Physics Lesson
Marty and I arrived back in Durham on August 15 after navigating through the logistical labyrinth of hauling two bicycles, his office papers and books, my new extensive French library and other miscellaneous stuff, like underwear and socks, back to the United States. Marty, never one to miss a chance to greatly exaggerate the tasks of everyday life, compared the arrangements for our return home to those required for nearly three million Allied soldiers to cross the English Channel during D-Day. Perhaps our recent trip to the Normandy beaches was too inspirational. In any case, we and our ~250 pounds of "stuff" arrived home without mishap. Well, except for that little problem with Marty's bike.
Observant visitors to Europe will immediately notice the absence of pick-up trucks. I had often wondered how Europeans move households without having friends with pick-up trucks. Admit it, if you don't have a pick-up yourself, you certainly maintain friendships with those that do. Borrowing someone's pickup truck is the closest thing to communism that exists among American traditions. It is a constitutional right, appearing somewhere between the right to bear arms and the right to have a lawn.
In any case, there we were with the 250 pounds of stuff we somehow just couldn't live without, facing the seemingly impossible task of trying to get it all to the airport. Bikes with paniers, our life blood for the year, weren't going to cut it this time. We quickly eliminated the idea of forming a caravan of cars to get it there as it was August and, in French tradition, almost everyone we knew with a car was on vacation. Taxis were also too small and rental passenger cars large enough for our needs would have cost us a year's worth of retirement. Finally we realized that we could hire a moving van; after all, we were moving.
We hauled all of our stuff to the airport hotel in the moving van and faced the dilemma of getting it from the hotel to the airport the next morning. The furtive theft of two baggage carts from an airport parking lot in the twilight hours was clearly our only solution. As normally law abiding citizens (a.k.a. goodie-goodies), we considered it a major breach of the law when we swiped the airport baggage carts. We feared surveillance cameras, undercover officers and double agents. Despite these hazards, we managed to sneak the baggage carts into our "petit" hotel room where we wrestled the bulk of them under the bed. The upright parts of the carts formed a railing along one side of the bed. Boxes and suitcases filled the rest of the room except for a narrow path to the bathroom. We were nearly home.
Despite our more-than-cozy surroundings, we were deep asleep when the alarm woke us up at some ungodly hour. In a last-minute effort to shed more weight before facing the airport scales, we eliminated a few more items, including my previous day’s outfit. We piled all of our stuff, except for one humongous suitcase which didn’t fit, onto the purloined luggage carts and tentatively moved forward.
Our first obstacle came quickly as squeezing our brimming carts through the door of the gate surrounding the hotel proved impossible. I sprinted back to the hotel office where the poor woman, who had the misfortune of working at that ludicrous hour, opened the car gate for us. After passing through the gate, we hit several major curbs where one of us, in a remarkable demonstration of strength, had to lift the front of the cart while the other pushed the rest of it over the curb. We formed a relay between the two overloaded luggage carts and the single suitcase, running, pulling, lifting, and pushing. Olympic athletes never trained so well.
All was well until we got to the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny irregularities in the sidewalk surface. One could hardly call them curbs; they were simply little bumps in the road. I quickly, and Marty would say without thought, decided that such a minor change in elevation did not warrant the Olympic lift, pull, push effort; surely ramming my cart over this insignificant obstacle would do the trick.
I lunged forward and watched Marty’s bike go airborne, gracefully arcing through the air until gravity took over and crashed it to the ground. While scrambling to replace the bike box onto the cart I smiled nervously at Marty, who demonstrated admirable control of his emotions. I considered that maybe that last move wasn’t such a good idea.
Despite almost causing a cardiac event for Marty, I remained unconvinced that these miniscule changes in sidewalk elevation warranted the massive effort we expended at real curbs, so I chose a different strategy – speed. Yes, if I just had more speed going into the bump I was quite sure I could get over it. Hey, I never claimed to be the physicist in the family.
Through my experimental approach to physics, I discovered that speed can make a bicycle box soar higher and faster. Marty, at heart a theoretician and certainly not an experimentalist, didn’t appreciate his bike being used to enhance my physics education. Watching his bike plummeting to the ground a second time was perhaps too much for him. If he could have spoken, we likely would be getting divorced. Fortunately the institution of marriage is no worse for wear as he was too astounded at my audacity (he would choose a different and perhaps less flattering word) to respond.
