Hey...That's Not Smoke

 From our little town, at certain vantage points, you can see a long way away. We noticed something the first winter we were here. There's a factory or some sort of directly south of us that we couldn't identify. There are some interesting companies up here and I thought maybe it was a business associated with the Great Salt Lake, like a brine shrimp processing plant. Nope--I was wrong. From out house, we can barely see the building itself, but at times, we see the cloud rising above it.

Smoke.

At least, that's what most people think it is.

Turns out, we have a neighbor who works in that building. They process paper products. Last summer he and I were shooting the bull and when I found out where he worked, I asked him if it was the building with the all the smoke above it.

That's when he stopped me.

"It's not smoke...it's steam."

He seemed to take my statement a little personal, so I followed up and asked why. Turns out, after working at the building for years, he's heard from concerned citizens many times that his building is an environmental polluter. They've complained that they really should do something about all the gunk their company is putting in to the air.

My neighbor then said something with a sly smile on his face. "You know how you can tell it's steam and not smoke?

I shook my head.

"It's because you only see the cloud in the winter. If it were smoke, you'd see it all year around."

Touché.