Watercooler Stories

SURVIVOR REMEMBERS A HORRIBLE DAY

It was 65 year ago today that the worst disaster to ever hit an American school struck in east-central Texas, near Henderson. It happened at a just-completed, million-dollar school, built to accommodate the children of a huge influx of oil well workers. Just minutes before classes were to be dismissed that day, a janitor began using a piece of power equipment. A spark ignited an estimated 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas that has somehow accumulated under the school and within its walls, after leaking from a nearby pipeline. The resulting explosion killed 300 people ... most of them children ... crushed, incinerated, mangled. Many who could have survived had to be left to die because of the lack of doctors and medical care.

Thousands of workers from nearby oil fields came to try to try to lift the rubble. Some drove all the way from the Houston area. Emergency floodlights were brought in. They worked through the night. Few survivors were found.

Texas was in shock. A stunned nation mourned. Radio carried the news; newsreels would bring the gruesome scene to the world in a few days at local theaters. Thousands of children around the world were afraid to go to school.

It was the worst disaster in Texas since the Galveston hurricane 37 years prior that had killed 6,000 in two hours! Ten years after the school disaster a freighter would explode in the harbor at Texas City. Six hundred would died in that disaster.

The Houston Chronicle printed an incredible article Sunday with the memories of a survivor, now 73, who barely escaped with her life ... although she had dozens of broken bones, a crushed leg and nearly lost an eye. She remembers being among the fortunate, leaving the school somewhat early with her sister, because of a family emergency. She was farther away from the central explosion than most.

There's a monument there now. It contains the names of all who died. And there's a museum of sorts. This week the few survivors who are left are telling a younger generation of the great disaster of their childhood ... their own 9/11. It was a day that the totally unexpected happened when the safe haven of a quite rural school was turned into an instant hell of fire and sudden death.

JUST WHAT DOES A 'SAINT' LOOK LIKE

For hundreds of years most people in Mexico have envisioned Juan Diego as "one of them, a dark-skinned native of the region." Now, as preparations near for the official naming of the Mexican peasant as a saint of the Roman Catholic church, some of his images have adopted a decidedly different look.

The El Paso Times recently conducted poll of its readers, many of Mexican descent, asking if they preferred the older, more traditional rendering of Diego or the new "jazzed-up" pictures that have been circulating in advance of his canonization.

What the poll found is that most who responded say they do not like the new paintings, showing Diego as a lighter-skinned, nearly European-looking man with a full beard.

Many are sensitive about doing any tweaking of Diego. He was "a servant of Our Lady of Guadalupe." She is most-revered symbol of Mexican Catholicism. By the way, Pope John Paul II, health permitting, has scheduled a trip to Mexico in late July to officially add Diego to the roster of those recognized as being "a citizen of Heaven."

IN TRIBUTE TO SOME 'INCREDIBLE KIDS'

A newspaper in South Dakota has combined the tradition "selling your ink" with a new way to honor children. The paper, the Sturgis-based Meade County Times-Tribune, is offering to print salutes to "Incredible Kids" in an upcoming edition.

The concept of selling tributes is nothing new. Many papers even have "pay for play" obituary notes. If your departed loved one is not famous enough to warrant a free mention in the local obituary column, many newspapers will print it ... for a price. But one positive thing about that kind of "journalism" is that you can be as effusively schmaltzy as you want in your memorial comments, something that journalists can't to.

Well, back to the kids. The paper is offering parents the chance to buy ads in an upcoming edition in which they can honor their exceptional offspring. An ad measuring two-by-two inches is $12. If you want to include a photo, double the price. Since the paper's address is public -- Box 69, Sturgis, SD, 57785 -- and the information is available on the Internet, it would be interesting to see if any families outside the area honor their kids with an ad in the rural paper.

SHOULD THE 10 COMMANDMENTS STAY OR GO?

The city council of La Crosse, Wis., is on the hot seat. Recently a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation, based in the state capital of Madison, petitioned the council to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from city grounds. The group said, from its perspective, the monument is an "endorsement of organized religion" and is unconstitutional.

But, according to the La Crosse Tribune, most members of the council disagree and are effectively trying to find any way they can to preserve the decades-old monument from destruction.

One member of the council told the publication that support for keeping the monument came in like an avalanche when word of the petition got out. Even one group, based in Florida, called to asked if it could help. Several members of the council say that the issue is a local one and don't want outside interference.

Meanwhile, a petition drive is underway to authorize the city to spend as much money as is necessary to find ways to keep the monument and its message.