When I was a teenager, I waited breathlessly for the new Van Halen album, 1984. Though I didn’t know it, it would be the last true Van Halen album, because I don’t care what you say, VH was never the same with Sammy Hagar (pause for a moment of silence).
I digress.
I’ve already told you a bit about my first car, a Plymouth Volare station wagon. This was a banged-up beauty with bench seats, and enough room for seven of my closest friends. And a boom box, since my car radio rarely worked.
I do believe I was the first person to buy my 1984 cassette, and then I took it everywhere with me. Which is why I was traveling to an Illinois beach with my seven friends (three in front, three in the middle, and two crouched in the cargo bay), pounding out the song “Panama” with all the bandwidth and vocal power we could supply.
“SH! SH! SH!,” I hollered. “This is my part!”
I sang:
“Yeah, we’re runnin’ a little bit hot tonight
I can barely see the road from the heat comin’ off
I reach down…between my legs…”I reached down between my legs.
“And…ease the seat back…”
I eased up the seat lever.
We did not ease that seat back. We ZOOMED that seat back into the legs of the second row of teenagers. I was amazed and horrified that the weight of three average teens could propel a bench seat back so forcefully. Eight people began screaming as I fought to reach the brakes and the steering wheel, both of which were a good six inches away from my arms and legs.
Here’s where I learned important laws of practical physics:
- Three people in a moving car can slam a seat backwards at the speed of a Van Halen song.
- It takes the combined, concerted effort of six screaming teens in a moving car to push a bench seat forward: three in the second row to push it forward, and three in the front row to lurch forward all at the same time, while one of them is trying to drive without being able to reach any of the car’s controls.
- Teenagers, Van Halen, and Volares may not be a smart combination.
Hahaha oh dear! Now it’s funny, but I guess when it happened, you were like ‘Aaaa what is going on!?!?” and you had to try to grab the car controls…sounds like a scene from a movie ^_^
Yeah, it took awhile for it to become funny, but I was pretty scared at the time!
Holy cow…could totally visualize that! Awesome timing!
Remember the videos off that 1984 album? I watched this one recently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swzh0ngMNJo
Check out DLR at the 12 second mark. Oh, boy… I didn’t remember him being that… uh… I don’t even know the word.
LOL, he IS a pretty boy, isn’t he? Or was…I don’t think he aged well. Somehow, I thought this video was a lot cooler 20 years ago.
I sort of expected the conclusion, “And to this day, those kids are known as Pegleg, Stumpy and NoLeg George.”
Oh, I wish I had that kind of imagination! Can you finish my posts for me? I think that would make them much better.
Wasn’t Stumpy one of the seven dwarves?
Now that’s the kind of physics I understand-based on personal experience. All the rest seems to be happening in a place where no person has or will ever live.