When major electronic and print media reported the discovery of a large, shiny metal monolith, found in a remote area of Utah’s federally managed Red Rock Country public lands, I knew immediately what it was.
This Nov. 27 photo shows a monolith that was placed in a red-rock desert in an undisclosed location in San Juan County southeastern Utah. New clues have surfaced in the disappearance of the gleaming monolith in Utah that seemed to melt away as mysteriously as it appeared in the red-rock desert. A Colorado photographer told a TV station in Salt Lake City that he saw four men push over the hollow, stainless steel structure in Utah on Friday night. Terrance Siemon via AP
Before I moved back to Maine, to be near the beautiful and powerful Atlantic shore, the L. L. Bean store, lobster rolls, clam chowder, and coffee with sugar and cream, I spent more than a dozen years in Des Moines, Iowa, the center of a state full of pleasant and hard-working folk.
During my time in Iowa, I was constantly surprised that Iowans always looked to the west when it came to a vacation, something good, or a hope for the future, and they never looked eastward at all. And now I understand. It was the West Pole.
While we’ve known for some time, that the North Pole was up there, and the South Pole was down there, and the East Pole was located somewhere between Poland and Czechoslovakia, however, no one was sure where the West Pole was. Now I can see, that the good folks in Iowa sensed it was not far, and that’s why they always looked to the west.
On Sunday, Nov. 29, we read in the media that the West Pole has mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind just the triangular metal capital and some metal fastenings at the base. This should come as no surprise. After all, that’s what happened to the North Pole and the South Pole as soon as the word got out about their precise location.
Somebody stole them.
How like us. And no wonder the East Pole can not be located precisely. Somebody got that one, too.
Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident and can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.
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