Every now and again, we get reminded that common sense is very important. Last week, while watching a World Series baseball game played by the two best teams in North America, in the nicest stadium in North America (according to the commentator), we witnessed a design flaw that was overlooked by the engineers that designed that beautiful stadium. The movable roof closed perfectly to protect the people from the rain and cold. The lighting was perfect for both the players and all in attendance. The grass and the field was perfect.
But, when a player hit a ball that landed just short of a home run and got stuck under the fence, everyone realized that someone didn’t design that fence low enough to keep a ball from going far enough under it that the umpire called it a “dead ball”, which prevented the team that now had three players in position from getting home, which would have reversed the score.
I don’t know how much that beautiful stadium cost, but if that fence would have been in the ground just a couple inches, the World Series results could have been very different. Even when a few fathers construct a little outdoor hockey rink for the kids to play on, they make sure the boards are below the ice to make sure that the puck cannot get stuck under the boards. When a Canadian from Almonte invented basketball, he cut the bottom out of that peach basket used to catch the basketball so nobody had to climb up and get the ball every time a player got a basket.
A young man who took welding at PPHS and worked at our farm before being hired to weld tanks and other personnel carriers preparing them for the war, came up with a design that protected soldiers from being harmed or killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) when those vehicles drove over one that exploded. How many young soldiers had been maimed or killed before a welder trained in Shawville designed under-body protection for those personnel carriers to save injuries and lives?
Some of our largest and most successful farm machinery companies manufactured and sold thousands of tractors and other self propelled expensive machinery that had very nice hydraulic power steering and hydraulic power brakes, but when the motor stalled or just ran out of fuel, neither the steering nor the brakes worked once the motor stopped. This left the operator stuck in a machine that he could neither steer nor stop. I could name several farmers who died because of that deadly mistake made by an engineer. Many of those machines are still in service today.
One of the best, most efficient little tractors that we had on our farm was a little TEA-20 Ferguson. It had a flaw too. Every year we had to get the valves either ground or changed because they didn’t rotate as they went up and down with every revolution. A mechanic (Irvine Cone) who was the previous owner of Shawville Auto told Dad that when that same standard engine was installed in an English sports car, there were valve rotators that kept the valves turning just a little with every revolution of the motor. Irvine installed rotators with the next valve job and the little Fergie never needed a valve job again. Irvine was also a former councillor in Shawville and kept the town’s first couple tractor-mounted snow blowers running for many years.
By the time that you are reading this, Pontiac County will have many new councillors and mayors to guide us through the next four years. It is an honour for all our politicians to represent us and look ahead for the future that they leave our grandchildren and their descendants who will also reside on this earth and in our beloved Pontiac county in the Ottawa Valley. Let’s all help our politicians to make their jobs easier and more enjoyable. Let’s also remind our politicians that every time they rezone agricultural land for more houses, roads, parking lots, etc., they must think that our food is too cheap.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
