RUDIMENTS, pt. 167
Making Cars
As a kid, alongside the railroad
tracks and across the way, as
already noted, was the prison farm.
Off to the left of that, into the woods,
and up a bluff and a hill, was a company
that was called Philadelphia Quartz.
We never knew what it was, in 1957,
as kids, but were just told it made
'bug spray.' Not a very comforting
thought, but none of us thought twice
about it. Perhaps in Nazi Germany
as well, the kids were told the
Cyclon B factory made shower
equipment. These woods and this
entire area was, for the most part,
our playland and we didn't much
care what went on. There was a pond
there, on the higher ground, and it was
always filled with a very un-natural
colored, cobalt-blue water. Almost
attractive. We never knew what it
was, could have been, or wanted
to be, but that never stopped us
either from wading in. Not exactly
drinking it, no, more just like sloshing
and near-swimming - in our own
electric-blue mill pond. None of lost
a limb or went limp, or were driven
insane (I don't think), but we never
did get to the bottom of 'bug-spray
pond.' Just an interesting fact, for
sure, in light of today's peculiar
squeamishness over everything.
The company is still there, of a
sort - some of the buildings of
our day have been torn down,
perhaps it's downsized, and there's
now a gatehouse too, up there,
for truck entry, security, etc. They
nowadays just call themselves 'PQ'
Corporation, having shortened their
name, and perhaps no longer affiliated
in any way with the Philadelphia
reference. I know less now, in fact,
than I did then. It's no longer a
'hands-on' reference.
-
Anyway, having survived perhaps
some toxic swimming and ingestion,
I headed forth past lots of obstacles.
Glowing in the dark, perhaps, but I
never noticed. (I will say this, in all
'fairness' to reality, of 9 friends and
peers of my referencing, 4 are dead,
and 1 is now a basket case, psychotic.
His case is blamed on Vietnam service).
Just saying. Who ever knows, about
the playing fields of yesteryear.
-
Early on I developed some neat ways
of categorizing or compartmentalizing
my mind, cabinet-like, around things.
I knew ways of closing them off so
that I could be 'doing' one thing but
having my thoughts hard at work and
processing something else entire. They
don't teach that in school and such
behavior is frowned upon. We are told
by contrast to 'stay with task' and focus
on what we are doing. Yeah, OK, but
that 'what we are doing' always turns
out to be in the employ of someone else,
for pay. In other, they simple wanted us
to automaton-ize ourselves and put our
own concerns on a back burner while
we went ahead in service making money
for someone else or some other entity.
In other words, they're using us.
What kind of nice, God-given, life is
that? So, as I said, I was most often
off to somewhere else, even if people
'saw' me. Living near Linden Airport
used to be cool too; it took up a lot
of my idle, young hours. I had, with
friends, made a cheap little treehouse,
about 1/2 way up a large oak growing
alongside the railroad tracks - all
scrap-wood, and slabs just hammered
together and into the tree itself. It was
firm and it was sturdy, and it worked.
And since it, and the tree, were straight
back behind my house, to the tracks,
I always had ownership claim to it,
sort of, and used it at will. Linden
Airport was nearby enough that I
often could see the small planes
coming and going, on approaches
and such, But, more than that, what
always intrigued me were the
helicopters. Helio (sun) copters.
Helios was an early Sun-God.
They fascinated me and led me to
all sorts of flight and the physics
of flight and flight dynamics
inquiries. I just get like that,
over the top needing info.
It's a trait, still there.
-
Leonardo Da Vinci, it is said,
had designs and diagrams for
such 'flying machines' in his
drawings and notebooks. I've
seen those renderings, and I
guess that's what it (they) was or
were. Without any real 'propulsion,'
as we know it, it never made any
sense to me. But, in any case, I
would muse for hours on what
made helicopters go. I knew about
the rotors, the rear one for 'lateral'
stability, and the large one at top
for lift. At the same time I grasped
the dead weight of the helicopter
itself, always wanting to 'fall'
again straight down. 'Pull' let's
call it. So the life generated by
the motor-driven large overhead
propeller-rotor, in the constant
dynamic controlled by the operator,
had to overcome the inertia or
whatever of the dead weight of
the thing itself, always wanting
to drop back to earth. OK. That
was a dynamic struggle always
underway. (How philosophical all
this got always caught my attention.
As a human, do not we too seek
life and get death, fall, failure,
completion?). But what always
perplexed me, without any real
learning or knowledge of it, was
what and how got a helicopter
moving forward. And no less, I
had seen them hover in place, and
even go backwards. Very confusing
to me. It wasn't until many years
later that I learned (again still
self-taught, but a bit more
thorough) that the overhead rotor
blades themselves move; swivel,
pivot slightly up or downward, and
in capturing that airflow, again
controlled by the operator below,
propel the craft forward, or to hover
in place, or to go backwards.
Fascinating stuff.
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