Company-Y

Oh, there is so much I could say about this particular comic strip. Believe it or not, this is really our life to a T.

Speaking of life, we actually get to go on vacation soon! Yippee! We’re flying up to the Seattle area and visit a bunch of friends that we haven’t seen since college. A big priority on my list is to take the Underground Tour of Seattle while we’re there.

In a nutshell, the story of the Seattle Underground says the city sank a full story due to the majority of the city being built on sawdust.  Away.com holds a slightly more in-depth and correct account of the phenomenon, stating that the Seattle Underground was an intentional act of the turn-of-the-century builders to rebuild as quickly as possible after the fire of 1889 so that the economy wouldn’t suffer. The plan was to rebuild the buildings, THEN raise the street levels a safe height above sea-level.  What resulted was the rich merchants rebuilding two story buildings and the not-so-rich merchants building single story buildings and then AGREEING TO BECOME BURIED 20 years later.  To reach the buried buildings, ladders were placed at every street corner and lead underground to tunnels and underground store fronts.

Sound safe? I think not! Good thing they placed small squares of glass in the ground-level sidewalks to allow light to filter down to the underground tunnels because it really helped to give the place a homey feel.  I remember those little purple squares of glass from my childhood and am seriously curious how much light they actually allow through.  Once the pneumonic plague hit the Underground in 1907, the Underground was condemned and shut down, inadvertently allowing crime, the homeless, drugs and prostitution to go..well, underground.

But yes! The Seattle Underground! We’ll see you there!