One can only imagine what goes on in the minds of 10-year-old boys. It's a Sunday afternoon. You somehow get into a fenced construction site filled with big cranes and bulldozers. You manage to find some ignition keys, hop up on the seat, start the engine and away you go.
You knock out power to a radio station, seriously damage construction equipment and level a trailer. Your day ends in the back of a squad car.
To the two 10-year-olds, it may have seemed like a romp in a giant sandbox full of toys. But, Minneapolis police say, that romp did more than $500,000 of damage at the Heritage Park housing development near Hwy. 55 and Lyndale Av. N.
Yikes! They could easily have gotten tangled up in one of the powerlines, and that would have been the end of the story. The parents would have then sued the construction company for millions for leaving the keys in the dozer. Too scary!
Eamon
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"I care not whether I die tomorrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me." -Cuchullain
I doubt that law suits are still out of the question. I'll bet the radio station goes after the parents of those boys after they figure out the total lost revenue.
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Cheers! Todd
Normal is a relative term. For some reason it is not a term my relatives use to describe me.
Bah! I could have done better. At least hit the Million $ mark boys. They should have used the crane to drop the dozer on stuff.
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Caw
"I am a Canadian by birth, but I am a Highlander by blood and feel under an obligation to do all I can for the sake of the Highlanders and their literature.... I have never yet spoken a word of English to any of my children. They can speak as much English as they like to others, but when they talk to me they have to talk in Gaelic."
-Alexander Maclean Sinclair of Goshen (protector of Gaelic Culture)
Bah! I could have done better. At least hit the Million $ mark boys. They should have used the crane to drop the dozer on stuff.
LOL!!! I take it you had fun with Tonka Toys when you were a kid, Oldraven? I once got a backhoe started at a construction site when I was like 14. The second the motor turned over, it stalled, but by that time I was running like crazy away from the thing. Scared me and my friends half to death.
I thought the recent liability concerns would prevent stuff like this...
My Dad used to be a landscaper and he ran a dozer most of the time. He owned a dump truck and worked a backhoe from time to time, but he was mainly dozer dude.
Well, when we were cutting the fire-breaks for the fields, ............. no he was making a road out to the barrens so we could harvest a field up there............. AAAnyway, he let me drive the dozer while I sat on his lap once; I was 8, I think. I got scared pretty quick, and he didn't take over when I was headed straight at a tree. Just chuckled at me. I ended up driving half way up the tree before he took the reigns. By that, I don't mean I drove a dozer verticaly up a tree. I knocked the big boy down and kept going.
Yeah, I'm so badass. I was screaming more than anything.
HA! When you told the kids at school, I bet they thought you were Da Man!
When I was the ops guy at the airport, we were doing some major renovations. I had my sister drive my Godson up to the airport. He is 4 and LOVES trucks. I drove up in this Monster loader (the kind that articulates in the middle) and put Jake in my lap. Well the SECOND we started to roll, he wanted down, and I mean RIGHT NOW. Poor kid! He didn't even want to stay in the loader long enough to move dirt! (Shame, because I always thought it was fun!)
Dozer (raven gets dreamy look in his eye)I wish I could have got the keys to a dozer when I was 10......but come to think of it I got in enough trouble without a dozer.....mmmhh ....dozers
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He is no fool who gives up that which he can not keep to gain that which he cannot loose
When I was the ops guy at the airport, we were doing some major renovations. I had my sister drive my Godson up to the airport. He is 4 and LOVES trucks. I drove up in this Monster loader (the kind that articulates in the middle) and put Jake in my lap. Well the SECOND we started to roll, he wanted down, and I mean RIGHT NOW. Poor kid! He didn't even want to stay in the loader long enough to move dirt! (Shame, because I always thought it was fun!)
Eamon
A two and a half cubic yard loader by any chance? Fun and bouncy. Dozer, fun and grindy. Backhoe, no fun at all on a hill. Spikey wheel compactor, puts ya to sleep in a minute.
Leo
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Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunatley it kills all its pupils. - Hector Berlioz
"No matter where you go, there you are." - R. Young
I got to drive quite a few fun toys but nothing quite like the article mentioned
Massey Ferguson, Check John Deere (plus mowing (only the 6/8 foot one, never got to use the 16 footer), grading and hauling), Check Bobcat, Check Heckendorn, Check (nasty riding lawn mower with limb removing exposed belts and lots of gears) Backhoe, Never got to play with it.
Fortunately, my dad was wise enough not to let me any of his toys until I was closer to 16.
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I don't think of myself as a lion. You might as well, though - I have a mighty roar. Jubel Early
I got drive a lot of different equipment on my dad's farm. Plus I drove Tractor Trailers for 14 years but I have never got to play on the toys that I really want to. Namely a Dozer, A Drag Line, or an Excavator Now those are power tools.
Got the chance to operate a D-7, along with a few other big heavy things. I think the guy that put me on the D-7 thought it was a big joke, but my job was to direct the scrapers in to dump their load and then I would hop on the dozer and push it out while waiting for the next scraper. Those are really big and scarry. Got to learn some really cool hand signals too. Ya know, like the two hands held straight overhead, palms open and facing each other means 'come directly to me'. That's what it means to so ya gotta get outta the way fast or those guys will run over ya. The other really handy signal was made with a solitary finger extended, it usually meant something like, "not there d***a*s, ya gotta watch me."
The only time I got to actually drive one of those things was one time Dad was transporting a large Cat tandem-steer backhoe. I think I was around 10-11. I was doing alright, until it was time to make a sharp turn, and I put it up on two wheels, then on the other two correcting, and I was on my way back onto the other two when Dad took control of the situation. We almost went over a very large embankment into a valley on this dirt road. Yeah, that one I didn't tell the kids at school about.
O Man, I wish I could have been out there to play and run over stuff. Craines are the neatest things to operate and drop thing on top of other stuff....I loved it when I was a teenager playing at my dad's pit...you could destroy stuff and have fun too...a childs dream. I hope they only give them a small smack on the wrist and send them home. We don't want to squash their creative side.
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My heart will always be in the Highlands!
www.highlanderhouse.com
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