The T&T Literary Society Off Road Event
Pre Run Discussion Group.

It all started with a certain Club President “pushing fire” on the club’s discussion group with this e-mail:

I totally agree, as whenever a certain blue Toyota (I won’t call names BarrieLS) joins us on the trails we are subjected to Toyota breakdown & repairs which usually run into the wee hours of the following morning (Caparo Jan 2004) , and when they don’t break down they stick so badly it becomes hell to recover.(Indian Trail Nov 2004)….Thank goodness this rig usually has good food onboard, otherwise it would only be use-full as a boat mooring!

To which the aforementioned Barrie LS replied:

The certain green samaurai accurately reflects the jealousy that gnaws at its owner. Although understandable but not condonable it predicates virtually every utterance made by said owner. Such an affliction totally skews the unfortunate individual's perception of reality. By virtue of my nature and indeed, also by profession, I cannot help but be sympathetic for his condition, but the "pathetic" part of sympathetic applies strongly here also.

The Caparo breakage occurred by virtue of too much power and torque with axle wrap. I know the concept of power and torque is alien to the red jeep owner at the time, so he won't understand. Suffice it to say that the red jeep was ABSENT from that part of the event as only the vehicles capable of fording the river to the difficult trail section were present, it being forced to turn back with the other less capable vehicles.

Little red riding hood broke its rusty shoddily fabricated left U-bolt in the arena sand pits when no other vehicle stood damage and blue Toyota owner literally had to kick the little red dinky toy back into alignment so the temp fix could be finished with string and chewing gum, all of which was still evident at the time of its sale.

Indian trail saw only the venerable Hercules clean the section mentioned, and even he had to be recovered on his first downhill passage through that very same section. Every other vehicle had to be recovered by Hercules thereafter, and big blue would have cleaned it were it not for a treacherously parked Paul Tiah forcing the 'yota into a bad deeply rutted line, Paul having failed at his own ill-fated attempt at ascending the slippery slope.

Driving ability or lack thereof was self-evident when the aforementioned treacherous driver was at the controls of Hercules and found a way in open terrain to wreck the driver's door on the rover in open terrain whilst ostensibly assisting with the recovery of other vehicles, and thereafter managed to wrap a substantial rope around the rear axle tighter than a shark's arse at 200 feet. He waited till dark to accomplish all this to render extraction more difficult and it all stemmed from his uncontrollable pathological jealousy.

A useful reality check is that the green samaurai failed to cross a 4 inch deep river which a Terios with all-terrains crossed with ease. This was the ONLY vehicle to fail on this grade 1 trail. It was compounded by severe drag link damage affected by the frenetic and manic attempts by the driver to extract himself. So corrupt and warped is the mind set of the driver that when his useless flailings in the river failed, which he believed others would interpret as heroic self-recovery efforts, that he was overcome by a fit of pique and so, deliberately, or maliciously, bogged his vehicle in a sink hole within the river at the height of his tantrum. He claimed to have had fun by making grade 4 efforts on a grade 1 trail, and dismissed the costly repairs ensuing from his epic by saying " I must get a sucker to buy the other jeep."

To which my noble President replied: TOUCHÉ! Your gift of gab is truly beyond glib……but your love for sharks is questionable my friend…….

See you on Sunday

Ps. ¿Cómo sabe usted que cuán apretado un asno de Tiburones es? ¡Mantenga por favor su fetiche personal de este coloquio!

So now we moved from English to Spanish as Barrie LS replied:

Pablo, you are the diver, not me, so I drew a frame of reference that you are intimately familiar with. Yet again I am motivated to facilitate the challenged such as yourself. Yo no sabo mucho de tiburones, pero sabo mucho mas que usted de 4x4, gafo colo. :->

When out of nowhere Vinod,the new owner of the Red Jeep, hit a stinging blow with:

Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at the greatness of red jeeps as Cerberus is at Proserpine's beauty.

Only momentarily awed the mighty Barrie LS struck back:

First off you mix your latin and your greek. You should have written "persephone" to be consistent. Strange that a three headed dog with a serpents tail and from whose canine saliva sprang forth the deadly nightshade, the guardian of the entrance to the underworld who cares not for the issues, travails nor ambitions of men should care one whit for any mortal perception of beauty.

