Re: Re: Re: How in the worl would play this horn????


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Rick Denney on May 22, 2003 at 14:06:49:

In Reply to: Re: Re: How in the worl would play this horn???? posted by Is he----- on May 22, 2003 at 13:23:51:

The bonfire at A&M wasn't designed, and that was its problem. There had been a design a long time ago, but the practice had migrated away from it. More value was placed on experience as it was passed along from one generation of students to the next than on the underlying principles of that design.

That fault (building someting based on a flawed understanding of the design, usually justified by "experience") has resulted in fatal structural failures before now. There was the cable-hung elevated walkway at the Kansas City Hilton a couple of decades ago that killed a couple of hundred. The experienced construction crews had not followed the plans (though it must be admitted that the plans were not easily constructable, and were indeed flawed in their design, but not fatally so). No Aggies involved in that one, except to come in and figure out what happened.

I didn't know anybody who was crushed under the logs in the Bonfire incident, but I knew a couple of their friends. One fellow had a log across his abdomen and legs that could not be moved because others were threatened by the movement. He spent hours and hours trapped under that log, directing rescuers to the locations where others had been working. Then he died.

It is easy to make jokes when people are injured doing silly things, as the popularity of the Darwin Awards proves. But underneath the joke there are real lives cut short. And the joke makes it easier to lose sight of the benefits of such a challenging team project, despite its pointlessness. We fill our lives with pointless activities--all of us. How many people have been killed on the highway while driving someplace they didn't really need to be? Considering the statistics, venturing out onto the highway is surely more dangerous than helping to stack a bunch of logs so you can set fire to them. Is building the bonfire more pointless than any membership initiation to any college fraternity?

Rick "who read the biographies of the victims and who is saddened by the topic" Denney


Follow Ups: