I love rivets.
Rivets make me very happy.
In fact, I think rivets have probably given me more pleasure during my lifetime than any other inanimate object.
Think about it.
Laser sailing is my passion.
And every fitting and attachment on the Laser's spars is attached by rivets.
The gooseneck and the vang fitting on the mast. The blocks and the vang fitting on the boom. The end caps on the spars. The collar on the upper mast. The whole frigging boat is held together with rivets.
Without rivets the Laser wouldn't exist and my life would be empty. Lonely is a man without love.
I love rivets.
Of course, like any objects of our affections, some rivets can abuse your trust and let you down. Like the day when I was all set to win a race for the one and only time in the centuries (or so it seems) I raced in the Cedar Point frostbite fleet and I was betrayed by a rivet.
But there are plenty more rivets in the toolbox.
Yes, rivets are not perfect. They are fallible. They are vulnerable. But that just makes them more lovable.
Sometimes the (almost) human weakness of a rivet can make you feel like the luckiest man alive.
There's nothing like a rivet. Nothing in the world. There is nothing you can name that is anything like a rivet.
When a man is tired of rivets, he is tired of life.
I love rivets.
8 comments:
You can't live with them and you can't live without them.
Profound. I am truly impressed. Follow that up with a story about bungee and I see a Pulitzer in your future.
Ahh the vullnerable rivet, it mostly does it's duty but sometimes pivots. Not a bolt with large diameter, it eventually breaks and makes one lose their sailing parameters.
Love is blind.
This was a riveting story, all right!
Not to put too fine a point on things, but most of the laser hull fittings (traveler fairleads, rudder gudgeons, cockpit finger grips, etc.) held on by big honking sheet metal screws. It's just the spar stuff that has the rivets--keeps the light fingered gentry from stealing your gooseneck and boom blocks. Don't get me wrong--I like pop rivets same as the next guy, although after breaking my right arm I doubt that I currently have the grip strength to set a stainless 3/16" rivet any more--hey,come to think of it, maybe my PT lady ought to work using a pop rivet gun into my routine. That squeezy hand grip thingie she had me buy at the sporting goods store is kinda unrewarding. Dang, Tillerman, the more I read this blog the more enlightened I become.
George don't jump the gun. Once I have got over my love affair with rivets I will be writing a post titled "I Love Big Honking Sheet Metal Screws."
Just catching up on some of your older posts Tillerman. I too love rivets because they unfairly get the blame for so many failures. In truth, it is material around the rivet that fails, mostly due to corrosion, but that's material for another post!
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