At Exploration Place along the river, in the Flight and Design exhibit room, more than 300,000 tiny metal disks hang suspended along a wall. The exhibitors say that each tiny disk represents a citizen of Wichita, a community of more than 300,000. The disks are all attached to each other but independent enough in their attachments that even a bit of breeze moves them. When the fan blows, you see how even a light breeze ripples through the disks. Rumor and fear do that to us.
Talk is only a bit of breath, after all, an idle talk breathes hard.
When you look at the disks, the thing that strikes you is how many of them there are. And if you're a newspaper reporter like me, talking to some of the 300,000 every week, you know that many of these people say cruel things about each other all the time. There's always a bad breeze blowing. And yet we get along. That's hard to know.