You’ve Got to SHOW US!

 

Last night, driving north on Oak Street at dusk, I spotted these swirling clouds over downtown.  It. Was. Powerful. So powerful, I stopped dead center of the (empty) street and stared up at the towering display. This is our backdrop for living.  What?! How did we get so lucky?!  What glory! What beauty!  Lo, these Midwestern skies!

 

And then, the pendulum swung back around and a different sort of feeling came dump trucking through my mind:  weather is wild and irrefutable and dominating and deadly.

 

Oh, the thunderstorms and the pinging rain!  The Muddy Missouri, our raison d’être, and its turbulent murky waters so often spill over into our city streets, even washing away settlements on its banks in the 1820s.  She is a fierce one, our Missouri River. She’s cleansed these lands time and time again and, according to history, is due for a good flooding soon.

 

Somehow, then, I recalled the Kansas-Nebraska Sea, and how it once covered this whole region, and how it helped to create underground springs that eventually dried and left behind caves for ample underground storage facilities, making us a leader in underground storage.  And on and on Kansas City history came marching through my brain and by the time I got home only 12 blocks later, I felt like I had the makings of an essay rolling around up there.

 

One single sunset propelled me into thinking about our fine city and the way it has weathered Mother Nature through tornadoes, floods, and storms.

 

 To a writer, one small object  opens up a world of exploration.

 

I urge you to listen to your muse and enter the Squeezebox Essay Contest.

 

 

 

We want to hear your story.

 

Yours Truly,

K.Deel, editor