Fire In the Hole!

I don't read the local news every day. When I was working, I did. Because what better way to avoid starting work in the morning than to plop down at your desk, fire up your school computer, and see what current events you might be hearing about at the lunch table? Now I don't really have anything to procrastinate for, so I check it every few days. Last week, an article about a sinkhole caught my eye.

It's not that unique to find a sinkhole around here. It's our basic topography. We have several on our property. My grandma had one in her front yard when I was a kid. We threw hedgeapples into hit, to hear the splash way down inside. Kids aren't stupid. They know to stay out of sinkholes.

Anyhoo... I read the article and looked at the picture. Huh. I guess this was a recent sinkhole, somewhere in town, near the Chamber of Commerce. I just glanced at it. The sinkhole was said to be 39 feet deep. Then they ran a camera down it, and found that it appeared to go all the way into the local lead mine. Well! That was kind of impressive. People come from all over the world to tour that mine! Divers. Jacques Cousteau himself went in there. Not a big deal. It's set up for tours. I've never been through it myself, but Hick has. My grandpa (Dad's dad) even helped run the electricity in it, back when it was a mine, not a tourist attraction. Anyhoo... I didn't think any more about it.

Returning from my travels on Monday, I saw four separate law enforcement vehicles. Of course I was glad I was going the speed limit. The guy behind me, not so much. But I figure I saved him a couple tickets. As I turned past the dead mouse smelling post office, one of the cop cars followed me, while another one took a side street and went to the four-way stop. At the same time, I noticed a fog in the air. No. It was smoke. Smelled pretty acrid, too. It was in the area of the license office and the funeral home. I figured some ne'er-do-well must have burned his tires in a fit of anger at the license office, and they had called the police, who were on the lookout for him. I'm a logical thinker, you know. I told Hick all about it when I got home.

Later that evening I was reading the online local paper, and saw an article about a sinkhole being covered over. Oh. That's the one from the previous article. WAIT A MINUTE! I knew where that was! Looks like it WASN'T a disgruntled licensee burning tires that created the smoke. It was a fire in the SINKHOLE! Not the flames of Not-Heaven shooting out, but a chemical reaction with the foam they were using to seal it, I think. The smoke also went down into the mine, and tours had to stop. Never a dull moment. Maybe I should read the paper more often.

Tuesday, when I went to mail a bill, I got a picture of the sinkhole on the way back.

Right by the parking lot of the license office! They had it capped off with a slab of concrete by then. The barrier doesn't look like it would keep out anybody who really wanted to get in. But what had tipped me off to the location in the newspaper picture was this:

The daycare next door! Hope none of the kids got loose. It's a long fall down into the mine!