Dark Day

This year I'm right on schedule. Finally. For the first time in the three years I've been keeping this blog, I'm actually going to have a post up about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 on the actual anniversary day, which is tomorrow, January 15. Longtime readers of this blog know that this is one of my all-time favorite stories, historical or otherwise. Basically, if you've never heard of it before, 89 years ago, a huge tank of molasses — we're talking 50 feet tall and 240 feet wide — exploded, spilling 2.5 million gallons of molasses into Boston's North End. But it didn't just spill. It did so in the form of a wave about 10 feet tall that moved at a speed of 35 mph and exerted a pressure of 2 tons/foot. Years later, a book about the subject was written and it was called, of all things, Dark Tide. Sure, it's a tragic story (21 people were killed and 150 were injured) but don't you just love the visual of a giant wave of molasses plowing its way through the North End? Classic stuff right there.

Actually, last year Todd and I wrote our own little parody of the classic Paul Revere rhyme. It begins like this:
Gather my children and you shall smell
the scent of molasses — now run like hell!
We're also working (verrrry slowly) on a movie adaptation of the Dark Tide book. Anyone want to produce it?

For more about the flood, click here to read my post from two years ago. I'll be eating a molasses cookie in honor of this special day. You should too. Happy anniversary!