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Boston Gathering? Molasses Flood at the BPL

 
 
fishin
 
  1  
Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2004 07:06 am
Boy, THAT would be confusing! lol
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2004 08:53 am
good point
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jespah
 
  1  
Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2004 09:03 am
We'll be there. We will look cold.
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SealPoet
 
  1  
Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2004 08:02 pm
yeah... y'all looked cold at times.

could be worse... could be drowning in molasses.

Nice seeing all of you again.
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2004 10:21 pm
t'was good to see you to, SP. And your family. And the rest of the people who braved the chill. Sadly, the exhibit wasn't what we expected....
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Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 07:15 am
Please do tell. I want details.
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SealPoet
 
  2  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 07:46 am
Well... Mrs. SealPoet and the Pups and I did some shopping in town. We have turned itno hicks lately and don't get to that side of the Charles river very often. Bought the elder SealPup a new hat for his birthday... the boy has expensive tastes. He wasn't quite satisfied with the 50$ fedora, he wantted the 90$ fedora. Not bad for a kid who's about to turn 15. We had lunch at a greek place... all had huge gyros sandwiches. Went back to the car to drop off packages, which was making us late. Called Quinn and 'k... no answer. Trudged our way to the BPL.

Found the Sebastian Map Room Cafe where Jespah and Region were waiting. The question was, do we think we know that young woman in the corner? I can just see it..."excuse me, but are you Bored?" Well, Fishin, Quinn and 'k walked in and the woman got up and was indeed Bored.

Walked to the other end of the library and looked at the exhibit. A map, maybe a dozen (large) photographs, and copies of about 7 newspaper pages. That's all.

Scary stuff in that. One told the tale of a firfighter who was pinned under rubble when the bottom floor of the firehouse was washed away. After an hour or more he could no longer hold his head up. He drowned in molasses. The wave and remains of the tank took out part of an elevated railway. An alert engineer amnaged to stop a passenger train just in time before hurling over the brink...

So... all that took about 15-20 minutes. Then we went to Vinny T's for some beverage and obscenely huge portions of Italian... but my clan had already eaten too much. Oh well, cheap date.

We hung out there gabing, drinking and eating for about two hours. Most of the rest headed toward a bar (purely so they could get their parking validated, I'm sure!), we tooled around the Pru and Coply malls (too cold for pronged outdoor strolling) and went home.

Was nice... why weren't you there?
0 Replies
 
Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 09:11 am
Thanks for the details Seal. Well, I guess the 700 mile drive was a bit much for me, but I was thinking about you guys ;-)

I'm glad you all had a good time, but it's too bad the exhibit wasn't as good as you all thought it would be.
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 09:22 am
Ok, a metal-sheeting tank, owned by an alcohol making company, holding 2.3 million gallons of thick molasses ruptured on Jan 15, 1919 (I think) and sent a wall of molasses 15' high down a major road from South Boston to the North end.

21 people died, many more were injured. An elevated railway buckled, cars and wagons were smashed.

It was january and the molasses got really thick when exposed to winter weather. They couldn't easily wash it away.

Prohibition was being debated, state by state, and the company who owned the tank thought that this was sabotage. Later rulings said that they were liable, and they had to pay damages.

The adverts in the copies of the Boston Herald and Post were a lot of fun to read.
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Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 09:31 am
Cool :-)
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jespah
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 11:02 am
Twas a good gathering, despite the short attention span-type of exhibit.
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Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 11:07 am
That's great. I wish I was there with you all.
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 11:08 am
Cool!

Pics?

(2.3 million gallons of molasses? Gosh.)

(Is that incident what "slow as molasses in January" came from?)
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jespah
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 11:15 am
Oh yeah, pics, I need to finish out the roll. And quinn has a digicam so she can post stuff earlier. Hmm, I'll make a gathering album on the gallery.
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Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 04:23 pm
Awesome!!! The pics are my favorite part :-)
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quinn1
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 05:31 pm
It was very nice to see everyone again, and to do our best to entertain the Pups more than bore them to death but, they survived I believe. And the Fedora is verra nice, I must say the young man has fabulous taste.

Myself, fishin and k drove in to avert the weather conditions only to get turned around exiting the garage and walking the whole way around and end up spending more time in the cold than if we had taken the T. Silly. The library cafe was cozy and filled when we arrived to find the Seals and Jespah and Region already there...only to have Bored sneak up behind us immediately following, and Terrydoo to wander in right after, which worked since there wasnt great room to ponder away the time.

The exhibit was certainly not a BIT what was expected of it and seemed to be more of one collection of photographers items in addition to the newspaper articles still though, it was educational and entertaining. The photographs were stunning and the advertisements in the paper simply hilarious at moments.

Vinny T's was the next destination and they didnt even throw us into the depths of the basement---they allowed us right on it (lack of Slappy and his ho's outside the front windows I believe). Tremendous amounts of food to be had by all....and oh yeah...I have someones salad...sorry. Fishin I think was on the brink of either hitting it off well or complete refusal of service from the waitress...in the end she did let him have beverage and food, she was a good sport. The small number of attendees involved led to such a wonderful array of topics of conversation that we could all be involved with, even when multiple conversations were going on...it was odd, as usually its not the case...but, nice for a change.
Eventually though, it all has to end and the Seals and Jes/Region went on their merry way.

Myself, fishin, k, bored, and terrydoo went over to Dicks to do the validation thing and had a wonderful time. Rude obnoxious waitress and all.
Funny, even with the validation....it was an expensive park. Those things must have some sort of time limit thing...and Im not sure what it is. I am however glad to have hopefully gotten some discount...without it would have been just scary.

I believe lots of photos were taken...and the digi I was using was fishins so, you'll have to talk him into posting pics.

Montana, you were missed a great deal, sorry the ride is just a bit too far for ya!
Soz too Wink
0 Replies
 
Montana
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 07:01 pm
Thanks Quinn. I really did feel sad that I couldn't make it. I'm glad you all had a good time though, and I can't wait to see those pictures. I get all excited when the pics start floating out :-)
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2004 08:33 pm
Here's a link to a site that lists links about the great boston molasses tragedy....

http://www.crockerfarm.org/ac/gr3/molasses/
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Region Philbis
 
  1  
Reply Mon 26 Jan, 2004 07:00 am

thanks k.
why haven't they made a disaster flick about that yet? (they sorta did -- the blob)

great to see/meet everybody...
a good all was had by time.
0 Replies
 
SealPoet
 
  2  
Reply Mon 26 Jan, 2004 08:31 am
Save your asses! It's a wave of molasses!
0 Replies
 
 

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