It's a VW Rabbit, on the docks. Yes. And yes, you read the title of this entry correctly. Jim Leaver's car, floating in the lake. The first telling of this true tale of FV antics--dated 1989--comes from Glenn Horton:My end of the story comes from a conference director's position. Jim Leaver and Chris Dumas had put together a great rocketry program with Chris Dundorf standing in when they needed engineering assistance. The weekend of the occurance was one to remember. We had a substantial amount of rain all weekend, no power since Friday evening, 600+ guests and a tired group of staff that had assisted in a Friday night bus accident. But believe it or not, most of the weekend went off well.
It was Sunday morning and I made an early trip to the dining hall to help staff set up when I noticed a lot of the kitchenstaff was not there. A mud slide had closed the road into FV. I was trying to figure out how to tell 600 people they might have to add an extra hour plus to their drive home due to the closed road when Jim Leaver comes to me with a small problem.
"I don't have a lot of time Jim, what is it?" He said his car was in the middle of Lake Cole. Took me a minute, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he said it was floating on the dock in the middle of Lake Cole. But that wasn't Jim's concern. Jim was most concerned about the fact that all the rocketry equipment was in the trunk and he had a 9AM launch in Big Tree Field.
In walks Dundorf and his accomplices with huge smiles.....until they saw my appearance of discontent. I think my words, calmly spoken, were "Great practical joke, just bad timing," and I asked them to have the car off the pond and Jim's program ready to go by 9...which they did.
I could have yelled and screamed for hours over that, but I have always felt that humor got you through a lot and during those years, it got you through long hours of work and lots of time away from home and family. Oh, and there was the part where I wished it had been my idea. It was done so creatively well.
A few days after Glenn's account got mailed around--to me and the participants in this drama--Chris Dunforf himself, a perpetrator of above-narrated sin, chimed in as follows:
I scrounged up a photo of the Leaver's VW on the raft. It's taken from across the lake so you can't tell how far from shore it is but proof none the less. Wheels on raft, raft on water. The back of the photo reads "Weekend of 5th Annual Frisbee Golf Tournament, 1989."
Now as for Glen's version of what happened... couple holes there but fairly good account for someone of Glen's... ummm... numerous life experiences. I would be remiss not to bring into the story Kenis Sweet. Kenis has always been a form of a mentor for me. In the late 80's he was quick to guide my cabin mate, Patrick "Patman" Brasington and I to the best stores of building materials, unsanctioned beverages and to discuss numerous off-road FV vehicle driving techniques for when driving in non-off-road vehicles. I digress. At some point after dinner on said weekend Kenis and I decided it was appropriate to repark Jim Leaver's VW Rabbit. The waterfront didn't seem too busy that night so we settled on one of the floating rafts. There were however two unfortunate factors needing to be dealt with. First off, the raft was still moored in it's winter offshore position, and secondly it began to downpour challenging our marginal-at-best logistical planning. We headed out across the lake in a borrowed rowboat, untied the raft and brought it in to shore. Next, Kenis scored a pair of long 2x10s to act a ramp. (Technical Note: For those of you who've never done this before but might someday, remember to not bring the raft all the way up on shore before loading the vehicle. Otherwise, the weight of the vehicle will sink the raft floats to the ground and you'll have trouble getting the raft afloat and free of the shoreline.) We set the ramps up and I think it was Kenis who drove the Rabbit on to the raft. Taking an engineering approach to the task at hand we were naturally concerned about an elevated center of gravity since most swim rafts are not designed for this use. With the car fully onboard and the raft floating we performed a quick stability test by strongly rocking the raft from side to side. The raft and cargo remained upright so we deemed the the vessel seaworthy and began the long row to deeper depths.
I think I'll take a break here and see if Kenis or anyone else wants to chime in. In the meantime I'll dig around for some more photos of the era and will try to revisit memories of the next morning. I will say this, Glen was not pleased. Until next time...
