Take It From Me: You Can’t Run From Static Electricity
When I was a kid I had a book called Mysteries of the Unexplained that contained AMAZING BUT TRUE! stories aimed at stirring the imagination, eliciting a sense of wonder, and prolonging the bed-wetting experience by at least three years. I’d huddle beneath the covers with my flashlight and read about strange psychic phenomena documented by real scientists, physicists, private investigators, and the occasional freaked-out paranormal expert who, at the end of the story, usually abandoned his profession to become a plumber:
When I was a kid I had a book called Mysteries of the Unexplained that contained AMAZING BUT TRUE! stories aimed at stirring the imagination, eliciting a sense of wonder, and prolonging the bed-wetting experience by at least three years. I’d huddle beneath the covers with my flashlight and read about strange psychic phenomena documented by real scientists, physicists, private investigators, and the occasional freaked-out paranormal expert who, at the end of the story, usually abandoned his profession to become a plumber:
“Even now, after all these years, I can still feel those icy fingers whenever a cold breeze blows across my butt crack…”
Though the book was mostly about ghosts, aliens, strange disappearances and creepy folklore (…so stand alone in the dark, if you dare. Hold a mirror and repeat the words “Sassafras Sally.” And prepare to be slapped by a pair of wet tea bags), it was spontaneous human combustion that really got to me. I think it’s because, in my mind, ghosts, aliens, strange disappearance and folklore could all be avoided by exercising a little caution.
Spot an alien spaceship? Run.
Worried about Sassafras Sally? Introduce her to Chi tea.
Concerned about taking a cruise through the Bermuda Triangle? Go to Disneyland and settle for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” instead.
But burst into flames in the middle of Mrs. Frump’s sixth-grade classroom, and chances are you’d be reduced to a pair of smoking sneakers long before you could acquire a hall pass and make it to a water source. Because of this fear, I mapped out the location of every fire extinguisher and water fountain at Jane Adams Elementary, and remained within eight feet of something to douse myself with throughout much of the sixth grade. Suffice it to say, except for visiting the public pool and local fire station, I missed most of my class field trips.
I’m 43 now, and, aside from “All-You-Can-Eat Frijole Night” at Juan’s Cantina, I’ve overcome my fear of spontaneously combusting.
At least until yesterday.
That’s when “Peggy” from our composition department handed me a news article about a man in Warrnambool, Australia whose clothes spontaneously built up 40,000 volts of static electricity. According to Frank Clewers, he was unaware of being a human power grid until a secretary noticed his shoes were burning a hole in the office carpet. After several awkward minutes of misinterpreting his secretary’s warnings of “You’re sizzling!” and “You’re making my hair stand up!” as sexual innuendo, Frank realized what was happening and contacted the fire department. Fire official Henry Barton believes it was the combination of Franks’ woolen shirt and synthetic nylon jacket rubbing together that created a charge “just shy of spontaneous combustion.”
I’m no electrician, but had shag carpet been involved, I doubt Frank would still be alive.
After reading about this incident, I thanked “Peggy” (whom I used to like), then slowly removed my nylon coat and wool sweater, trying to generate as little friction as possible, by cutting them from my body with a pair of scissors. That’s because I’m one of those people who’s constantly building up small amounts of static electricity. Our cat became aware of this phenomenon after rubbing on my leg once. This was followed by a loud “pop,” a blue flash, and our cat performing a hissing cartwheel.
Needless to say, thanks to “Peggy,” my condition has now escalated from minor annoyance to full-blown phobia. I no longer leave the house without a copper wire running from my undershorts to the ground, and I go through at least four cans of “Cling Free” a day.
I’m sure I’ll eventually overcome my fear again. In the meantime, I really need to finish mapping out the extinguishers and water sources in our office.
(You can write to Ned Hickson at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR. 97439, or nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com.)
Tweaking The Health Care Plan
We all know that getting the Health Care Bill passed by the House of Representatives was not easy. However, it was a good civics lesson for children. They learned that if the minority is unhappy with what the majority decides, those who support the minority call the people in the majority offensive names and spit at them. Some make threatening phone calls.
We all know that getting the Health Care Bill passed by the House of Representatives was not easy. However, it was a good civics lesson for children. They learned that if the minority is unhappy with what the majority decides, those who support the minority call the people in the majority offensive names and spit at them. Some make threatening phone calls.
This spitting is might be the oddest reaction. As we learned during the swine flu panic, we should always cover our mouths when sneezing or coughing. Certainly, spitting directly at someone can be equally unsanitary. And to do it when the conversation involves health undermines the spitter’s political position.
Some people feel the Health Bill went too far, and others feel it didn’t go far enough. Therefore, it seems appropriate for me to discuss some of the things it does and does not cover as well as some of the ramifications of the bill.
Millions of parents were probably thrilled to learn that from now on, their children will be allowed to be covered by the family’s insurance plan until the kids are 26. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, because of this bill, college graduates would be able to pursue their dreams instead of worrying about getting their own health insurance right away. They won’t have to find jobs they have no interest in just to get health insurance. On the other hand, some parents might be less than thrilled about their kids not having to find jobs for a few more years.
The new bill will insure 32 million Americans who don’t have insurance now. This might be the most significant and positive part of the Health Care bill. And to each of you who was opposed to insuring these people: “No, all 32 million people will not be in your doctor’s waiting room at the same time, fighting over that three-year-old copy of “People.”
Let’s talk about a few important things the Health Care Bill doesn’t cover. Currently, if you’re five minutes late for a doctor’s appointment, he or she gets angry with you. But if the doctor makes you wait for an hour, you don’t even get an apology. I hope the Senate will be wise enough to address this in a Being Late In A Doctor’s Office Bill. Here’s my suggestion to them: If you’re more than 15 minutes late for your appointment, you pay double. If the doctor’s more than 15 minutes late, your visit is free. I guarantee this problem will go away.
