So, conversation after dinner tonight turned, as so often happens, to molasses. Not metaphorically - it didn't suddenly get very slow and dark - but literally. Someone mentioned that they had heard about this town that was flooded with molasses, which turned into this enormous branching conversation about the potential of molasses floods and how the substance could be used for evil.
Anyway, I was intrigued. A molasses flood! That's so cool! But probably an urban legend, I'm sure. Well apparently not. Would you believe there was a Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919? 21 people died! Of molasses! Apparently the wave was 15 feet high, and moved at 56 kilometres an hour. When it finally settled, it covered downtown Boston in a sticky mess to a depth of about a metre. That's craziness! Can you imagine trying to clean up a metre of molasses?! Apparently you could smell it for years and years afterwards.
See, this is the kind of history I love: molasses floods. At the moment I'm thinking about changing one of my majors to American Studies, and I think it would all be worth it if, one day, I got to write an essay on The Great Boston Molasses Tragedy.
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1 comment:
Well...umm..mmm...random!
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