Subject: Re: [TR] stupidity

From: "Randall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 16:29:16 -0700

> I am SURE no-one out there has ever done anything as stupid.  
> But if you have, and sufficient time has elapsed to share it, 
> I'd love to hear.  Misery loves company and repairing and 
> repainting the front apron is going to cost - well, you know.

Not quite the same category, but even more stupid.  Back when I was a teenager (and dinosaurs roamed the earth), I bought an
Oldsmobile with a 425ci big block that needed to be rebuilt.  Had practically no tools at all, not even a decent place to work on
it, so I was trying to rebuild the engine with it just sitting on a stack of concrete blocks (in place of a bench or engine stand).
Was undoing something, I forget what, and one of the cinder blocks tipped over, letting the engine block fall towards the floor.  I
caught it!

Pulled my right shoulder out of joint, apparently damaging the rotator cuff in the process.  The pain was intense, I probably passed
out momentarily from it (never was certain about that).  At any rate, the next thing I remember is being fully spread-eagle over the
top of that engine block, with the edge of it cutting into my chest.  No one around, no cell phone (nor 911 to call if I had one),
so I loaded myself up in the other car and drove myself home.  The car had "3 on the tree" but I literally could not lift my right
arm at all.  The shoulder was still out of place, and the only way I could move the arm was to pick it up with the other hand.  So I
shifted by reaching through the wheel with my left hand and reaching across.

About halfway home (10 miles or so), the shoulder popped back into place and the pain moderated a bit.  But the damage took many
years to fully heal, and for the longest time it would pop back out at inopportune moments (like diving into a swimming pool).

To add insult to injury, the engine never ran right anyway.  I got it back together, but it threw a rod and ventilated the block
just a few weeks later.  Apparently it's important for those holes in the connecting rods to be round <g>  So I finally did what I
should have done in the first place : Found a junkyard engine for $50 and dropped that in.  It ran for many years after that, and
was still running when we finally decided to get rid of the car.

-- Randall  

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