[meteorite-list] Ms. Polacco / Meteorite

From: SSachs9056_at_aol.com <SSachs9056_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:38 2004
Message-ID: <12a.29a4a272.2bef1b2c_at_aol.com>

Rose and List,
Ms. Polacco is a children's writer from Michigan. She wrote a children's book
entitled "METEOR!" in 1987. As the story goes her grandparents saw a meteor
fall on their farm and the whole town came to see it, there was a parade,
blah, blah. It's a cute story, and in the story it mentions that "scientists"
came from Battle Creek College and University of Michigan and Michigan State
University to the farm to study the meteorite. What's unusual about the story
is that the story concludes that the meteorite was ultimately used as her
Grandmother's grave / headstone.

Ms. Polacco apparently came back to the farm to live after being away for
many years--and now calls the farm: "Meteor Ridge Farm". Unfortunately for
Ms. Polacco, the "headstone" has been examined by list members visiting the
gravesite---(and well you know how this is going to end)....it's not a
meteorite. There is no listing in the Meteoritical Bulletin,...nothing. Have
never seen any scientific / historical data to back the story.

Don't think anyone's had the heart to trudge up to Meteor Ridge Farm and
burst her bubble. Sometime memories should just stay that way. Anyhoo---I'm
of the opinion that Ms. Polacco wouldn't believe any of us giving her the
un-varnished truth. She---and like so many before her--would remain steadfast
in her beliefs that a meteor really fell on her grandparent's farm---despite
what scientists today would say.

There was a website complete with a pic of the headstone I downloaded a few
years back. Don't know if her site is still up and running. Just punch in
Meteor Ridge Farm on YAHOO. Still...it's a cute story.

Steven L. Sachs / Near Chicago / IMCA # 9210
Received on Sat 10 May 2003 11:19:08 PM PDT