Sunday, April 21, 2013

            The internal combustion engine has changed all of our lives in more ways than we know or can describe.  I attended a vintage machinery show in Iowa 20 or 25 years ago and was impressed at the number and types of engines that had been around for many decades, some from the turn of the last century.  There was everything from steam engine tractors running belt-driven threshing machines to single cylinder “thumper” pump engines to antique cars to early generators.  Wherever power was needed, some engineer designed an engine to accomplish the task.  Our life hasn’t changed that much.  The sophistication of today’s engines is greater with our engines today being more fuel efficient and quieter and generally safer, but there is still one for nearly every purpose.  Not long ago, I wandered around the house and tried to count the number of engines that live here.  I am perhaps a little atypical as I enjoy tinkering with machinery, but we have crossed the border of the ridiculous.  I won’t enumerate them all to advertise the ridiculous, but there are several gas-operated passenger vehicles and diesels too, a diesel loader, bulldozer and excavator, gasoline generators, weed eaters, chain saws, boat motors, 4 wheelers, a six wheeler, snow machines (snow mobiles for the non-Alaskans among you), a motorcycle, a dump truck, an air compressor, weed blower, a log splitter,  and probably a few more that I will trip over in the next week.  Accumulating this collection has taken the passive attention of 20 years or so, but maintaining them takes active attention every year if I want to be able to use them on demand.  While each and every one of these labor savers does exactly that, there comes a time when your possessions begin to own you, and when you realize that, maybe it is time to divest yourself of some of them.  Big talk.  My wife reminds me on a regular basis that it is time to get rid of that truck that no longer runs.  But I have plans for it.