You see, the headline’s supposed to be a pun about missing teeth…you, know, bridgework? Get It? No? Skip it.
As you know, we’ve abandoned nasty, scary plywood with spider egg sacs for clean, white, efficient Styrofoam. Last week it was an idea, and this week, zoom, zip, kabam, it’s a bridge!
There’s an interesting life lesson here. Garden railroading, as you know, is real railroading, which means the lessons one learns in garden railroading must apply to real life. Rather “I am therefore I think” logic, but it gets the job done.
I’ve been putting this bridge project off forever because I don’t know anything about working seriously with Styrofoam. Like everyone else I’ve hacked at it and swept up those little white pills that cling so statically to just about everything…won’t even dump out of the dustpan because they’re so electrically charged they can’t let go. But I have this glowing memory of my stepson in the 4th grade…here in California our 4th graders learn about the California Missions, and are required to build a model of one. It’s a big business for Michael’s…the craft store sells Styrofoam kits of each of the missions, complete with little fountains and stuff like that. We took my stepson’s kit from Michaels and coated it with this interesting yellowish slurry of “heavy” acrylic…acrylic paint from the bottom of the bottle that hasn’t been mixed. The result looked very much like stucco. But that’s not the point of the story.
The point of the story is this; Walt Disney said the difference between someone who dreams and someone who lives their dreams is that the person who lives their dreams actually does it. Or maybe it was if you want to do something, do it. Now I don’t remember what it was. Dang. It was a good one. I fall for those jingo-istic things all the time. There’s no I in teamwork…I get it! But that’s not the point of the story either.
The point of the story is this; yesterday I didn’t have a bridge because all I had to work with was crappy old plywood and outdated tools. By shifting my paradigm and looking at the situation from a different standpoint, today I have a nifty bridge that is pretty near complete. It took a shift in attitude, but I did it. Like Captain Kirk and Kobiyashi Maru…if you didn’t see that Star Trek movie, you are forgiven. The underlying theme of the film is that there is always a third alternative, even if you have to manufacture it. The Kobiyashi Maru was a Star Fleet Academy simulation of a rescue mission…the people taking the simulation did not know that they were destined to fail it because it actually designed to test their response to failing in a critical situation. Captain Kirk was the only guy to make it through the simulation and succeed. He knew he was supposed to pass it and that no one else did, so he hacked the computer system and rigged it so he would succeed. He created a different alternative.
So, when you look at those big wonderful things you’ve always wanted to do, ask yourself this: why aren’t you doing them? I know you have very valid reasons as to why you’re not, just like the rest of us. But, how can you engineer your circumstances to make it possible? What can you hack, what can you quit, what can you start that will get you moving towards your dream? If you look at it not by saying what can’t be done, but by saying what can, you’ll be amazed at what follows. Trust me.
Proof? I have a nifty bridge down there in my China Section. Is it perfect? Heck no! I have a rough slurry of heavy acrylic paint on the north side, a plaster of Paris roadbed down the center, and a combination of plaster of Paris and slurry coating the south side. But look at it again; yesterday I didn’t have a bridge, today I do.
What changed? I finally got off my duff, faced my fears about the Styrofoam, and built the darned bridge! I expected the project to take months…in reality I was just afraid to commit to doing it.
That is really the point of this whole railway project: I used to be afraid of building my garden railway, because it seemed so big and I know so little. But we’ve broken it down into little chunks, you and me, and we’re working those chunks! They’re not so big! We can do it! You can do it!
The bridge is rough, but it looks pretty good. Once my various coatings are dry, I’ll nail it with good old Rust-Oleum and then paint it in earnest. I’m happy with the outline, and I like the arched deck – that took a lot of quick thinking, but it worked out great.
It’s supposed to rain here in the next couple of days…I’m interested to see what effect the rain will have on my acrylic slurry. I know it won’ t hurt the Styrofoam…at least I hope not!
I apologize for waxing philosophic, but I have a lot about which to be philosophical these days. Someday I’ll buy you a beer and we’ll sort it all out.
For now, though, let’s just put it this way: the difference between my bridge of yesterday and my bridge of today is that I went and did something about it. Hint hint hint!
