Doing Push-Ups
Since starting in new digs as a professor in the Bucknell Department of Chemistry, I've been acclimating to rural Pennsylvania. Here are a few observations. First, it seems that we have some strange evolutionary history. I don't mean the locals, but rather a fossil discovered in the western part of this state which belonged to a very oddly jointed creature which could probably do pushups with its flippers. That is, this thing seemed to have a lot in common with the suspiciously well-jointed Mr. Limpet. Our strange fish probably lived in a lush, swampy environment to have benefitted from his new legs. And over millions of years these swamps would lead to coal. And when the nearby town of Centralia, PA burned their trash in a coal pit in 1962, the fire spread to large veins underneath the town, which has been burning ever since. The story of the town's surreal demise and the bureaucratic process behind it all was the subject of a recent article in Harpers. As one former resident quipped, Centralia is the only town where you can be buried and cremated for free...