If you attend any journalism school, one of the the first things they tell is to get the heart of your story at the top of the page.  Drop all those W's, -- who, what, when, where -- into your opening paragraph, then come back and fill in the details and background.  But then, it's been a long time since I even pretended to be a journalist, so you'll have to forgive me if I write this story in reverse.  

Eventually, I'm going to get to the news, but I'm going to start the story nearly 400 million years and two thousand miles from the important events.  In fact, I'm going to start in my own backyard.