Jay spent a month in the city of Fengjie as the wire was strung. "My biggest regret in Fengjie was that I was so busy I didn't see the effect the skywalk had on the people," Jay said.

The walk was viewed by 200,000 who trekked to the remote site, and 200 million more on China TV. The skywalk made Jay a celebrity, but he only realized how famous he'd become when he arrived back in the large cities and was recognized instantly wherever he went.

Commemorative stamps, envelopes, watches and phone cards chronicled his daring and are eagerly collected in China. He was serenaded by school children with Chinese love songs and mobbed each time he left his hotel.

As the skywalk approached, the crowds which flocked to Jay's hotel for autographs and photographs grew steadily. "I wasn't prepared for the kids," he said. "They would get all dressed up and come night after night. Perhaps I changed their lives, but I know they had a profound effect on me."

As the strains of Ravel's "Bolero" carried through the chasm, Jay paused at the middle of the wire.

"I stopped just to see where I was," he said.

"I thought, `Here we are again.' I felt alone on the wire. Then I saw one of the Yangtze River cruise ships pass underneath me and I just went, `Wow.'"

The walk also generated controversy. Western journalists questioned Jay publicly about his role as a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. The Chinese wanted the walk to bring international attention to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest of its kind to ever be constructed.

The project, now underway, is expected to create a 400-mile long lake, filling Qutang Gorge to half its height and inundating over 1,000 cities with water, including Fengjie.

Jay took the politics in stride. "Who are we to tell the Chinese that they can't build it? They didn't tell us not to build Hoover Dam. We saw all the new cities, bridges, and roads they are building."

"They have an innocence of life and an incredible sense of their culture and heritage, but they also see what they don't have. If electricity is the answer from this dam, who are we to tell them no? People look at the kids in the interior and say - look at these poor kids - but they don't feel poor or act poor. It's a way of life. Could Donald Trump live like you or me?"

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