Growing up in Lubbock, I'd sometimes drive out west of town and park in some cotton field and watch the jets take off at Reese Air Force base. The base opened in the 40's, and for most of its life, its mission was to train fighter pilots. It shut down in 1997. Since then, the whole place-- the runways, the hangars, and even the plume of carcinogenic solvents that had leached into the aquifer beneath the base-- became the property of the City of Lubbock. Lubbock's been scrambling to find tenants for the old buildings. Texas Tech, the local university, snapped up a few. So did South Plains College. Last I heard, there was also a prosthetics manufacturer out there, and a company that flash freezes food using liquid nitrogen. One Sunday, I took a drive out to the old base to have a look around.