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8 UCW JANUARY 26, 2022 - FEBRUARY 1, 2022 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM By the time this column ap- pears to leave yet another stain on world literature, it will be almost the end of January. By then, most people's New Year's Resolutions will be ghosts in the rear-view mirror fading off into the lost horizon of good intentions. January was named after the two-headed Roman god Janus. Janus was the Ro- man term for an archway or a ceremonial gateway. In other words, it was a way to go in and out. At the beginning of the Roman calendar, Janus had two heads, one looking backward and one looking forward. e Romans watched the old year go away while seeing the New Year come trundling along on the other side of the archway. Hence the term, two heads are better than one. It did mean that Janus had to double his budget for hats as opposed to ordinary one headed gods. But being a god, his credit was good. What can we say about the month of January? Is there any- thing worth pondering about our fleeting first month? Fun- ny, you should ask. You have certainly heard the old saying, "Slow as molasses in Janu- ary." Well, like Sporting Life once sang in "Porgy and Bess," "It ain't necessarily so." Hop right into Mr. Peabody's Way Back Machine and take a ride on the Reading to January 15, 1919 to Boston, Massachusetts. e day began like any other January day, a bit warmer than most, but nothing way out of the ordinary. e workers at the U.S. Industrial Alcohol factory worked to produce molasses for the hungry masses yearning to eat highly sweetened pancakes. e International House of Pan- cakes was not invented until 1958. IHOP bears no respon- sibility for what happened in Boston in 1919. So, what did happen in 1919 that undermines that statement about being slow as molasses in January? Well, listen, my children, and you shall hear of the Noon-time Great Boston Molasses Flood. To paraphrase Scatman Carruthers in "e Shining:" "A lot of things have happened in Boston, and not all of them were good." e factory in question produced massive amounts of molasses. It was right before lunch when all heck or, more aptly, all mo- lasses broke loose. e work- ers were loading molasses into freight cars to tickle America's sweet tooth. e molasses was stored in an almost six-story high tank containing about 2.5 million gallons of hot molas- ses. at is a mega amount of molasses. In the wink of an eye, some- thing went very wrong. e bolts holding the bottom of the six-story vat of molasses gave up the ghost. e bolts blew out like the bottom of the Titanic meeting its fateful iceberg. News reports say an 8-foot-tall wall of hot molasses spewed out of the bottom of the vat, knocking freight cars, men, and the building walls over like a hungry 350-pound man lung- ing for crab legs at an all you can eat seafood buffet at Myrtle Beach. Once the molasses escaped the building, it poured into the streets of Boston, destroying a nearby firehouse and knocking down the sup- ports of the elevated train track. Twenty-one people and mul- tiple horses died in the flood of molasses. Foreshadowing of the mod- ern-day flood of lawyer ads on Cablevision, over 100 lawsuits were filed against the U.S. Industrial Alcohol. e name Industrial Alcohol does not make me think of butterflies and unicorns. It sounds more like Everclear's evil twin. For those of you who have never consumed Everclear, allow me to proffer some medical ad- vice, don't break your record of abstention. But I digress. Boston took weeks to clean its streets of molasses. One can only imagine the delightful task of policing up the corpses of molasses-soaked horses stuck to the roads. e mind boggles. Ultimately State Auditor, the Honorable Hugh W. Ogden, was appointed by the court to sort out all the claims against U.S. Industrial Alcohol. Mr. Ogden decided U.S. Industrial Alcohol was at fault due to the poor construction of the mo- lasses vat. e company was ordered to pay almost $1 mil- lion to the plaintiffs. So, what have we learned today? As usual, not much. However, we should be careful not to believe all general state- ments, not even this one. Not all molasses is slow in January. An 8-foot wall of hot molasses by any other name would smell as sweet. As far as the Boston attorneys were concerned, the Great Molasses Flood was a financial bonanza. ey latched onto the molasses like flies on poop, reaping financial rewards that illustrated Shakespeare's quote in "As You Like It :" "Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venom- ous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." Shall we compare an 8-foot- wall of boiling molasses to a toad wearing a jewel in his head? Why not? I would rather see a toad wearing a jewel than an 8-foot wall of hot molasses bearing down. Not everything makes sense. Once you grasp that concept, it all makes sense. If the glove fits, you must acquit — so long January. See you next year. Molasses in January ... not so slow by PITT DICKEY PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. OPINION Twenty one people were killed on Commercial Street in the North End when a tank of molasses ruptured and exploded. An eight foot wave of the syrupy brown liquid moved down Commercial Street at a speed of 35mph. Wreckage of the collapsed tank visible in background, center, next to light colored warehouse. Elevated railway structure visible at far left and the North End Park bathing beach to the far right. A "before" view of the disaster can be seen in this image. (Photo courtesy of Globe Newspaper Co.)