Our son has told friends for several years that his parents are wandering around the country trying to find the world's largest ball of twine. Just because we found water towers shaped like ketchup bottles, and rocks shaped like Lincoln's profile, and the shortest river in the country, and a few other oddities, why hang a tag like that on us?
. But, there is such a ball of twine, and today we visited it in Cawker City, KS. Started by a local farmer in 1953, he kept it growing during his life; and then the city (population 600) took it on as a local (tourist attracting) tradition. Current figures weren't posted, but in 2006 the ball weighed 17,886 pounds, and contained 7,801,766 feet of twine. (Who's going to measure to dispute them?)
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In line with the feature, the city has in several shop windows, fun copies of famous pictures, each with a ball of twine incorporated into it. Fun and games in small-town America.
