You just never know
I love small world stories. You know the kind I mean, when you get on a plane and the person sitting next to you is the sister of your college roommate? Or the antique shop owner in Tulsa who asks where you're from and when you tell him, he says his grandparents lived in Peabody. You ask their names and realize they lived next door to you for years.
Well, the Married Daughter stumbled onto one of those small world stories last week. As many of you know she is in charge of the water plant at Hillsboro. Since the discovery last summer of an algae bloom at Marion Reservoir, she has been diligently searching the Internet for information about blooms worldwide and data that may be related to new research, updates, or solutions.
Her recent search turned up a new site mentioning "algae bloom" and she zeroed in on the web page. Turns out it was the diary of a young man in Ft. Collins, Colo., who is a bicycle enthusiast and keeps track of his trips across the country. Late last June he set out from his home on a trip across Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, destination Wichita.
He told of head winds and tail winds, water consumption, miles traveled each day, and meals at fast food stops, truck stops, and little cafés. Water consumption, heat, terrain, wind, cloud cover, water consumption, and traffic all were noted. He was undaunted by the miles between towns in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. (And he wasn't even on the interstate. He was on the back roads!) He commented on water consumption, crops and the wheat harvest, the people he met, and his water consumption. By the way, did I mention that he consumed gallons of water?
His trip began in Colorado June 27. On July 2 the diary heading was the town of Marion, Kansas. He said the local papers told of an "algae bloom that had contaminated the water for a month." (That comment is what put his web address on the list of sites for the algae bloom reference being sought by the Married Daughter.) After a night at a Marion motel he turned south on U.S.-77 July 3 and went past Florence and Burns, mentioning each one, to El Dorado.
He noted he had been in search of a small town Fourth of July celebration on this trip. In El Dorado he discovered that Peabody was the only small town around with such an event so he headed back north, arriving here in the early morning hours. He spent the day. He took in the flea market, watched the parade from the "bank corner," enjoyed the fireworks, stayed the night in a tent at the park, left for Wichita the next morning and, after shipping his bike home, flew to Denver.
But here is the really great part from my point of view. His web site has several Peabody Fourth of July pictures including one of our Statue of Liberty float, that golden beauty crafted by Jesse Seibel many years ago. As the Married Daughter said when she sent me the link to his site, "Our Statue of Liberty float is on his web site
Well, maybe so or maybe not. Who knows how many people check in on his site and read his weblog? But he did say very nice things about our community and our annual July Fourth party. I want to pass that on to everyone who worked hard to create last summer's great celebration. If you would like to look at what he said, here is the link: http://www.mvermeulen.com/wichita.
I e-mailed him to thank him and invite him to stop by again. I told him about Jesse Seibel and the many floats he built and how thrilled he would have been to know that Lady Liberty was on someone's web site. I told him of the "algae bloom" connection and that if he had stopped by our annual yard party, he could have saved himself the airfare to Denver and driven back to Ft. Collins with Daughter #2 who was going back there anyway.
He graciously answered with more nice comments about Peabody and one of my favorite phrases, "
— SUSAN MARSHALL
