Power

I can’t remember how old I was… probably old enough to know better. 

It was Christmas morning. 

That year one of my gifts was a tin Indy 500 race car.  It might have had flames on the fenders.  I remember red, white, yellow and blue detailing and big fat tires but what made it special was that it was powered by a spring made of high tension steel.  No batteries required!  All you had to do was pull it back and let it go! 

 

Man, did that thing go! 

It didn’t take long before I wanted to see how far it could go on one pull.  Then I had to find out how fast it could go on a single pull.  Then I realized I didn’t have to pull it back at all!  If I wound the power wheels up and held them tight while setting it down I didn’t have to bother with dragging it halfway across the family room!

I was mechanically inclined enough to realize that the tighter I wound it the faster and further it would go so naturally each time I retrieved it I attempted to wind it up more…

…you know where this is going right?

I broke it!

Less than an hour of play… probably more like 30 minutes and I busted it.  I turned my wonderful high-tech, powered without batteries, once-in-a-lifetime toy into a paper-weight with wheels.  Of course, it still looked the same mind you.  It just couldn’t do what it was designed to do because the wheels had been cut off from their power source…

It doesn’t matter what a thing is… doesn’t matter how it’s powered – battery, solar, gas, diesel, wind, electric… spring…  Separate a thing from its power source and it becomes ineffective… useless…

So…

…what’s your power source?

…just sayin’