Max Power
I couldn’t wait to get out of Port Perry as a teenager. I knew there had to be more to life than beer tent fights, hunting and snowmobiling. While others dreamed of going to the legion for a beer I just wanted to see the world.
I guess I just felt trapped.
Most people find an outlet of some sort when they feel trapped; sometimes it is a healthy outlet like exercise or a hobby but most of the time it’s alcohol, affairs or some other self destructive behaviour.
My outlet was a goal.
The goal Justin Miller and I had was to shut down the high school, at least for a full day. And a couple of times I know we came pretty close.
The day before we were to start Grade 12, Justin Miller and I went to the paved lot outside of town where all the school buses were parked each night. Our mission: to demobilize these school buses.
We started about 10pm that night and by 3am we were finished. It took hours, crawling from bus to bus in the dark, removing the tire valve stem from a single tire of each bus, deflating the tire and temporarily rendering the bus immobile.
It seemed like a great plan, at least in theory. We put the valve stems beside each deflated tire so there was no permanent damage to the buses. A high school like Port Perry relied on buses to bring in most of the kids. Without buses to bring in the kids, we figured there would be no point in having the school open.
That bus parking lot was full. It felt like there were a hundred buses or more. We were absolutely exhausted afterwards as we quietly and slowly crept along the field back to Justin's car, certain there were hidden cameras everywhere. It had to be after 5am before I was back home and in bed, confident that I’d be woken by news of school cancellation on the radio.
Alas, I awoke to no such news.
I went down to the bus stop and met Justin as he lived right around the corner.
He was just standing there staring. His eyes were dark, his hair was tangled and he looked more than a little rough. I imagine we both did having had such little sleep.
Not only did the bus show up but it was extra packed with kids. And I mean completely packed. A bus completely packed of sweaty teenagers when you've had no sleep is not much fun.
When we got to school we heard that some school in Oshawa got the day off due to lack of buses.
Yes, that’s right; Justin and I did the wrong school buses.
I still have no idea where the Port Perry buses are parked each night, but I can tell you where they park the Oshawa buses.
Apparently Port Perry lent some of our buses to the Oshawa school which resulted in our own buses being very full.
Word gets around fast in a small town like Port Perry and after many kids spent an additional hour getting to school because of us we weren’t exactly on anyone’s favourite list.
However, we weren't deterred from our original goal.
Still determined in our quest to shut down the school, we returned to the school later that evening to put industrial caulking in all the locks. This is the stuff you’d have to burn out with a torch. We figured if they couldn't unlock the doors, they couldn't get in, right? Picturing someone having to climb in a window each day to open the school just made me smile...besides, now we could now make "caulk" jokes at will. I figured if the school closed because of this, the local news channel would show up to do a story and by god I was going to be there to be interviewed.
"Yes, my name is Max, and the Principal of this school told us that someone's caulk was preventing the school doors from opening. Will the owner please come down and remove their caulk from our doors so we can all get back to our lessons?"
I went to sleep, again about 5am, smiling at the thought of what was going to transpire the next morning.
Alas, it was not meant to be. The school indeed was opened as we arrived the next morning. Justin was looking even more tired than the morning before. The dark circles under his eyes and his groggy expression stated loudly that perhaps we should give up.
But how could we give up?! We were on a quest!
I have absolutely no idea how they got the doors open...not just that day, but any day after that...I checked years later and the caulking was still in the door locks!
I was starting to think maybe we should just give up; and then lightning hit.
Seriously!
Okay, it was man-made lightning, but still.
Sometime in the early fall, we had a bad storm in Port Perry and the power went out in town. We asked Justin's father, who worked at Ontario Hydro what caused the power to go out. To our delight, Justin's father, a nuclear engineer, gave us a detailed lesson on what a power transformer was.
We learned that power lines are connected to transformers. Some of these transformers can be seen on telephone poles. When the wind gets too strong, or the snow or rain gets too heavy, the power lines can physically be pulled. As a safety mechanism, there is a breaker switch in the transformers so that when the power lines get pulled too far the breaker switch trips.
Mr. Miller explained that when this happens the electrical circuit is broken causing an instantaneous burst of electricity, looking like lightning and sounding like thunder.
What Mr. Miller intended for us to take away from his lecture, I don’t know…however, the lesson I did take with me was that Justin and I needed to blow up electrical shit right away!
