If you ever were told that Chicago is the "windy city," you've never been to Northwest Kansas. The wind
commonly blows 20 mph. This summer has been especially windy, with nearly daily occurences of gusts 30 to 40 mph. Whew! Doesn't do much good to comb the hair--Sinead O'Connor would do great out here (is she still "bald?").
Anyway, tonight in our windy little corner of the world, there was a hot time in the old town. There's a grain storage building (called a grain
elevator)--a tall white monolith with smaller, but sizeable grain storage and feed dispensing buildings surrounding it. One of the older, wooden structures caught fire tonight and went up as an inferno! Whether it was due to electrical problems or combustion, I don't know. There is a gas station on the same grounds, so I'm sure the multitudes of firemen were sweating it out. I wonder if it were combustion: the temps last week hovered around 105 degrees daily (could that exacerbate any fermentation or combustability of the grain?). Fire crews came from all over the county, blocked off the highway and put the water to it. Many of the townspeople came to watch (a good portion of the 1500 residents). Sad thing is, across the highway are more giant grain storage bins. I should say
were . . . a tornado early this summer took out one and damaged another. What a year!
