The Tower of Babble

Shortly after Kim and I bought the house at 4896 Hobbs, I begged and pleaded with Kim to let me put up a satellite dish so that we could get more than local channels.

After reaching agreement, I called Roger Wood of Woods Electronics and he came out with his equipment and after taking several "site-readings", informed me that I couldn't put up a dish as I had no clear shot at the horizon to the south and west that I would need to recieve signal.

He suggested that we drop a couple of the huge pines that were blocking the horizon, but Kim would have none of that. No cutting down trees for the sake of watching television!

Undaunted, I drove over to the farmstead which was at that time in the hands of my brother Bob and purchased the old wind mill that stood near the barn, not being used. I then hired a crane (yes I am a TV-aholic) and the crane came out to the farm, I unbolted the wind mill from its moorings, and the crane operator lifted and then lay the structure down on the ground horizontally for me to dismantle.

Then started the tedious job of unbolting each section of the wind mill. I will always remember my dad, with his good old negative attitude toward anything I did mechanically, standing watching me, and then saying: "You'll get it apart, but you'll never get it back together again."

Gee, thanks, dad, for your faith in me.

Just a little pissed, I immediatley went in to Menomonie and bought myself a big magic marker and began fastidiously marking each piece of each section of angle iron as I removed it.

It took me about four trips with that old '49 Ford panel truck I used to have, laden with the four sections of wind mill angle iron, to get the entire thing over to the house. Following my own magic marker instructions, I readily re-assembled the windmill in the horizontal position, but towards the top sections, I began to experience trouble getting the angle irons to line up.

You had better believe I didn't let my dad know this however. Instead, I called my good friend and mechanical genius, Gary Spaeth, explained the situation, and he told me on the phone that he knew what the problem was. When he arrived, he had brought along a tool kit with a number of wrenches and he explained that we needed to go back and loosen up the bolts on the lower sections and make the whole thing "sloppy".

Gary is very funny. at the time, he was into saying: "that's not the cowboy way. We gotta do it the cowboy way." (Too much Riders In The Sky) Sure enough, once we got it good and sloppy, the top sections popped together easy as pie.

Then, after digging four holes at the proper distance, and burying the base angle irons in cement at the proper angle, it was
time to call the crane guy again.

I remember that both my mom and dad came over for the raising of the structure, and while mom and I got involved hands-on guiding the structure into place and getting the first bolts in, my dad sat off at a great distance, and just watched.

Then came the hairy part: Lifting the dish up and getting it to set on the center pole. I climbed the 40 feet up to the small platform; up came the dish. I guided it over the pole, but it wouldn't drop. the crane operator yelled up to me that he was going to jiggle it a bit. He did and the dish went careening off into the trees beyond and came right back at me, whirling in circles!

I managed to make myself just small enough on that platform that I didn't get hit in the head. The crane operator jumped out of his crane and suggested we put a line on the dish and that I put on a safety belt. Not a bad idea.

We finally got it in place and the wonderful world of satellite TV was mine! I had a sign made for the thing that said "Tower of Babble".

I wanted to have it say: "My erection", but Kim didn't think that was a very good idea.