There just happened to be a transformer on one of the telephone poles just outside the Port Perry High School. So, one night around midnight we took a close look at it, from the ground of course.
Then, as if out of nowhere, Justin got a brilliant idea. To this day, Justin believes it was due to Divine inspiration.
Justin decided to go across the street and pull on the guy-wire of the telephone pole that was directly connected to the one with the transformer on it. The guy-wire is the metal wire connected to the pole to stabilize it, it usually has a hard yellow plastic cover on it.
Justin figured that if we pulled on the guy-wire then that would cause that pole to rock back and forth, ever so slightly. This in turn would cause the power lines to pull on the transformer which might just cause the circuit to trip, and the transformer to blow.
So, Justin started pulling the wire…no joke intended...and sure enough the pole connected to the guy-wire started rocking back and forth. This caused the pole across the street, the one with the transformer on it, to start swaying.
Nothing prepared me for what happened when it blew.
It was an EXPLOSION!
I fell back on my ass...the thunder bolt sound it made was still ringing in my ears. My eyes were blinded from the bright flash of the lightning.
Then, total darkness. And complete silence...other than my heart which was pounding out of my chest.
We had just shut off Port Perry.
I can tell you that I have experienced the joy of my first kiss, and losing my virginity...but frankly these don't come close to the joy of blowing up a transformer and shutting down the power of a town.
We laughed all the way home.
The school still didn't shut down. It was back up and running the next morning. However, over the next few days, we learned that if you get the right motion the transformer will blow in less than a minute.
Fixing the transformer, we learned, is as simple as resetting the safety breaker switch. Of course it takes several hours for the hydro crew to get the truck with the ladder in it and go to the transformer and reset the switch. Sometimes it can take all night.
I felt like Zeus each time that thing blew up. We blew up that transformer a lot that year, yet we never did stop the school from opening each morning. While Zeus might have brought the lightning, it seems like God himself was ensuring we wouldn't miss a single day of school.
As an adult looking back, I do understand that what we did was absolutely wrong and I would never encourage anyone to purposely do what we did. However, as a 16 year old, when you feel powerless, there is nothing that makes you feel better than turning the power off of a whole town with a huge explosion and a bolt of lightning.
Being a small town, within a short time everyone knew it was us. No one knew about our quest to shut down the school, people just figured we were pulling pranks. I guess after a time, we kind of forgot about our quest too...besides, this got us through the first half of the school year.
Some other kid's father heard about the pranks we were pulling and called me at my parent’s house; at first I thought that he was calling to yell at me but surprisingly enough, he called to give me new ideas for pranks.
Apparently he was an engineer at General Motors and his idea was that if a group of 15 of us or so each opened up a fire hydrant at the same time in the downtown Port Perry area it would create a vacuum inside the town water tower and would crush it like a soda can.
I bet he was right too...and if it wasn't so hard to convince 14 friends to help me open up fire hydrants we would have found out for sure.
Another father came up to my dad in the street and told him that I should try and put a car up on a flagpole. He even told my dad that I should give him a call so he could tell me how to go about doing it....although my dad smiled as he listened, he had absolutely no idea what this guy was talking about.
All I know is that when other people's fathers start calling you at home and offering you prank ideas, it is a pretty good sign that it is time to leave town. And pretty soon I did. I left for university.
On the last day of high school, this janitor at the school named Sam came up to me to say goodbye and wish me well. Sam was about the age that I am now, about 40 years old. He was born and raised in Port Perry, and I have no doubt he is still there.
Whenever we passed each other in the halls we'd say hello to each other and we'd talk every now and then; he was a really good guy.
Anyway, on my last day, Sam shook my hand and wished me well while I was away at school. As I was walking away he yelled to me, “And remember, don’t be blowin up any power lines where you’re goin”.
I turned around; eyes wide open in complete shock. Sam just laughed.
“The first night you guys were trying to shake that stupid pole I was still workin and watchin ya from the window. Ha ha. Thanks for getting me the night off of work."
Then his smile left his face, he paused and then said seriously, "I know you can’t wait to get outta this town and that’s okay, just don’t go forgettin where ya came from, ya hear?”
I haven’t forgotten Sam, promise.
I guess I just felt trapped.
Most people find an outlet of some sort when they feel trapped; sometimes it is a healthy outlet like exercise or a hobby but most of the time it’s alcohol, affairs or some other self destructive behaviour.
