By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--June 23, 2024

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If we are to build a wall against the chaos and the darkness, someone must first make the bricks.

My dad was naturally curious about most everything. It sometimes puzzled me that he would pursue the answer to a question as far as he did. But that curiosity brought him many benefits. He was never bored. He was fascinated with history and current events and everyday life. Driving past Stonehenge during the war, he stopped and walked around the deserted site. He visited a Victorian prison in England that he never forgot and camped near Roman ruins at Bath. He saw the great Normandy invasion fleet on D 3 from the air. His curiosity often resulted in strokes of good luck, and he passed that curiosity along to his sons by example. The trait still brings us good luck, too, verified in this column.

Commonplace things tend to lull us into losing some of our curiosity. It’s the old ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ idea. Brick buildings are commonplace in every part of the heartland and around the world. I had driven past the intersection of Indiana 59 and Indiana 46 a few times, and I had noticed the big cream-colored building sitting amid the many stacks of bricks. I didn’t really investigate until last week when I thought the place might be unusual enough to give it a closer look. What first caught my eye was the enormous pile of layered clay and shale that waxed and waned every few........

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