacrificial lamb about to be fed to the raging Niagara Falls lurking 200 feet below.

As he took his first steps off the US platform of Niagara Falls, I noticed something dragging behind him. It was a friggin’ safety harness attached to the tightrope. Boo! Most of the bar quickly lost interest as all bets were off. Granted, it was still an impressive feat and I can’t say I could walk a straight line on flat ground after leaving the bar.

“Worse-case scenario,” Wallenda said, “I sit down on the wire, the helicopter swoops in, I hook on and they get me out of there. I look goofy, but nobody gets hurt.”

The Great Blondin

I did a little research and way back in the mid 1850s, tightrope artist, Charles Blondin, crossed the Niagara Falls numerous times and showboated more than Stevie Johnson while doing so, performing such death-defying craziness as blindfolding himself, lying down on the wire, pushing a wheelbarrow, cooking an omelet, standing on his head and even grabbing a glass of wine from the Maid of the Mist as it passed underneath him. The Great Blondid did all of this without a harness, net nor life preserver. Suck on those apples, Wallenda.