Across The Fence: Over The Edge – Niagara's Argonauts

"If everybody jumped off a cliff would you jump after them?" This was the question my mother would pose when our pleas to be allowed some frivolous privilege included the irrational rational that "everybody's doing it."

Perhaps Bobby Leach's mother had already passed on when the 53-0yea- old, Cornwall, UK, circus performer decided to go over the edge of Niagara Falls in a steel barrel. If not, it is obvious that she was unable to dissuade him from the foolhardy attempt.

Bobby owned a restaurant near Niagara Falls on the U.S. side and often boasted that anything Annie could do, he could do b...