Even though I’ve lived in the small Oregon town of Scappoose for more than two decades now, I still find myself disoriented. It’s the river. Flowing past the town, the Columbia flows south to north. In Astoria, where I was raised, it flowed – and still continues to flow – east to west. Rivers are like that; they have effects on a person.
While it may no longer be a topic of everyday conversation, the draining of the fens – vast wetland areas – of eastern England in the Seventeenth Century in order that they could be turned in to arable farmland was an engineering project of monumental proportions as well as effects. Like the more commonly mentioned Enclosure Acts that followed not long after, it brought about changes to the social, political, and ecological systems of the country that are still felt to this day.
What do chemists call a benzene ring with Iron atoms replacing the Carbon atoms? A ferrous wheel. Who says organic chemistry can’t be fun? OK, aside from most people who have taken a course in it…
“Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring / up through the atmosphere, / up where the air is clear! / Oh, let’s go fly a kite!” So – memorably – sang the freshly awakened and amended George Banks, superbly portrayed by David Tomlinson, in Disney’s “Mary Poppins.”