The trip from my hometown to my late grandparents farm is a 20 minute drive on a country, two-lane road, past farm land, woods, and single or small groups of houses. My grandparents died many years ago, but now my dad and his wife live out in that area of the county (though not on the old farm, which is still in the family).

Their house is in a new subdivision, in the middle of nowhere, building up in what used to be farm land and sand pits. It’s a really nice looking area, and all the homes are twice as big as what you could get for that money in my current town. So I still get to drive out on that old country road when I visit my dad.

There’s a strange structure you can see off in the distance at one point along the route. It’s a landmark that has intrigued me for 40 years. I’ve always thought it looked like a white Mercury space capsule sitting on top of a squat building.

For 40 years I’ve only seen it in the distance — about a mile away off the road we travel. My dad had long ago told me it had something to do with the nearby regional airport — a weather station or something. But it’s real purpose never figured in my imaginings about it. It was always an enigma in the middle of the farm land.

A few months ago I finally decided to actually go to it, see it up close. There’s another road that leaves the one that goes to the farm, and my dad told me that it goes right by that structure. On our way out to visit my dad, I took the family on that detour to view this strange structure that has given me wonder for all my life.

It’s no less strange or intriguing when seen up close. It looks pretty much exactly as it does from a distance. Only the T-shaped things around the roof can’t be seen from the main road. It still looks like a Mercury space capsule on a squat building.

As curious as I was (for 40 years), I was sort of afraid that seeing this thing up close would spoil my imaginings about it. But seeing doesn’t spoil anything. I’m actually even more curious about it — what’s inside? In my mind’s eye, I picture old computers with tape reels and banks of flashing lights.

Maybe in another 40 years I’ll find a way to see the inside. Until then, I’ll keep loving how it makes me wonder.

Bullgrit

I’ve mentioned that Calfgrit8 is in Cub Scouts, and this coming weekend is the Pinewood Derby races for the local pack. We got the car kit (a block of wood, four plastic wheels & nails) several weeks ago, but we hadn’t started on actually making the car until last week.

CG8 just hasn’t shown much interest in the event or in the idea of creating the car. He’s been attentive when I’ve mentioned it and talked about ideas, but he hasn’t brought up anything about it on his own. I think he just doesn’t have a real understanding of what the whole event is. I’ve tried explaining it to him, going off just what I remember from my Scout days — 30-some years ago. But I think it’s still only a vague concept for him.

I remember participating in a Pinewood Derby at least twice as a boy. My step-dad got the block of wood carved and sanded at the local community college, where he worked as a teacher (he wasn’t the carpentry teacher, though). I can only remember little snippets of making the car and of racing the car. When my mom moved out of her old house last year, we found one of my old derby cars. I don’t remember what we did with it — I might have just thrown it away, although, now, I wish I had it.

I don’t have any wood-working tools. I’ve got a bunch of useful household tools, but nothing really for woodworking other than a handsaw and a standard cordless drill. I have no carpentry machines. Two weeks ago at a Scout meeting, I talked to a couple of dads and asked them how they carved their cars.

“Oh, I just ran it through the shozim, edged it with my harriror, and then smoothed it over with my xizigy.” Yeah, I had no idea what they were talking about.

So last weekend I went to work on the block of wood with my handsaw, my drill, and some sandpaper. It took me an hour, but I managed to shape the thing into a decent car shape. CG8 came up with the ideas of adding a Lego figure driver, painting it red, and he picked out the flame decals for it.

I drilled big holes underneath the car to add metal washers to bring it up to the 5 ounces weight limit, and I think it’s shaping up to be a decent race car. Having seen a couple of other cars in our pack, and some of the design examples on the Internet, I have no hope that this car will win the derby, but it’s not a really bad looking piece of work.

Right now it’s still disassembled, waiting for the clear coat of gloss to dry, so I can’t get a picture of it. But the race is this Saturday, so I’ll have some pictures of the completed project to show next week. I hope after he sees what the whole derby event is like this time, next year he’ll have more interest in directly working on it.

Bullgrit

1985. My step-sister and I were on our way to the restaurant where we worked after school and on the weekends. We were in a little orange, 1982, hatch-back, Honda Civic. I was driving, and sister was in the passenger seat.

We left our neighborhood outside the town limits, and was cruising down the two-lane highway towards town. This road crosses a railroad track, and at this time the lights were flashing to warn of an approaching train. There was no signal arm to block the road, but as a smart and cautious teenage driver, I stopped at the crossing.

A short line of cars were stopped on the other side of the tracks; workers coming home after 5:00 p.m. No train was to be seen in either direction — and in this flat, open farmland terrain, we could see a couple miles or more. But there was a strange screeching and air horn sound coming from behind us. I looked into the rearview mirror just in time to see the big yellow front grill of an 18-wheeler.

WHAM! The truck slammed into us from behind, shooting us across the railroad tracks. It hit us at such an angle that we were flying right to the line of cars on the other side of the tracks, but in total instinct, I managed to wheel us to the right and away from another collision.

My feet had come off the brake and clutch, and we had enough momentum that I steered us off the road and into a business parking lot on our right. When we came to a full stop, my sister and I just looked at each other. “Are you alright?” we both asked. “I don’t know,” we both answered.

We got out of the car. The rear was completely crushed in such that had anyone been sitting in the back seat, they would surely be dead. Then we saw the 18-wheeled truck that hit us. It was jack-knifed up at the signal lights.

The truck driver was rushing over to us, and people were coming out of the business. “Holy crap,” I think I said. Comparing the huge size of that truck to the little size of our little putter, how did we survive that hit? How were we not even apparently hurt?

My sister went into the business to use their phone. (We didn’t have cell phones in those days.) I stood out by the car shaking as the adrenaline rush started wearing off. People were talking about the accident — what they heard, what they saw, how lucky everyone was.

Turns out the truck driver had already been down this road that day, and he knew the train signal lights were malfunctioning — had been signaling all day — and he just didn’t notice that our little car was stopped there until he was too close. He slammed on his breaks, and his trailer started to jack-knife, and that kept him from hitting us at full speed.

As I mentioned, it was after 5:00 in the evening, and the road was full of folks heading home from work. My mom was among those travelers. She came down the road and got caught in the long line of traffic waiting to slowly get around the scene. And then she saw our car, smashed all to hell, in the parking lot. When she pulled into the lot, she could see her son standing there, but she didn’t her step-daughter.

I don’t remember seeing Mom pull into the lot. I don’t remember much of anything more than a minute after getting out of the car and before being in the hospital emergency room. I think the shock and adrenaline rush overwhelmed my memory cells.

At the hospital, the emergency doctor gave both of us a look over. I had a knot on my head, and my sister had a sore neck, but we had no visible wounds or injury. The staff took some x-rays, but nothing showed up. My sister got a neck brace, but I don’t think she wore it 24 hours.

We were the talk of the area for a few days, as many people on their way home that evening saw our wrecked car and the jack-knifed truck. People were surprised then, and I am still a bit surprised today that we weren’t seriously injured in that collision. I mean, that truck outweighed us by a few tons, and shot us directly towards other vehicles.

I like to think it was my quick thinking that saved us, and others, from a second, head-on collision. But that would mean I’d have to say with a straight face that I did something other than think, “Oh shit!” and react purely on instinct. At least I didn’t mess my pants. That’s really the only heroic thing I can claim in that incident.

Bullgrit