Oct. 08, 2003 - 19:32 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Spazzification

It can't happen to me -- words that I learned didn't apply to me. The men's wear department store where Dad bought his clothes would give customer's sons little birthday presents. Dad took me in and I picked out what I had always wanted, a jack knife. Dad said I could carry it in my pocket on the way home and he would show me how to open it after supper. Un huh -- little Mr. Know-it-all had seen guys open jack knives and figured he would do it himself without having to be shown. Hooked the groove with my thumbnail, just like the big guys did. Got it halfway open too. Then came the lesson. I tried to open it all the way and thought that it was obvious to just push on the blade to open it. After the bandaging I was told that the knife was gone.

Long ago when I was just inexperienced and didn't have my think tank assembled yet I had this irresistible urge to find out what was on the inside of everything. In the gutter I found a cylindrical thing, rounded on each end which was obviously hollow. Stone beating on it didn't get me inside it, so I went and got a hammer and pounded away. Worked up a bit of a sweat I did. After while I found myself laying on the sidewalk, the hammer a ways away from me and the mystery object nowhere in sight. A bit young to understand unconscious, etc., I tried to puzzle out just what did happen. Some years later I figured that it was a cartridge similar to the ones that used to be sold to use in a device to make fizz water for drinks. It must have been pressurized. How fortunate I was.

I finally found that hammers were for installing metal nails and hurt when I hit my own nails and that saws cut flesh more rapidly than wood.

Hanging around where they built houses I noticed two things I wanted more than anything. At my age then, there would have been no place to use them, but I wanted them anyhow. One was a Yankee Screwdriver, made I think by Stanley and the other was a Yankee Drill. Both handtools were pretty neat and valuable for workmen to use, the long one could put in screws in one stroke, the drill was spring loaded and was a one stroke thing too. The drill bits were fluted, but not spriral flutes and were designed to drill wood. They worked quite well drilling screw holes in wood. I bought a Yankee Drill once when I had earned a little cash and filled much wood with holes, you might say I had a surplus of wooden holes. One time I wanted to make something with metal from a Prince Albert Tobacco can and needed holes in it. I tried using the Yankee Drill to no avail. Figuring that it was just a matter of strength and determination, I drew back my hand and whanged her down. Only thing was that my hand had moved the metal over and I put the drill bit through my thumb, right through the nail.

What a contretemps that was, it was Easter Sunday and Mom and Dad had gone to take something to my aunt's and would be gone a while. Finally I managed to get the bit loose from the drill by the use of my left hand and my teeth and sitting there with the bit through my thumb 'til they got back. A trip to the hospital to get it removed and a helluva lecture from Dad which hurt worse than my thumb did.

Then there was the rash, irrational stuff that we did as kids. At the school a block from my house there was a fire escape from the third floor. All metal, stairs. We kids noted that on the back side the treads stuck out from the risers a bit, leaving room for a fingerhold. So it was dares and competition to see who could go up the backside the furthest. Eventually most of us could make clear to the top and back down. The rest quit trying a few days in when they didn't feel it was worth the risk - I guess. Any one of us could have been hurt badly from a fall during an escapade like that.

Another thing was finding a new tree to climb. We all did pretty good on the familiar trees around home, but a new tree was a challenge. Once gained, the lower limbs were a path upward. Then the Macho would kick in and we would try to climb as high as we could. We soon found that we could get high enough that the limb being stood on would break and reached the conclusion that it would be better to do something else.

I grew older, but not smarter. My first bicycle had wooden rims. It was my pride and joy and trips away from home in the nearby vicinity in the summer were fun. But the impossible dream was the descent of Ruby Hill on the bike. Ruby Hill was the hill where men would make the attempt to get their cars up it. But kids would come up the backside on an easy grade and then ride their bikes down the steep side. The steep side of course was rutted from autos trying for the top. My friends all coasted down, leaving me at the top. I Lone Rangered my way to the edge and down I went, bouncing from rut to rut until finally I reached bottom in one piece. What a thrill that was, but walking my bike home with busted rims was sure a drag though. Consideration of what might have happened never entered my mind, I was too high on cloud Nine.

Then, I guess acts of sheer bravado paled and doings of sheer stupidity took the helm.

Being a latch key kid left me room to really mess up. I remember once I wanted to clean a badly stained spot on our basement floor around the laundry tubs. I took a pail of hot water, dosed it heavily with ammonia and started pouring Clorox into it. I got the mop dipped and started swabbing and soon found it was hard to breathe. I spent some time on the back steps in the fresh air and ended up with sore lungs for a day or two.

Misjudgement and coordination did me in time after time. Once I was off bearing on a long piece of one by four lumber on a joiner, as we neared the end the man on the other end jerked, the board came loose from my hand. I had pretty good reflexes, but not quite good enough. I hamburgered the end of my thumb which took a while to heal.

Another time I was riveting the skin on the roof of a freight trailer and had to make a quick pit stop, I hung the rivet gun over the rail of the scaffold and swung down to the floor, dislodging the gun which came down on top of my head while the trigger fell back against the scaffold. Now that was riveting to say the least and left me with a heck of a headache and rubbery knees.

I did manage to put a few years of work in without injury, good sense finally maturing a bit perhaps. One thing that happened at the power plant where I worked gave me a lesson. We were trying to clear the hopper under an air heater. The method was to take a long lance pipe hooked up to a water hose and prod into the ash trying to get the drain open. I hooked it up, turned the water on and had no luck. Leaving the lance pipe in and turning the water off I tried to take the hose from the lance pipe. Unfortunately the water had turned to steam in the pipe and when I broke the connection my face got pretty well steamed.

On to new opportunities to learn. I became a water analyst at the power plant. Laboratory procedures. One of our tests used hydrochloric acid. I used a pipette which had the end trimmed off and the barrel remarked for the proper measure. The pipette would be dipped in the bottle, pulled up and acid drained to the mark and the proper amount transferred to the solution. I had mouth engaged in conversation with someone and losing track of what I was doing I put the pipette into the bottle and sucked on it. Spitting acid into the lab sink immediately and turning my head upside down and flushing my mouth with water from the spigot kept me from injury -- but the possible consequences of something like that still make me shiver.

I once heard someone say that any boy who made to the age of 21 was a remarkable exception. Sometimes I think that any man who is still alive is lucky beyond measure and has the good Lord at his side.

Now all my misdeeds and miserable actions come from my loud mouth. Luckily I haven't been physically injured yet and intend to watch it, watch it and make sure I don't.

I guess my PhD is in Physical And Mental Spazzification . . . . . . . . .

Blog