Funds should be set aside for some necessary research. For example, it’s about time medical science figured out why we get the sickest on weekends when our doctors aren’t in their offices. And you know that pain that is so bad that we insist on seeing the doctor right away? Well, someone should discover why it disappears right when we walk into the doctor’s office. And don’t you think they can come up with something better than the paper we have to lie down on when we’re being examined? Doctors used that same kind of paper when they used to bleed people.
What about those gowns? Put this arm in this hole, don’t put that arm in that hole, wrap it around you, then tie it in the back. What are we, escape artists? I’m sure medical researchers can come up with a better robe. After all, these are the same people who found a solution for “restless leg syndrome.”
One of the most frustrating things about being a patient is getting conflicting opinions from different doctors. I understand that sometimes professionals have different views about things, but there should be some consensus on the questions that trouble us the most. Let’s invest some of that Health Care money to get a definitive answer to one of the oldest and most important questions in Health Care: Heat or ice?
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.
Dozens Die In 1912 Locomotive Boiler Explosion
Federal investigators and a blue-ribbon committee pressed ahead on March. 24, 1912 with probes of the worst man-made calamity in San Antonio since the fall of the Alamo.
Federal investigators and a blue-ribbon committee pressed ahead on March. 24, 1912 with probes of the worst man-made calamity in San Antonio since the fall of the Alamo.
(Credit for bringing this long forgotten tragedy to light must go to Mike Cox. A short chapter in his 2006 book Texas Disasters and contemporary newspaper accounts were the basis for this column.)
Following a Christmas week wreck near Seguin, Number 704 had been undergoing repairs in the Southern Pacific roundhouse on the eastern edge of downtown San Antonio. After three months in the shop, the 200,000-pound, ten-wheel steam locomotive was ready for the mandatory test run and, if all went well, return to service.
No one was better qualified than senior engineer Walter Jourdan to put Number 704 through its paces. At 63 he had more years with his hand on the throttle than anybody else in the entire Southern Division of SP.
Jourdan was in no hurry on the morning of March 18, 1912. Mindful of the fact that most of the repairs had been performed by “replacement” workers, he took more time than usual checking for damage the “scabs,” as the union called them, might have missed.
Only when Number 704 passed his personal inspection, did Jourdan give the order to fire up the boiler. While he waited for the locomotive to build up a head of steam, the experienced engineer walked around the iron horse with a wrench and oil can.
At precisely 8:55 a.m., the boiler exploded. Cox described what happened next: “…launching the huge cylinder through the roundhouse roof like a rocket lying on its side, breaking the big wheels from their hubs, and sending assorted pieces of iron, levers, pipes, rods, and other shrapnel-like hunks of metal in every direction at a deadly velocity.”
Engineer Jourdan and as many as three dozen other workers in the huge brick building never knew what happened. They were killed instantly, their bodies torn apart by the fantastic force of the blast.
The explosion shook the city of 100,000 to its roots. Residents rushed outdoors in the mistaken but understandable belief that San Antonio had been hit by an earthquake.
Neighborhoods within a half-mile radius of the roundhouse suddenly became ground zero. First was the shock wave, which “pulled trees from the ground, blew out windows, and rammed debris through the walls of houses….” Then came the iron rain as fragments of the shattered locomotive fell back to earth.
A massive chunk of the boiler landed between two homes gouging out a four-foot deep crater. A group of children had been playing on that very spot just minutes earlier and surely would have been crushed to death had they not gone inside for breakfast.
The front end of the locomotive reduced a frame house to kindling and badly injured the elderly resident. A woman in her front yard barely missed being struck an air tank and a human torso that fell out of the sky only seconds apart.
Human remains were scattered over a wide area. “Parts of jackets and coats and trousers containing portions of mangled limbs were found hundreds of yards from the immediate scene of the explosion,” read a report in the Dallas Morning News. “Here and there heaps of blood-covered human flesh were located and covered with tarpaulins.”
The first firemen and police officers to reach what was left of the roundhouse did not expect to find any survivors. But P.J. Stoudt, who had the presence of mind to dive under a bench, was alive and remarkably well in the rubble as was Robert Lipscomb, who was blown 30 feet by the blast and awoke with a dead co-worker’s hat in his hand.
Others not killed by the explosion suffered an even more terrible fate. Oil from a ruptured fuel car caught fire and burned them alive before the blaze could be put out.
Relatives beat the authorities to the hellish site. According to a heart-rending report, “Women came upon the bodies of their husbands and children upon those of their fathers. There were scenes of horror, bitter weeping and fainting women on all sides.”
Fort Sam Houston responded quickly to the emergency sending members of the Third Cavalry on horseback to aid overwhelmed local authorities. The army also provided medical personnel and horse-drawn ambulances.
Although 26 bodies were positively identified, bits and pieces were no help in the days before DNA and forensic science. The best guess was that another 10 or 15 perished with approximately 50 more sustaining injuries from which they recovered.
In the anguished days following the disaster, public opinion blamed union saboteurs. But this theory was ruled out early in the parallel investigations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and a citizens committee.
The final report of the ICC was released on May 17. It said in part: “It is our conclusion that this explosion was due to excessive steam pressure which was caused by an employee (of the railroad) tightening the adjusting screw of the safety valves, resulting in an accumulation of steam pressure beyond the endurance of the boiler.”
In other words, human error was responsible for the horror of 1912.
Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549. And come on by www.twith.com for a visit!
