[Vwdiesel] The One Horse Shay

[Sandy Cameron]

I remember when I was in the one-room , 8 grade, one teacher country school,
the teacher read the poem to us one late spring afternoon.

I thought it was a great piece of litterature, even at 9 years of age.

I have always believed that it would be possible to get close to that with
engineering-motivated design, rather than marketing motivated.

I have tried to convert Goldie into that ideal by discarding the plastic
crap, and useless gadjets and disgusting wiring, switches, etc..

Over 500,000km and still motoring, although I think this is the final year.

The body rust is getting bad, and Im concerned it might do a one-horse-shay
dissolve on the freeway some day soon.

Sandy



At 09:59 PM 06/04/2008 -0700, you wrote:
>Rumple Stiltskin asked what was the story of the "One Horse Shay". It was a
poem written by Oliver Wendell Holmes who lived from 1809 to 1894.The poem
was of "The Deacon's Masterpiece" or "The Wonderful 'One-hoss Shay". I won't
repeat the story or poem which I remembered from grade school days. I found
that poem in a Google search. In summary, it was about a one horse shay that
in 1755, it was built so well that it lasted 100 years to the day with out
needing any repair. Then it all wore out at the same time fell apart into a
heap or mound when an earthquake hit Lisbon, Portugal. As you know,
components of cars, & other mechanical things will have a component that
fails before other components do,  so lasting as long as the "One Hoss Shay"
is a euphemism for something lasting a long time & then failing all at once.