I appreciate the comparisson, for like him I am above noticing the values of mere mortals who can actually percieve even an iota of beauty, strength or greatness in the speck of existence labeled as a "red jeep".

Thou knowest, even at thy basest level that other lesser beings as thyself, have scant regard for the focus of thy self-deception, and indeed regard the object of thy affection as a base, decayed, and egregious example of automotive construction. Forsooth Achilles is most apt a comparison, hark thy memory back and ye will recall, Achilles is baseless legend to impress but small children and was devoid of substance and accomplishment. Know too that t'was his mother that struck the carnal bargain, as he was a mama's boy, and left him boastful with fatal flaw.

To which the equally mighty Vinod replied:

It is rather unfortunate when an absent mind of languages, history and meaning governs a careless tongue. For a combination of that nature can lead to treacherous endings whilst on trails and in pointless battles of words and colloquial speech. Caution must be in the atmosphere for those of us who give liberty without thought, freedom without struggle and blood without reason. It must be noted that in this very breath of fresh air that there was no mix up in language. It was simply the dialect of Shakespearian times. Times, which offered reason, purpose and meaning unlike land cruisers. A time which would shape the destiny of history. Similarly to modern day vernacular when one says “you will be towed” or perhaps in a dash of excitement mixed with saddened emotions “shall I be towed?”- “oh friend….help art thou”.

As stars with red jeeps of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist “green star” Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse: And even the like precurse of fierce events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated the power of “red jeeps” Unto our climatures and countrymen.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range With conscience wide as hell. :-- that when he speaks, The Air, a charter’d libertine is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in mens’ ears, To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the art and practice part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric:

And then, unable to contain himself any longer, another giant of the club, David LS joined in with:

Very Good Vinod, a man of culture, a modern day “renaissance man” perhaps?

Engaging is this discourse of war, this fearful battle rendered us in music - But be careful my Brother of your entertaining references to Thor’s Mjölnir and uru metal lest you offend Odin the father of the Norse God himself. Remember that only the worthy may wield the mystic uru hammer and therefore by proxy the Blue Thunder Land Cruiser too. I fear for you, younger one, and urge that you be careful lest Odin smite you on Indian Trail so badly that only the grecian intervention of Hercules, and perhaps Zeus himself can extract you.

Know ye that Blue Thunder was forged in the mystic lava fires of the Rio Claro trolls and imbued with the sacred ten powers to be wielded by Barrie, the chosen one. Odin does not smite at me but rather smiles upon me as his choseen one, laying waste to the competition. Zeus himself is of kindred spirit, likewise a wielder of lightning and thunder, but is far more reserved in dipensation of such. I have not his qualms. Remember too, the venerable Hercules is a staunch ally of Thor in the fables as told by the bards of Marvel.

Should the fates conspire to lay me low, then t'would be the work of Hela's and Loki's targeted necromancing spells mystically influencing the outcome, and not a mere trail obstacle as it would appear to mere mortal eyes. If not then you could truly call me Thor, as in: " He's a thor loosethr, look how easthily he thtuck. He thouldn't have openeth hith mouth." On a note to Vinod, truly great fun jousting with you, I really enjoy your art of phrase. Are you Odin in guise bent on humbling his son?

But Vinod was to have the last word with his mighty battle poem:

To be or not to be,
That is the question.
To tow or not to tow,
That is no option.

Vehicles come, vehicles go
Some with high range and some with low,
Up they come and down they go,
Blue thunder’s power – a definite no no.

In a world of ups and downs,
Little red and green jeeps bring smiles to frowns,
With an engine size half of blue thunder,
As the owner looks on in awesome wonder.

Leaders are we, bound to take flight,
Champions we are without a fight,
Masters of the trails beyond a doubt,
While blue thunder is stuck, trying to figure us out.

Axils will be broken, this we can’t deny,
Diffs will be twisted as we endlessly try,
However, one thing remains true in our heart,
Blue thunder will be in shambles as we depart.

