A lesson in history
Preface: After the 30+ hours of driving I did over the Thanksgiving weekend, I had a chance to catch up on a ton of podcasts and spend a lot of time inside my head. The two combined, and as such, I decided to write this, inspired by listening to The Moth podcast. This is a short non-fiction story from my life.
A lesson in history
While in college, I bought a Jeep. Not just any Jeep, but a beat up '64 Wagoneer, from a junkyard. Yes, someone else had the good sense to take the thing to the junkyard to dispose of it, but I was entirely unable to keep from purchasing it. I really like the old truck, even though it currently is just sitting around waiting for me at my parents house. We've had quite a few adventures together, and I'm sure one day the adventure will continue. The adventure I bring you today is from when I was living in Los Alamos, NM.
I didn't have much parking at home, and where I worked had a huge parking lot, so I would park my Jeep there, out of the way. This worked for sometime, until someone became wise to my free parking and asked that I move it. No problem, says I. I went to the parking lot, and climbed in. The brakes, of course, went to the floor. This truck is old enough to not have automatic brake shoe adjusters on the 4 drum brakes. Instead, you have to get under the truck and adjust 4 bolts per wheel now and again to keep the pads in position as they wear, and I'd never bothered with that. As long as you drove it often enough, hydraulic pressure would do just as well, but I had not driven in it in a couple of months. So, I sat there, pumping, pumping, pumping the brakes until the pedal started to firm up. I fired the truck up, and tooled around the parking lot, slowly, testing the brakes. It all felt good.
I drove to the top of the hill at the light, waiting to turn out of the parking lot. The light changed, I turned left and accelerated down the hill towards the light at the bottom. I downshifted and mashed the brakes. The brake pedal went to the floor with no perceptible slowing of the truck. The intersection was approaching, with cars already stopped at it, and it had just become obvious that I would not be able to join their stopped state. In the few seconds I had to come to a decision, I had a minor flashback to my youth, a history lesson if you will...
When I was about 9 or 10, I was gifted with a broken lawnmower. I excitedly removed the engine with the hope of making it into a go-kart, but I still had that lawnmower frame sitting around. In March or so, it becomes very windy on the great plains, and I was very bored. These powers combined into what at the time seemed like a great idea: I could use the rolling platform of the lawnmower as my base, and the wind as my engine. I was very excited.
I found a piece of plywood, and bolted across the top of the lawnmower chassis. I removed the handle from the chassis so now I had a flat platform. Next, I cut up some 2x4 pieces and fashioned a mast. I then convinced my mom that I needed a sheet for some innocent purpose; she gave me an old felt blanket. I fashioned some cross bars and stapled the sheet to the mast. I was now the proud owner of a sail-lawnmower.
I pushed the contraption out into the street. The wind was blowing hard, 35-40mph hard. This was going to be awesome. I aimed the contraption down the street, and climbed on. A gust of wind started me rolling, and the steady high speed wind pushed me up to speed. I was thrilled! It worked! Soon, I was going very fast down the street.
Suddenly, I had a minor epiphany regarding my wind cruiser: I had no steering. This was not entirely a deal breaker, but coupled with an even worse oversight, I was doomed. You see, I kind of forgot to install some kind of braking system on my contraption. And I was now doing 25-30mph down the middle of the road. Well, not the middle now, more of an angle. An angle that looked like it was going to terminate into that barbed wire fence not far ahead. It was decision time. With no other options, I opted to tuck and roll off the platform, and let my handiwork complete its maiden voyage by itself. I hit the gravel at a pretty good clip, and rolled to a stop just in time to see the collision. The mast snapped, the sail became embedded in the fencing, and the platform tumbled over to one side. I now had cuts and scrapes, but I was no worse for wear otherwise.
At this point, I was discovered. It seems a kid flying down the street at high speed on a sail craft attracts attention. People came running out into the wind, yelling at me, trying to figure out what had happened. My mom arrived, and after verifying I was safe, relieved me of the sheet, or, what was left of it. I never sailed the pavement again, but a lesson was learned that day, or so I thought.
Flash back to the Jeep. I briefly considered bailing, but this time, I did have steering. I managed to cram the truck into first gear, and slowed as best I could, and then yanked the steering wheel to the left as hard as I could. The truck lurched to the side, climbing up a curb and cutting off all manner of traffic. Suddenly, I was facing back uphill with a small velocity vector, and slowing. It was working! I powered back up to the top of the hill and returned to the safety of the parking lot. I puttered around that parking lot for 15 minutes, pumping the brakes until they actually worked again, and was finally able to safely drive it home. Whew!
So the moral of this story is that if you don't choose to listen to history, you could be, literally, doomed to repeat it. To say that act first, consider later is a solved problem in my life would be a complete lie, but these days I always do one thing before doing something stupid: I check the damn brakes.
