Past Discussions Come to Mind

The last few days have been amazing watching the news and seeing all the flooding up and down the East Coast. During the course of these days, we saw bridges washed out, streets flooded to the tops of pole signs and the devastation that homes had gone through with rising waters near flood zones.

It brought me back to a conversations I had with Peter not too long ago. It reminded me of conversations in the past we had together. And, like everyone who really knew Peter could attest, he liked to talk about everything. Math, theories, science, art, mechanics, physics ... you name it and you could have a long thoughtful discussion with him.

To give you an idea of what these conversations could be like:

One day, we were talking about how all cars have motorized windows now. You never see the crank windows. Peter and I were talking about the possibly usefullness of those types of windows. He pondered whether crank windows would be more useful than motorized if perhaps we drove into a lake or drove into a flood zone. With a crank window, even if the car's motor seized, you could still crank the window and climb through the window to safety.

This of course led to if, for some reason, his father's 1970s car drove off a bridge, and hit the water, what would be the best way to escape the car. Would you be able to push the door open and jump out and away from the car plummeting into the ocean? This led to Peter using his mathematical mind to determine the speed of the car times the drop from the bridge, how many seconds you'd have to fling the door open and jump. Or, would it really matter because in the case of a bridge accident, would you just die on impact of the windshield shattering against the force of the car hitting the water.

I remember we discussed this for about an hour, as we figured out which scenario had the best outcome and whether or not it was possible, that if you had an old crank window car, that you could even open it under water. And, if you could open it, what would be the best way to do it ... a little at a time, or would you open it as fast as you could and escape through the window.

It's impossible to explain exactly what it was like to get into a conversation with Peter. It could seem like a trivial thing, but after an hour of talking about it, you ended up with a lesson in physics, a mathematic session and a serious discussion with a man who joked about most things ... except when it came to the matter of the logical mind.

We concluded that if you could keep a car that had crank windows -- it was a good thing for most scenarios -- except driving off a bridge.

It's a good reminder when I drive over the Brooklyn Bridge.