My outlet was a goal.
The goal Justin Miller and I had was to shut down the high school, at least for a full day. And a couple of times I know we came pretty close.
The day before we were to start Grade 12, Justin Miller and I went to the paved lot outside of town where all the school buses were parked each night. Our mission: to demobilize these school buses.
We started about 10pm that night and by 3am we were finished. It took hours, crawling from bus to bus in the dark, removing the tire valve stem from a single tire of each bus, deflating the tire and temporarily rendering the bus immobile.
It seemed like a great plan, at least in theory. We put the valve stems beside each deflated tire so there was no permanent damage to the buses. A high school like Port Perry relied on buses to bring in most of the kids. Without buses to bring in the kids, we figured there would be no point in having the school open.
That bus parking lot was full. It felt like there were a hundred buses or more. We were absolutely exhausted afterwards as we quietly and slowly crept along the field back to Justin's car, certain there were hidden cameras everywhere. It had to be after 5am before I was back home and in bed, confident that I’d be woken by news of school cancellation on the radio.
Alas, I awoke to no such news.
I went down to the bus stop and met Justin as he lived right around the corner.
He was just standing there staring. His eyes were dark, his hair was tangled and he looked more than a little rough. I imagine we both did having had such little sleep.
Not only did the bus show up but it was extra packed with kids. And I mean completely packed. A bus completely packed of sweaty teenagers when you've had no sleep is not much fun.
When we got to school we heard that some school in Oshawa got the day off due to lack of buses.
Yes, that’s right; Justin and I did the wrong school buses.
I still have no idea where the Port Perry buses are parked each night, but I can tell you where they park the Oshawa buses.
Apparently Port Perry lent some of our buses to the Oshawa school which resulted in our own buses being very full.
Word gets around fast in a small town like Port Perry and after many kids spent an additional hour getting to school because of us we weren’t exactly on anyone’s favourite list.
However, we weren't deterred from our original goal.
Still determined in our quest to shut down the school, we returned to the school later that evening to put industrial caulking in all the locks. This is the stuff you’d have to burn out with a torch. We figured if they couldn't unlock the doors, they couldn't get in, right? Picturing someone having to climb in a window each day to open the school just made me smile...besides, now we could now make "caulk" jokes at will. I figured if the school closed because of this, the local news channel would show up to do a story and by god I was going to be there to be interviewed.
"Yes, my name is Max, and the Principal of this school told us that someone's caulk was preventing the school doors from opening. Will the owner please come down and remove their caulk from our doors so we can all get back to our lessons?"
I went to sleep, again about 5am, smiling at the thought of what was going to transpire the next morning.
Alas, it was not meant to be. The school indeed was opened as we arrived the next morning. Justin was looking even more tired than the morning before. The dark circles under his eyes and his groggy expression stated loudly that perhaps we should give up.
But how could we give up?! We were on a quest!
I have absolutely no idea how they got the doors open...not just that day, but any day after that...I checked years later and the caulking was still in the door locks!
I was starting to think maybe we should just give up; and then lightning hit.
Seriously!
Okay, it was man-made lightning, but still.
Sometime in the early fall, we had a bad storm in Port Perry and the power went out in town. We asked Justin's father, who worked at Ontario Hydro what caused the power to go out. To our delight, Justin's father, a nuclear engineer, gave us a detailed lesson on what a power transformer was.
We learned that power lines are connected to transformers. Some of these transformers can be seen on telephone poles. When the wind gets too strong, or the snow or rain gets too heavy, the power lines can physically be pulled. As a safety mechanism, there is a breaker switch in the transformers so that when the power lines get pulled too far the breaker switch trips.
Mr. Miller explained that when this happens the electrical circuit is broken causing an instantaneous burst of electricity, looking like lightning and sounding like thunder.
What Mr. Miller intended for us to take away from his lecture, I don’t know…however, the lesson I did take with me was that Justin and I needed to blow up electrical shit right away!
There just happened to be a transformer on one of the telephone poles just outside the Port Perry High School. So, one night around midnight we took a close look at it, from the ground of course.
Then, as if out of nowhere, Justin got a brilliant idea. To this day, Justin believes it was due to Divine inspiration.
Justin decided to go across the street and pull on the guy-wire of the telephone pole that was directly connected to the one with the transformer on it. The guy-wire is the metal wire connected to the pole to stabilize it, it usually has a hard yellow plastic cover on it.
