The Greatest Home Videos That Never Were
jaybeacham 17 Jun 2013 | : blog
Before I get into the topic, I want to thank all the visitors from around the world but an extra thanks to all the visitors from China.
Thank you!!
Did you ever feel like you could have had an award and money winning video?
Well, I have and know others who did and had some great ideas. But due to circumstances never made the videos.
A classic is when my daughter, while living in Hawaii, noticed that one of her small boys would fall asleep while sitting at the table in his high chair. After a time in the upright position, he would then slump forward face first into his unfinished plate of food. This didn’t wake him, he would need to be picked up and cleaned off and taken to bed still asleep. Her idea was to video tape this and submit it to Funniest Home Videos. She got the camera set up and true to form the boy fell asleep sitting at the table. She waited for 1 hour with the camera going and then had to do something else so went to do it and her son then fell face first into his food, the camera not being on.
Then there was my older brother who owns a white American-Alaskan dog. Cute little dog and smart and self willed too. Don made a daily trip to the street mail box and took the dog along on a short leash. The dog was so eager to go that he would stand on his hind legs and jump along pulling my brother behind him. A camera was even purchased but it would jump and the resolution was atrocious. So we never made the video. The dog will still do that but not for the whole distance.
Then there is the ACE Hardware man, Dave, in Hurricane, Utah’s Hurst’s-Ace Hardware. Dave is a story teller of all that’s happened to him, family and friends throughout his life. Most of it is very funny but his dead pan way of relating in all makes it even more funny. When he slipped on the ice and his armload went airbourne and was retrieved with ease, or the chip of wood flying a great distance to strike the stooped over man in the posterior, or when all cars in a parking lot were unable to move because of ice but with his help all got freed but his. Whatever he tells would make great videos but he laments that these occurrences just happen, they are not planned so of course no camera is running.
Or my son James, the film maker, when we were in Santa Rosa, New Mexico one morning before 8 am. We had rested and used the restrooms etc. at a gas station/mini mart and before driving on, Kari, a daughter-in-law, wife of another son, suggested we pray before we pulled out which we did. The video camera was in it’s case in the back of the pickup under the camper shell. I drove to the west entrance and paused for a few moments to decide whether to go back onto the freeway that way or to drive through town and get back on the east freeway on -ramp. At the same time the local ambulance went to the east exit from the parking lot and made a left hand turn out into the road heading west but only got a few feet when the driver felt to stop dead still right there in the west bound lane. As he did, a semi-truck came around the corner from the south turning to the east at a faster rate of speed than was safe. The semi fell over on it’s side and went sliding east bound heading directly at the ambulance, diesel smoke bellowing out of its stacks. It stopped its slide about 12 feet in front of the ambulance ejecting the man in the sleeper out the front window and he landed just in front of the ambulance. He had only glass cuts on his forehead and the EMT team was right there to treat him. The driver was unharmed and we witnessed it all. A power pole was knocked down which shut the power down for the service station/mini mart. There the truck lay on it’s side spewing out smoke until the dazed driver could crawl into the cab and shut the engine down. The cause of the accident was not just speed but the shifting of a load of 20 lb bags of carrots which then lay scattered all along the roadway. James got the camera out and recorded the scene but it didn’t have any bite as it showed only the aftermath of the accident, so he never published it.
The funniest would have been when we were out in a gravel pit by the river on the 4th of July a few of years ago. ( http://jaybeacham.com/2009/07/05/the-cannon-exploded/ ) Larry had his Civil War reenactment cannon there firing it. He made a comment that if we had a video camera, he could shoot one of the gravel trucks and it would surely be a hit video.
Then he explained that many cannons during the Civil War would explode, killing the cannon crew, but this cannon had been forged in Missouri in a foundry so as to withstand explosions. He also explained the side firing devise that was used but he hadn’t brought his that day or else he would stand by the side of the cannon and fire it. Scott was loading the powder and I thought he was putting an excessive amount in. The cannonball was added, an aluminum can with weight in it. We’d seen this done many time that morning and on other occasions and Larry had done this for years. Then he added a projectile, a sharp pointed stick, this had been done in Civil war battles too. We all stood back. I was behind a bush on the west of it with my still life camera to get photos because on the east of the bush was an fire ant nest and I didn’t relish getting stung. (they hurt violently) Scott lit the fuse and got back.
Then Bang!!! The cannon exploded into hundreds of pieces which flew in all directions. Both wagon wheels splintered into toothpicks, one of the splinters hit my pant leg. Had I been on the east of the bush a large sharp piece would have hit me doing harm. Dee H. was sitting in a folding lawn chair by the side of the road under a chaparral bush, near his son Tyler’s van. The round end piece of the cannon whizzed past his head and lodged it’s self in the side of the van entering the driver’s side tail light and traveling half way up the side towards the front of the van. No one else had even come close to being hit. Some said a miracle. (click on the photos to enlarge them)
I got some great photos and we tried to get all the pieces back on to the trailer that we could find. We never did find the projectile. And of course no video camera captured the event. But we were all safe, though shaken and that ended our 4th of July Independence day celebrations for the day. Larry bemoaned that a video camera wasn’t on hand. But had one been there, I feel certain that someone would have been hurt because of where a video camera man would have been to film it. I have published a slideshow of the happening. Coming to my YouTube Channel soon. http://www.youtube.com/user/leobennachoben1
Even today, several years later, a man asked me after church, “Blowing up any more cannons?” No, I was just a bystander.
Well, there you have my short list of greatest home videos that might have been.
What are some of yours?
(check into this site: http://www.magniworkplans.com/?lp=2 )