Sorry I missed the festivity--why do I suspect the group had been sampling the
product of a local microbrewery beforehand?
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
> Most interesting news from the Pines and Prairies is that last Thursday we
> visited Jim Malone. After a couple minutes reviewing his layout, we boarded
> Jim's pontoon for a cruise on beautiful Rice Lake. Yes, it was one of the
> few weeks we are without ice on Minnesota lakes. We got to the middle of the
> lake and Jim stopped the pontoon and said, I have to show you guys something.
> Under the circumstances, this became an awkward moment, watching Jim reach
> under a tarp for something that looked lethal. We breathed easier when Jim
> announced he was going to fire his potato cannon. First he rammed a nice big
> potato down the 4 foot barrel then he opened the breach and shot in about 3
> seconds of hair spray. The breach was sealed and the igniter fired. The
> potato shot high into the air and landed about 300 feet in front of the boat.
> While this was fun, lacking any live targets we asked Jim how high it would
> shoot. Well what better way to do test this than shoot it straight up. My
> years of field artillery experience suggested to me this idea was not without
> risk but what the heck, no use letting good sense get in the way of a little
> fun. The weapon was loaded, fully charged and the projectile sent rocketing
> skyward.... and out of sight. It was at this point that the inherent danger
> of this experiment became clear to most of the guys and the sky was searched
> for traces of the flying spud. Soon young Ben picked up the plunging
> projectile and noted it was coming down pretty close to the pontoon, raising
> Jim Malone's pucker factor and raising the octave of everyone else's
> laughter. Good fortune was with us, we had been drifting slowly to starboard
> and the spud splashed 3 feet to port but directly midship. Had we remained
> stationary, the nice awning of the pontoon would have taken the impact. Dave
> Jasper was seen at this point calculating the physics of that circumstance, I
> being pretty much directly under the spot where that impact would have taken
> place thanked Saint Barbara, Patron Saint of the Field Artillery for watching
> out for me.
> The Pines and Prairies will be visiting here in two weeks, I have no similar
> activities planned.
> Ken Zieska
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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