Reminiscing

Caused by too much time over at Steve's place (Hog On Ice. You can look for it over at the lefthand side of the blog here, as I'm too lazy to provide a link). Reading of his construction adventures evoked memories of my own silly family and their "projects". One of my brothers came up with the most simple of methods to prevent anything from being stolen. Whenever John would make anything he made sure that it was so heavy a bakers's dozen of oldtime teamsters would be needed to move the thing. This of course made rearranging anything a family affair, and while none of us are small even large men have a hard time with something that weighs a half ton or so. His work was actually quite good but he fell in love with the concept of such anchoring after working in this one factory that had regular deliveries of pails of lead. 5 gallon pails that weighed around 400 pounds or so, and sliding such a pail into one contraption or another assured it's remaining stationary.Great for weighing down the back end of a rear wheel drive car when there's snow on the ground, too. But one then needs brothers to come along and assist in the removal of such a heavy but relatively small weight. Or sister Eileen.

Eileen is proof positive that the Neanderthal did not perish, at least not altogether. Yes, they mated with homo sapien and those of us who've actually been somewhere have stories of odd looking chaps with the strength of 3 or 4 men. Not that Eileen is unattractive. She's damned pretty but has the strength of two normal men and this can be disconcerting if one is not prepared for such power from a slender female. Neanderthal, or as some of the family likes calling it, Uncle-Bob-Genes.

Uncle Bob was perhaps 5-10 and weighed approximately 270-300 pounds in his prime. Not an ounce of it fat. One day when his candy store was burning to the ground, the police and firemen tried wrestling him out of the burning building. Great show. He fought off a half dozen or so of them, and these are old-time cops and firemen...none of this special-people-need-special-dispensation bullshit...and they kept calling for help until enough arrived to knock him off his feet. They then tried handcuffing him, but his wrists were far too girthy for the cuffs so they wound up hog-tieing him with towrope from the trunk of one of the cop cars. Cinched him up real good to a fire hydrant and there he thrashed until Uncle Joe arrived on the scene.

Where Uncle Bob was physically imposing, Uncle Joe was Mr. Normal. Average height, average weight, but his part time gig was as a professional strongman. Lift cars, break chains, tear decks of playing cards like so much wet newspaper, that sort of thing. So he shows up and between the two of them they twist the hydrant off of it's moorings.

Lots of water.

Everywhere. Cops shouting, swinging billyclubs, firemen trying to fix the hydrant and slipping and falling to the cold wet pavement. The word melee comes to mind. By then most of the neighborhood kids had arrived and probably half of NY's available police, and while everyone was kicking and punching and wrestling and snarling, the building burned to the ground. The paddywagon showed up, several of them actually, and it was a mess sorting out who was a neighbor and who was an off-duty cop or fireman so they tossed everyone standing into the wagons and everyone who couldn't stand into the ambulances.

So the answer to making something burglar proof rests with making it immovable.

Unless there happens to be an Uncle Bob or Uncle Joe in the area.