Pomes and NERDS
Have always been sort of absent minded, and probably more so the last 50 years. It's interesting sometimes. This last weekend while cleaning my room, came across a short poem on an old floppy disk dated 1999.
Peak Pome
"Seek the high places because truth is up there
Great peaks and cliffs are natural things.
Like rainbows dancing in waterfall mist.
Or a flash of gold from eagle wings
The wind is up there to man and sigh
or scream like the banshees from hell.
Beneath all that sky I'll tell you what's there,
God and his flowers, and a grizzly bear."
The tough part is trying to remember, "Did I write that?"
Longtime ago a fella told me, "No one is smart enough to design anything, that someone else isn't dumb enough to use wrong." Though that was an exaggeration until I remembered all the crazy things we hear about, like the bank robber who got caught when his pants fell down.
Most of the well-known makers of tools in America are out of business so we buy foreign because we didn't have a NERD test. American companies were sued to death by dingalings who sawed their own leg instead of a board or drilled a hole in their belly instead of the wall. These accidents looking for a place to happen are the same kind of people who want to sue gun makers in murder cases.
For many many years, Piper and Cessna were the largest manufacturers of private airplanes in the world. I made my first solo flight in a Cessna-150 and flew Pipers like the Comanche. My daughter Heidi Duncan soloed in a Piper. Then those beautiful planes became scarce because the companies that made them went down the tube . . . out of business because too many pseudo-pilots in front of nerd juries blamed every dumb thing that happened in the air on the manufacturers. We do need a NERD test for weeding out dangerous customers. I'll start designing it right now.
Official NERD-Dingaling Test
(Instructions) This is not a timed test. You may take as long as you want to think over each question. When sure of your answer take the dull-pointed, edible crayon and make an X in front of either the YES or the NO. If you cannot decide on an answer after thinking about it for an hour or more, you may make an X in front of both the YES and the NO. If at any time you find you have eaten the crayon, ask the testing person to give you another one. Now please start.
?Do you feel people over the age of 18 should take some personal responsibility for getting sick if they eat pork and beans without taking them out of the can?___Yes___NO.
?Have you ever deliberately stayed out in bad weather until pneumonia set in, then blamed the radio station or the Old Farmer's Almanac? ___Yes___NO.
?Do believe the U.S. government should put up large fluorescent warning signs and fences around any cliff in Glacier Park over 10 feet high?___YES___NO.
?Do you feel the government should automatically pay ten million dollars to the heirs of anyone killed while riding a snowmobile on State or Federal land? ___YES___NO.
Guess I'd best give up on this. The American Civil Liberties Union may have just threatened me over the phone.