FALLING FAR FROM THE TREE
My life these days is not very exciting. By choice. It was exiting in my 20s, 30s and 40s and that was enough excitement for me. I slowed down in my 50s and I like it that way.
But let me tell you what exciting thing happened on Friday. Tommy Hodges with SLR invited me out to watch the implosion that was happening at the old Alcoa property. That is something I enjoy watching in videos, but I had never experienced it in person until last week.
I was so excited about it that I got there earlier than I was told to. We met up at what was in my youth the bait shop next to the Alcoa Training Center. It is much nicer now. Alan Gardenhire was there, a guy named Ned Ross with SLR, Tommy of course, Mayor Brett Boren and County Judge Bill Whitmire. We talked a while and watched a video then it was time to leave. We piled into two trucks and headed out.
We ended up in a field across the highway from the power plant to watch the show. Friday’s implosion was a smaller one. There will be a much bigger one that they think will happen sometime between December and February. This blast got rid of three of the smaller smokestacks, some concrete silos and a giant piece of metal that hung off one of the towers.
Tommy and Alan had walkie talkies and they were going off leading up to the excitement. There were also loud explosions of some kind that were going off just to scare the buzzards away.
Finally the countdown began and it started at 10 and went down to six, then it stopped. I had my camera poised and was counting to myself from five to one. I must have counted faster than the dynamite people because I thought it was taking forever.
Even though I was right there, 1,500 feet away anticipating a loud noise, it still scared me to death! I nearly dropped the camera it was so incredibly loud. You can see from the front page that I didn’t actually drop it, but nothing prepares you for a noise like that.
Many thanks to Tommy Hodges for inviting me and I look forward to the next one. —kwc— The other day I went with mom and dad to Bryan/College Station because they both had appointments with their dermatologist, which also led me to seeing a part of East US 79 that I haven’t seen in over 35 years.
When I lived in Houston I would always turn right in Milano to go down TX 36 to Caldwell when going home from Rockdale. Milano to Hearne is a really pretty drive. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the land beside the highway is completely untouched. Trees everywhere and it was beautiful even in late August.
Gause is about what I remembered, but I had forgotten how far it is from Milano. For some reason I thought the two were closer. I feel for my friend Debra Neal having to make that drive every day for her job as High School Goddess and Knower of All Things.
I had also forgotten about all those bridges. The one over the Brazos is a little skinny for my liking, especially with all those trucks. I had totally forgotten the Little Brazos River was a thing.
But poor Hearne, y’all. I’m going to say this without knowing if it’s true or not, but I’ll bet there are beautiful parts of Hearne somewhere, but none are visible from the highway. Bless Hearne’s heart.
Anyway, that was such a pretty drive and I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.
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