BEN & JERRY
Nope, not Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, although it’s pretty good stuff. I’m talking about Ben and Jerry’s day trip to Big Daddy Garlits Dragster, Hot Rod Museum And Antique Car Museum.
I’ve probably driven past this exit a hundred times or more over the years. Every time I’d say to myself, “Self, you need to see this some time.” Problem is this: when you’re on your way to some place or on your way back, the time never seems to be right.
We decided to jump into what’s left of ol’ Tonka and head up to Ocala. In less than two and a half hours we pulled into the parking lot. First, we went through a large room full of Big Daddy’s drag racing machines. One of the first items we saw had nothing to do with cars. I looked across to the next aisle and there stood Paul Shetler and his son, Wade. We’ve been friends for twenty years. Wade was part of our puppet team at the Teen Center and Paul was responsible for getting me to agree to a 30 day teaching contract with what became the Thursday Night Bible Study Group. Nearly ten years later, we’re still renewing that 30 day contract! (Just kidding!)
Looking at all those dragsters was fascinating to both of us. Ben has quite a collection of NASCAR trading cards, so he knew a lot about what we were seeing. Can you imagine sitting in a dragster four inches off the pavement and going from zero to more than two hundred miles per hour in four seconds? That was quite a neat experience. Nearly every one of the cars had a believer’s message on the fuselage. Several said, “God Is Love”. Others had crosses. I believe Big Daddy knows Jesus!
Another room was full of street rods. They just oozed speed even while sitting on display. The colors were brilliant. There were trophies and awards everywhere. The third room was like an automotive machine shop. We could actually see what the engines looked like. Ben and I were pretty impressed.
In another building, we saw the antique and classic cars. There were a couple of cars in there that were one of a kind cars. Can you imagine looking at the sole survivor of a whole species of automobiles? Some of the cars were from the late 1800’s. There were a couple of 1950 Mercurys. My favorite car of all time is the 1949 Merc.
After we’d had our fill of looking at cars, we discovered we still had some time left for something else. After some discussion, we decided to drive into the Ocala National Forest and look at some of the lovely springs. We ended up at Sulphur Springs and enjoyed the fact that it didn’t smell like sulphur! Millions of gallons of clean, pure water bubbling up out of the ground. We looked at some pretty good-sized fish in the clear water. We also saw a lot of fairly frigid looking swimmers smiling at us through blue lips!
Now, I want backtrack a bit. On the way to the Forest, we tried to get a map at the Chamber of Commerce. It was closed. Next, we stopped at the Florida Highway Patrol office. As we were leaving the parking lot, I noticed that they had a really fine looking handicapped ramp coming from the parking lots at either end of their building. Then I noticed that both ramps ended in a drop-off of 14 to 18 inches! There was no possible way one could get a wheelchair up on the wheelchair ramp!
After Ben and I recovered from laughing ourselves nearly silly, I began thinking about this ramp to nowhere. Federal law provides that all buildings used by the public, have to be accessible to disabled folks. This building nearly complied. There was a wheelchair ramp provided. However, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if the wheelchair can’t get from the parking lot onto the ramp, the ramp is totally useless!
What Are Some of the Life Lessons
I See in This Story?
- Life doesn’t always make sense.
- Partial compliance with the rules often results in non-compliance.
- It doesn’t matter how beautiful and well-landscaped the ramp is if it won’t allow one to get to the destination.
- If one is going to plan to do a job, work hard at accomplishing the goal, one should BY ALL MEANS finish the job completely!
papaspipeline.org 