Accomplishing impossible tasks through rock hard concentration

Accomplishing impossible tasks through rock hard concentration

While searching through one of our warehouses for a furniture piece that ended up being out of stock, I begin wondering about some of the other impossible tasks, I’ve been given over the years and how I handled some of those impractical situations. 

The most challenging task that comes to mind was hoisting seventeen tons of rock for a stonemason –all in one day! This was back around 1998, the same year that Tim Quietly conquered Idaho, achieving his own impossible task. 

Gene, the experienced rockman from Menan, Idaho, had a remarkable collection in his backyard, with a special pile for unique adorning jobs. He had an old ’62 truck named Merlin, a fabled green Ford, which held 4 ¼ tons per load. The previous week his wife and I were heading up to the job with a full load, when suddenly a bunch of noise broke loose from the rear end, right before the Ohio Gulch turnout. Sensing trouble, I edged the battered truck to the roadside, and checked to see what the matter was. We soon saw that the tire had churned loose from the wheelbase, but magically, Merlin’s tire wedged in a way to keep that corner of the truck aloft, so no rocks spilt. Later we found that several of the lug nuts had shot off like hot bullets into the summer sage. Had this happened at the Greenhorn Bridge it would have been catastrophic and probably would have shut down the highway for a few hours, with Merlin featured on the front page of the Wood River Express. 

As stonemasons will do, we took the rest of the day off and had a few nippers. With Merlin back in service the next day, I felt compelled to make up for lost time and being in good shape, I meticulously loaded four & 1/4 tons into Gene’s truck, four times, which also involved unloading them at the East Fork house we were building. When the job was complete, Gene was impressed enough to give me a small bonus. After all, what I had loaded and then unloaded was one ton heavier than the traditional song.