CHRIST!--What a Man!
GARY CHRIST'S home made landmine clearer
GARY CHRIST is an oddball. A kook. The marcher for whom that different drummer plays alone. He is also something of a saint, if such a creature can be expected to roam the wilds of McHENRY COUNTY or CAMBODIA.
I have followed his colorful career for years. We got a nodding acquaintance over mutual admiration for our letters to the editor in the local papers. Occasionally, between trips to Asia, he gasses up at the service station where I work and we chat about his latest project.
The aptly named Christ is the former operator of a CRYSTAL LAKE septic service who gave it all up almost twenty years ago in the quixotic quest to serve humanity. Among his notable achievements/adventures have been:
- Invented shelters for the homeless made out of re-cycled tires. Noting that many local homeless folks camped out or slept in cars rather than enter the PADS shelter system, Christ devised a cheap and simple hut using cast off tires and plywood that would be warm in the winter and easy to erect anywhere. Unfortunately no municipality in the county would allow them citing building codes.
- Crusaded to legalize marijuana as a potential cash crop for farmers. Christ deluged the newspapers with letters advocating hemp as an agricultural product for use as fiber, in medicine and as an ingredient in plastics and other materials. Not that he might not have indulged in the product in a more familiar manner. The McHenry County State’s Attorney once charged him with possession of cannabis. Naturally, he defended himself.
- Applied his septic experience to sanitation problems in Cambodia. He has installed 12 septic systems for Cambodian orphanages since 2001.
- Shipped a historic local barn to Cambodia. When preservationists failed to find a way to save a historic dairy barn from encroaching development, Christ volunteered to raze it. He carefully disassembled the barn, which was still in excellent condition, numbered the pieces, and raised the money to have it shipped to Cambodia where it was re-erected at one of the orphanages. What a surprise it must be to find this artifact of the Mid-Western past re-cycled and nestled amid the palms of some remote village!
- Invented and built a machine to clear landmines. The DAILY HERALD ran a front page story in its Fox Valley edition on Tuesday explaining this latest adventure. Christ noticed that in War torn Cambodia many farmers and villagers are killed and maimed each year by some of the thousands of landmines sowed through the country side in over thirty years of conflict. Attempts to clear the mines are dangerous and expensive. So Christ set about building his own contraption using an old 1947 FARMALL tractor from his family’s farm. MARCO SANTANA’S article describes it thusly:
“A huge hoist system in front of the tractor lifts a steel-plated box into place with an electromagnet.
“The box holds more than 40 solid steel pegs, each about 2 feet long and 2 inches square, and each hanging from its own chain in the box.
“The total weight of the box and the pegs exceeds 1,000 pounds.
“A switch in the operator's protected seating area controls the magnet. When the switch is thrown, the magnet deactivates and drops the half-ton box.
“Because each peg hangs independently, every inch of the area covered by the 4-by-2-foot box is hit with enough force to activate a mine. This is important because the mines are barely bigger than a standard can of tuna, and most are buried in uneven jungle terrain. “
Christ has successfully tested the devise in Cambodia on the small, anti-personnel mines that predominate in that country. But a test on a larger anti-armor mine destroyed the drop box. Undeterred, Christ is planning to build another. He also hopes that constructing the machines can become a local industry in Cambodia. There is certainly a ready-made world wide market of a safe and inexpensive mine clearing system.
Gary Christ is a born again Christian. When at home, he attends a very conservative church. But he is totally unaffected by the political vitriol such churches usually put out. For Christ it is about living like CHRIST. The world could use a few more such weirdoes.