They say that years ago, when Thomas Edison was a young inventor struggling to make ends meet, a major fire broke out in his paint factory. He was alerted to the fire, but too late to save the property. He stood and watched years of work and virtually all of his assets go up in flames. Remarkably, Thomas Edison did not despair. Rather, he asked his assistant to go fetch Edison's family, exclaiming that they would probably never see such a spectacular fire as this in all their lives and they should take the opportunity when it presented itself.
Optimism is a good thing.
Well, the National Center for Swiss-American Studies also has great reason for optimism, for a fire recently destroyed our address in Fairfax Virginia. Fortunately, all of the Center's materials were removed from the burning building. The fire was caused by an air-conditioning unit in an adjoining office and things got really out of control when an improperly stored oxygen tank exploded, leaving the entire building destroyed. The good news that the Center's only losses were in the realm of convenience, such as delays in mail forwarding. Berne, Indiana Originally settled in 1852 by seventy Swiss Mennonite families, the town of Berne, Indiana now boasts a population of about 4,000.