It's somewhere between here and there where the cracks in the streets have been around longer than time. Where grass sways without concern that one day a high-rise will take its freedom away. Where sun bakes the luster out of most everything, and no one honks if you're driving too slow.

Before today, most of us Texans knew the city of West as a road trip must-stop (the Czech Stop has the best kolaches in the state). But now we'll know West as the place where an explosion at a fertilizer plant killed precious lives and injured more than 100.

It might be thousands of miles away from us, but West isn't much different than Gastonia or Kannapolis - places where people still find time to wave at strangers and talk to their neighbors. In the name of small-town America, take time to do some of the same today.

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