Justin figured that if we pulled on the guy-wire then that would cause that pole to rock back and forth, ever so slightly. This in turn would cause the power lines to pull on the transformer which might just cause the circuit to trip, and the transformer to blow.
So, Justin started pulling the wire…no joke intended...and sure enough the pole connected to the guy-wire started rocking back and forth. This caused the pole across the street, the one with the transformer on it, to start swaying.
Nothing prepared me for what happened when it blew.
It was an EXPLOSION!
I fell back on my ass...the thunder bolt sound it made was still ringing in my ears. My eyes were blinded from the bright flash of the lightning.
Then, total darkness. And complete silence...other than my heart which was pounding out of my chest.
We had just shut off Port Perry.
I can tell you that I have experienced the joy of my first kiss, and losing my virginity...but frankly these don't come close to the joy of blowing up a transformer and shutting down the power of a town.
We laughed all the way home.
The school still didn't shut down. It was back up and running the next morning. However, over the next few days, we learned that if you get the right motion the transformer will blow in less than a minute.
Fixing the transformer, we learned, is as simple as resetting the safety breaker switch. Of course it takes several hours for the hydro crew to get the truck with the ladder in it and go to the transformer and reset the switch. Sometimes it can take all night.
I felt like Zeus each time that thing blew up. We blew up that transformer a lot that year, yet we never did stop the school from opening each morning. While Zeus might have brought the lightning, it seems like God himself was ensuring we wouldn't miss a single day of school.
As an adult looking back, I do understand that what we did was absolutely wrong and I would never encourage anyone to purposely do what we did. However, as a 16 year old, when you feel powerless, there is nothing that makes you feel better than turning the power off of a whole town with a huge explosion and a bolt of lightning.
Being a small town, within a short time everyone knew it was us. No one knew about our quest to shut down the school, people just figured we were pulling pranks. I guess after a time, we kind of forgot about our quest too...besides, this got us through the first half of the school year.
Some other kid's father heard about the pranks we were pulling and called me at my parent’s house; at first I thought that he was calling to yell at me but surprisingly enough, he called to give me new ideas for pranks.
Apparently he was an engineer at General Motors and his idea was that if a group of 15 of us or so each opened up a fire hydrant at the same time in the downtown Port Perry area it would create a vacuum inside the town water tower and would crush it like a soda can.
I bet he was right too...and if it wasn't so hard to convince 14 friends to help me open up fire hydrants we would have found out for sure.
Another father came up to my dad in the street and told him that I should try and put a car up on a flagpole. He even told my dad that I should give him a call so he could tell me how to go about doing it....although my dad smiled as he listened, he had absolutely no idea what this guy was talking about.
All I know is that when other people's fathers start calling you at home and offering you prank ideas, it is a pretty good sign that it is time to leave town. And pretty soon I did. I left for university.
On the last day of high school, this janitor at the school named Sam came up to me to say goodbye and wish me well. Sam was about the age that I am now, about 40 years old. He was born and raised in Port Perry, and I have no doubt he is still there.
Whenever we passed each other in the halls we'd say hello to each other and we'd talk every now and then; he was a really good guy.
Anyway, on my last day, Sam shook my hand and wished me well while I was away at school. As I was walking away he yelled to me, “And remember, don’t be blowin up any power lines where you’re goin”.
I turned around; eyes wide open in complete shock. Sam just laughed.
“The first night you guys were trying to shake that stupid pole I was still workin and watchin ya from the window. Ha ha. Thanks for getting me the night off of work."
Then his smile left his face, he paused and then said seriously, "I know you can’t wait to get outta this town and that’s okay, just don’t go forgettin where ya came from, ya hear?”
I haven’t forgotten Sam, promise.
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2 comments:
Yet another fantastic story! Keep up the great work and momentum
Somewhere within the bowels of the Durham Region Police HQ, a very over abmitious Det/Constable is going through the cold case file and yanking out all of the complaints regarding these occurrences! Great evidence Max! I hope you discussed these revelations of youthful exuberance with Jeremy Douglas. I always held him in high regard as an intelligent young man, very quiet, not a deviant! Anyway, I must have been living under a rock, or definitely in Seagrave, because I do not remember hearing about any of this. It is great to hear about ramblings of your energetic youth. Looking forward to more stories!
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