Millennium (alternative title: Mike begins to regret this post.)

Readers, I am relaxing a rule for a moment. I'm indulging another person to speak to you on the front page of my blog—yes, in this forum that serves as my personal and intimate voice to you, my beloved eighty-thousand---instead of in the comments section where he rightfully belongs (if it so pleases me). I'm doing this not out of some misguided sense of altruism to him--because after all, Reader, I must consider your interests as well as his--but I do so because it will decisively settle an ongoing argument that Andy D I have been waging since--and I tease you not--1986.

Reader, I'm a truth guy, and truth will out. I know the truth, Reader, and so do you. But this boy needs a heaping dose of trufe. Indulge me. Answer his question, Reader, and let’s set this straight.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Andy D:

"May I please commission a poll, using your website here?

All right people: how long would it take one human of normal height, above average strength, high intelligence, and even higher rugged good looks, to single-handedly knock down that stadium to rubble, using only a sledgehammer and his own might?

I will not suggest these in the form of multiple choice answers; give it your best honest answer. But I'm personally curious (no relation to Just Curious) in seeing if you think it's closer to a week, month, year, or decade.

We're taking "century" and "millennium" right out of the running, because those answers would be ridiculous.

You may also assume that if the sledgehammer becomes pulverized itself on the process, the Demolition Man would be handed a fresh new sledgehammer to continue The Test, and that he doesn't have to stop and run down to The Home Depot. He can keep right on choppin'..

AD."

A little context here. In 1986, Andy and I were walking together at the University of Texas, and we hiked past what was then called Texas Memorial Stadium, a simply ginormous concrete and steel structure that seated some eighty-thousand souls. As we strolled by this awesomely gigantic structure, Andy was talking but I was not listening to him but was instead pondering my sins. I reflected upon God's wrath and how He might be angry at me for being responsible for the death of His Son. And as I considered Jesus, I recalled how Jesus had prophesied that the Temple would soon be destroyed and not one stone would be left upon another.

Not one stone would be left upon another. For a dude who has moments of Scriptural Literalism, that struck me as quite the prophecy. Not surprisingly, I began to think what it would take to destroy the stadium that we were walking by such that no stone was left standing upon another. And, yes, we were STILL walking by it because, good grief, that thing goes on and on. And on. It takes a good fifteen minutes (or more) just to walk around the dang thing. For you see, in addition to seating some eighty-thousand folks, this “building” holds locker rooms, gift shops, administrative offices, lecture halls, restaurants, conference rooms, weight rooms and a museum.

It is big.

So I turned to Andy and interrupted whatever he was talking about and asked him something to this effect: “Andy D, how long do you think it would take for a person like yourself—a person of rugged beauty and ample, um, substance—to reduce this structure—this structure that can be seen with the naked eye from the moon—to rubble such that not one stone would be left upon another, and to do so the only tool at your disposal is a sledgehammer?

It’s a fantastic question.

Admit it.

Andy thought it was, too. He loved the question. Now Reader, I’m not going to poison the waters. I won’t tell you what I think to be a reasonable range of answers, nor will I tell you what Andy—he of the big sledgehammer—said what he thought was the correct answer.

But let me say this perfectly nonprejudicial comment. One of us, and I won’t say who, thought the right answer would fall into one of the temporal categories that I note you have been forbidden above to use. And one of us—again, I won’t say who—apparently pictures himself as Warner-Brothers character, quite possibly the Tasmanian Devil with a sledgehammer.

What I will tell you is this. The argument became quite heated. And it has never let up.

So Reader, please do weigh in on this question. Speak truth. Do not exaggerate. Give it thought. Here’s what I recommend as a preliminary exercise. Pick up a sledgehammer. Now locate a concrete and steel structure--preferably in a neighbor’s backyard—and give that thing a swing. See how much progress you make. Swing it again. Measure the destructive yield. Note your fatigue and how profusely you’re sweating. Then get a calculator and extrapolate how long it would take to destroy a building some thousands and thousands of times larger.

Helpful hint: I encourage you to use scientific notation. Your calculator probably won’t have enough room for that many zeroes.

So get to it, Reader.

This by the way, is a photo of just PART of the stadium.



Lawd Amighty it's huge.