Re: Request for a recommendation.

On 10/5/2024 2:07 PM, William Hyde wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 10/2/2024 1:46 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

In article <vdk2tj$t76$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:

William Hyde  <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

>
I am looking for a book which will interest a 12 year old kid who is
fascinated by things mechanical.

>
A fiction book or nonfiction?
>
When I was... younger than 12, might have been about seven... I got my
father to buy me the Chilton's engine rebuilding annual.  I still have
it.  I spent months poring over it.
--scott

>
L. Sprague deCamp actually wrote a non-fiction book about engines.
>
Huh, it's actually called _Engines_:
>
    https://www.amazon.com/Engines-L-Sprague-Camp/dp/B0006BZMX8

>
That is a wild picture.  I can tell you from experience, working on a outboard engine in the middle of a lake or river is not fun when you drop whatever you were working on in the drink.  In my case, it was the propeller after we ran over a log and broke the prop key.  One should always have a spare prop and several keys on board.

 I had a similar experience but without the log (why it broke I do not know).
 It's amazing how long it takes to  move a 10 foot boat a mile with only one paddle.  If there had been any kind of current the other way I'd still be out there.
 I could have swum back faster.
 I never went out again without checking the spares, even if I absolutely knew they were there.
  William Hyde
 

I used to put my Great-Uncle's 3.5 hp Evinrude (a 1956, IMS) on the
back of my family's 10-ft aluminum dinghy, and zoom around the harbor
in it. I had to share it with my cousin, who would put it on the back
of his family's dink.  I had a positive talent for shearing the cotter
pin off on the rocky floor of the harbor, located on Long Island, NY's
North Shore.  When my cousin had the motor I would row, but also when
my poor piloting disabled the engine.  Cuz and I were in the same year
in school, but he was mechanically handy, where I was not.  Not only
would I have to replace the part, but I'd have to get one of the
cousins to install it. I wore out my relatives' patience once or twice.
It was a long walk up and down hills to get to the next village East, ever since Long Island Lighting fenced off their property. One could
no longer walk to the shopping district along the statutory beach road, below the high tide mark. In fact, my Great Uncle was a leader of the
movement to incorporate our village in the 1930s, in order to stop
LILCO from cutting the road off. But the area wanted a power plant, and
jobs, especially during the Depression. so the village got its charter,
but if people wanted a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread they would
have to go the long way round, by land.  If you had access to any kind
of boat, that wouldn't stop you.
In my early teens I had no qualms about using the dinghy - w/motor or our oars - to putter or row into the inner harbor and visit a local library and/or newsstand to feed my comics and SF habits.  Later, when we sold our year-round house on the South Shore of the Island, tore down the summer bungalow and built another year-round house on the North Shore, I had my bicycle for such errands, and for commuting to a summer job. That gave me access to a second library and more shops.  There was
even an independent bookstore near SUNY-Stony Brook where I reserved a
copy of the first printing of the Silmarillion. I believe that was the
first hardcover that I bought for myself.
--
Kevin R
--
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