I have read that book and it is good as much of his stuff is.  I have 
read and reread his "a short history of almost everything" which has a 
lot of interesting stuff in it.  Come to think of it, I think the title 
is "a short history of nearly everything"
73
Butch
WA0VJR
Node 3148
Wallace, ks.


On Tue, 17 Feb 2015, Jim Gammon 
wrote:

> Phil, have you ever read a book called The Life and Times of the
> Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson? If not, you should get it from
> NLS.  He grew up in Des Moines and wrote about his childhood
> there.  He has also written numerous other books all of which are
> great in my opinion.  Jim WA6EKS
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Phil Scovell <[log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date sent: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 15:55:19 -0700
> Subject: My Favorite Tall Tower
>
> I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa where one of the radio and TV
> stations had a
> building downtown with a weather tower, so called, on top of the
> building.
> It was a 4-legged tower that tapered up from the 4 corners of the
> building
> to something like heavy gaged rohn tower at the top where the
> lights were
> displayed.  This weather tower was seen from all over and about
> 20 miles,
> and more, in most directions.  I recently typed in the old call
> letters of
> the TV station but couldn't find info on the tower today so I
> typed in the
> newer call letters and found it listed as a weather beacon.  A
> youtube short
> video talked about damage to the tower during one winter of harsh
> cold
> tempes and ice build up on the tower.  When ice chunks broke off
> when
> melting, it broke 250 of the 4500 lights so they had to be
> replaced.  The
> tower, I learned is 500 feet plus the 2 or 3 stories of the
> building below.
> No guy cables; it is free standing.  Each of the 4 colors of
> light has a
> little rhyming jingle but I don't know if I can recall them all.
> Let's see.
> When it shines red, it means warmer weather is ahead.  Green,
> nothing new
> foreseen.  White means colder weather is in sight and I believe
> blue refers
> to rain.  If anything is blinking, precipitation is in the
> forecast.  I
> lived in far northeast Des Moines, almost where the highway I80
> crosses
> north of Des Moines, which wasn't there when I was born but built
> later in
> the fifties.  Anyhow, I went to a friend's house out in the
> country, north
> of the highway, and standing in the yard, I could see the tower
> during the
> daylight hours without any trouble and I would have been at least
> 20 miles
> north of the weather tower.  I'd sure like a 3 element 40 up on
> top of that
> baby.  I was please to see the tower was still up and being
> maintained and
> used by Ioeans to check the weather.  Even during my tower
> climbing days, I
> wouldn't have touched that tower with a ten foot pole.  I'm
> guessing an
> elevator is used internally but I believe I heard once, years ago
> from a
> commercial tower guy I knew, that you have to stop at one point
> and climb
> the 110 foot top to manually change the bulbs that are a foot
> apart but I'm
> not certain of that.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>
>