Originally published at all things snurkle.
A lesson in history
While in college, I bought a Jeep. Not just any Jeep, but a beat up '64 Wagoneer, from a junkyard. Yes, someone else had the good sense to take the thing to the junkyard to dispose of it, but I was entirely unable to keep from purchasing it. I really like the old truck, even though it currently is just sitting around waiting for me at my parents house. We've had quite a few adventures together, and I'm sure one day the adventure will continue. The adventure I bring you today is from when I was living in Los Alamos, NM.
I didn't have much parking at home, and where I worked had a huge parking lot, so I would park my Jeep there, out of the way. This worked for sometime, until someone became wise to my free parking and asked that I move it. No problem, says I. I went to the parking lot, and climbed in. The brakes, of course, went to the floor. This truck is old enough to not have automatic brake shoe adjusters on the 4 drum brakes. Instead, you have to get under the truck and adjust 4 bolts per wheel now and again to keep the pads in position as they wear, and I'd never bothered with that. As long as you drove it often enough, hydraulic pressure would do just as well, but I had not driven in it in a couple of months. So, I sat there, pumping, pumping, pumping the brakes until the pedal started to firm up. I fired the truck up, and tooled around the parking lot, slowly, testing the brakes. It all felt good.
I drove to the top of the hill at the light, waiting to turn out of the parking lot. The light changed, I turned left and accelerated down the hill towards the light at the bottom. I downshifted and mashed the brakes. The brake pedal went to the floor with no perceptible slowing of the truck. The intersection was approaching, with cars already stopped at it, and it had just become obvious that I would not be able to join their stopped state. In the few seconds I had to come to a decision, I had a minor flashback to my youth, a history lesson if you will...
When I was about 9 or 10, I was gifted with a broken lawnmower. I excitedly removed the engine with the hope of making it into a go-kart, but I still had that lawnmower frame sitting around. In March or so, it becomes very windy on the great plains, and I was very bored. These powers combined into what at the time seemed like a great idea: I could use the rolling platform of the lawnmower as my base, and the wind as my engine. I was very excited.
I found a piece of plywood, and bolted across the top of the lawnmower chassis. I removed the handle from the chassis so now I had a flat platform. Next, I cut up some 2x4 pieces and fashioned a mast. I then convinced my mom that I needed a sheet for some innocent purpose; she gave me an old felt blanket. I fashioned some cross bars and stapled the sheet to the mast. I was now the proud owner of a sail-lawnmower.
I pushed the contraption out into the street. The wind was blowing hard, 35-40mph hard. This was going to be awesome. I aimed the contraption down the street, and climbed on. A gust of wind started me rolling, and the steady high speed wind pushed me up to speed. I was thrilled! It worked! Soon, I was going very fast down the street.
Suddenly, I had a minor epiphany regarding my wind cruiser: I had no steering. This was not entirely a deal breaker, but coupled with an even worse oversight, I was doomed. You see, I kind of forgot to install some kind of braking system on my contraption. And I was now doing 25-30mph down the middle of the road. Well, not the middle now, more of an angle. An angle that looked like it was going to terminate into that barbed wire fence not far ahead. It was decision time. With no other options, I opted to tuck and roll off the platform, and let my handiwork complete its maiden voyage by itself. I hit the gravel at a pretty good clip, and rolled to a stop just in time to see the collision. The mast snapped, the sail became embedded in the fencing, and the platform tumbled over to one side. I now had cuts and scrapes, but I was no worse for wear otherwise.
At this point, I was discovered. It seems a kid flying down the street at high speed on a sail craft attracts attention. People came running out into the wind, yelling at me, trying to figure out what had happened. My mom arrived, and after verifying I was safe, relieved me of the sheet, or, what was left of it. I never sailed the pavement again, but a lesson was learned that day, or so I thought.
Flash back to the Jeep. I briefly considered bailing, but this time, I did have steering. I managed to cram the truck into first gear, and slowed as best I could, and then yanked the steering wheel to the left as hard as I could. The truck lurched to the side, climbing up a curb and cutting off all manner of traffic. Suddenly, I was facing back uphill with a small velocity vector, and slowing. It was working! I powered back up to the top of the hill and returned to the safety of the parking lot. I puttered around that parking lot for 15 minutes, pumping the brakes until they actually worked again, and was finally able to safely drive it home. Whew!
So the moral of this story is that if you don't choose to listen to history, you could be, literally, doomed to repeat it. To say that act first, consider later is a solved problem in my life would be a complete lie, but these days I always do one thing before doing something stupid: I check the damn brakes.
Originally published at all things snurkle.