The Samurai and the Jimny are names we can trust,
In God we trust, but in land cruisers we bust,
Noble vehicles are these little rides,
Climbing, toggling and mounting with stride.

My good land cruiser friend, I wish you all the best,
I am young and might not even be a test,
However, my colleague in the green jeep might seek redress,
Towing you from all angles without a moment to rest.

In good spirits I write you these lines,
To meet you on the trail will be some really fun times.
I'm off now to get me some tow rope for you when it’s raining,
Actually, I gotta get back to work – Health and Safety training.

At this point the much talked about Indian Trail Event took place and a wonderful day it was too.

Barrie LS Trail report reads as follows:

Missed you on the trail today Vinod, but we were all aware of the spirit of red jeep being ever present albeit just out of reach. T'was a dead spirit for sure, or perhaps the rotting mortal carcass. We saw the circling vultures as evidence. Paul chased a few landed ones with green star, or was perhaps just quickly commiserating with his trusted allies before moving on.

The mission statement expressed in your last missive was VERY evident on today's trail, with Paul rushing back to tow me when my carburetor bowl was empty. As I was filling it he managed to actually attach his tow rope despite my expletive filled protestations as I fired up, and took off with alacrity. I sped off in pursuit, never allowing his “tow rope " to become taut, and he desisted only when he realised I was going to run him over. My diff is low so I could actually hit him.

Of course President Paul, who started all this had to respond with:

…my rope is so exceptional….it pulled Blue Thunder while limp! The vultures were homing in on Blue Thunder on Indian Trail, but after closer examination they took off like a bat outa hell, apparently Vultures do have standards. Blue Thunder was struggling on one or two of the hills and every time I backed up to pull, Barry somehow got himself out. However, I have witnessed his secret. He has a trap door under the passenger side, and every time he is about to stick he urges Ann to kick open the trap door and they go Flintstone style! If it weren’t for Ann, Barry would not have made it pass the first hill. (Thanks for lunch Ann!) It’s a pity Barry and Ann could not join us for a few drinks afterwards, but Blue Thunder is afraid of the dark and had to rush home.

Great Trail yesterday folks, look forward to hitting Indian Trail again soon.

Lunch time had not even arrived when BLS bounced back with:

Why would anyone, and I mean anyone, brag about their limp rope. It cannot pull he admits, and certainly no limp rope can push. It most certainly would not be long enough to put a knot in. I admit that all raptors pay homage to Blue Thunder, but the bat out of hell was blue, and passing a dim green star on the trail: get your glasses man. As regards struggling, you are too kind to mention only the hills, what about the flats where despite great traction my *%#*&*% diff kept bulldozing. I knew I should not have driven over you, you spotted the trap door. I hope Ann did not sully her feet on your roof, as I sure as hell avoided touching your green construct that even the security by the dump mistook for a garbage transport vehicle. At least Paul now recognizes that Blue Thunder easily accomplishes a trail with the engine off, in gear, handbrakes up, with only 2 foot power! With the 4.2 litre switched on you will know why it's called Blue Thunder, especially with the exhaust manifold leak. You miss another point, after dark Blue Thunder is forever occupied as his rope is not limp.

And then before the Web Site was posted our President pulled rank with the last words:

Well in the presence of Blue Thunder, everyone’s rope becomes limp my friend, even the vultures are turned off at your presence. You fail to mention that it was my intervention on top the first hill that identified your numerous engine problems, and then blessed your engine with the “Suzuki Touch”, powers that enabled you to exit Indian Trail. Without this intervention you would still be on the first hill cursing the windshield wipers for poor engine performance!?! Why did you disappear so quickly before nightfall, is it that in the darkness when you cannot be seen is the only time you can be appreciated!?!

And here endeth the Indian Trail Literary Debate.
(I can’t wait to see what the Yahoo and Goggle search engines make of this lot. We should quadruple the number of hits the site gets!)

Our Father,
Which art in Indian Trail
Four wheeling be thy name.
To thy trails we come,
Thy maintenance be done
In garage
As it is on the trail.
Give us this our daily drive,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those that trespass on us.
And lead us not unto illegal closures
But deliver us from Toyotas
For thine is the clearance,
The articulation,
And the traction forever, Amen.

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