Marty's bike box remains in the garage. No one has dared open it. It’s better for all of us not to know.
Observant visitors to Europe will immediately notice the absence of pick-up trucks. I had often wondered how Europeans move households without having friends with pick-up trucks. Admit it, if you don't have a pick-up yourself, you certainly maintain friendships with those that do. Borrowing someone's pickup truck is the closest thing to communism that exists among American traditions. It is a constitutional right, appearing somewhere between the right to bear arms and the right to have a lawn.
In any case, there we were with the 250 pounds of stuff we somehow just couldn't live without, facing the seemingly impossible task of trying to get it all to the airport. Bikes with paniers, our life blood for the year, weren't going to cut it this time. We quickly eliminated the idea of forming a caravan of cars to get it there as it was August and, in French tradition, almost everyone we knew with a car was on vacation. Taxis were also too small and rental passenger cars large enough for our needs would have cost us a year's worth of retirement. Finally we realized that we could hire a moving van; after all, we were moving.
We hauled all of our stuff to the airport hotel in the moving van and faced the dilemma of getting it from the hotel to the airport the next morning. The furtive theft of two baggage carts from an airport parking lot in the twilight hours was clearly our only solution. As normally law abiding citizens (a.k.a. goodie-goodies), we considered it a major breach of the law when we swiped the airport baggage carts. We feared surveillance cameras, undercover officers and double agents. Despite these hazards, we managed to sneak the baggage carts into our "petit" hotel room where we wrestled the bulk of them under the bed. The upright parts of the carts formed a railing along one side of the bed. Boxes and suitcases filled the rest of the room except for a narrow path to the bathroom. We were nearly home.
Despite our more-than-cozy surroundings, we were deep asleep when the alarm woke us up at some ungodly hour. In a last-minute effort to shed more weight before facing the airport scales, we eliminated a few more items, including my previous day’s outfit. We piled all of our stuff, except for one humongous suitcase which didn’t fit, onto the purloined luggage carts and tentatively moved forward.
Our first obstacle came quickly as squeezing our brimming carts through the door of the gate surrounding the hotel proved impossible. I sprinted back to the hotel office where the poor woman, who had the misfortune of working at that ludicrous hour, opened the car gate for us. After passing through the gate, we hit several major curbs where one of us, in a remarkable demonstration of strength, had to lift the front of the cart while the other pushed the rest of it over the curb. We formed a relay between the two overloaded luggage carts and the single suitcase, running, pulling, lifting, and pushing. Olympic athletes never trained so well.
All was well until we got to the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny irregularities in the sidewalk surface. One could hardly call them curbs; they were simply little bumps in the road. I quickly, and Marty would say without thought, decided that such a minor change in elevation did not warrant the Olympic lift, pull, push effort; surely ramming my cart over this insignificant obstacle would do the trick.
I lunged forward and watched Marty’s bike go airborne, gracefully arcing through the air until gravity took over and crashed it to the ground. While scrambling to replace the bike box onto the cart I smiled nervously at Marty, who demonstrated admirable control of his emotions. I considered that maybe that last move wasn’t such a good idea.
Despite almost causing a cardiac event for Marty, I remained unconvinced that these miniscule changes in sidewalk elevation warranted the massive effort we expended at real curbs, so I chose a different strategy – speed. Yes, if I just had more speed going into the bump I was quite sure I could get over it. Hey, I never claimed to be the physicist in the family.
Through my experimental approach to physics, I discovered that speed can make a bicycle box soar higher and faster. Marty, at heart a theoretician and certainly not an experimentalist, didn’t appreciate his bike being used to enhance my physics education. Watching his bike plummeting to the ground a second time was perhaps too much for him. If he could have spoken, we likely would be getting divorced. Fortunately the institution of marriage is no worse for wear as he was too astounded at my audacity (he would choose a different and perhaps less flattering word) to respond.
Marty's bike box remains in the garage. No one has dared open it. It’s better for all of us not to know.
posted by Nancy at 6:47 AM
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