my dad owned a building supplies store.
by age 15 i was an experienced fork lift operator. i knew nothing about physics, but as far as i could tell that old Allis-Chalmers could pick up anything.
the Georgia-Pacific tractor trailer arrived one afternoon while my dad was out on a delivery. up on the bed there was a full bundle of 20' PT'd 2x10's for a local dock builder. such a bundle weighs about 6000 pounds.
i nosed the forklift under the bundle, tilted the load back, and anyone who has lifted something so heavy and so wide with a forklift will tell you about the immediate feedback you get from the steering wheel -- since the steered wheels on a forklift are in the rear, a heavy load on the forks effectively feels like power steering. and having 10 feet of weight out to each side, and the load about 8 feet off the ground results in an interesting level of telling yourself, "pay attention here".
i slowly backed the loaded forklift away from the tractor trailer, cleared the bed, put my foot on the brake like my dad always told me to, and started to lower the load. at some point, for some reason, i thought to myself that the load wasn't actually clear of the trailer bed. subsequently i let go of the down control too abruptly. i had turned a static load into a dynamic load.
the bundle was in fact clear of the bed. or, it was at least for a moment. because of my ham-fisted antics the forklift now pitched forward, tilting and trapping the load AGAINST the side of the bed of the tractor trailer, with the forklift's rear wheels off the ground now by 6-8". only my foot on the brake was keeping the forklift from ending up on it's nose with the bundle on the ground. i looked to my right and up near the tractor cab the crusty Georgia-Pacific driver was slowly shaking his head.
so now i had 6000 pounds trapped about 7 feet up against the side of a tractor trailer, and the back wheels of the fork truck were off the ground. i had a couple of options here -- one of which involved pulling the parking brake and then jumping off, hoping the brake held so i would not be killed from all heck breaking loose.
i did some math in my head and concluded that as long as i kept standing on the brakes, the situation would not get worse. it was at this point it started to rain... LOL. i figured any minute my dad would be back and this was surely something i would never hear the end of.
i got the idea to lower the load, very gently, just a tiny bit. still standing on the brakes, i ever-so-gently nudged the hydraulic down lever a bit and although the bundle didn't move any the rear of the forklift came down a bit. i nudged again, and the rear dropped a bit more. finally i got the rear wheels back on terra firma. and eventually i was able to actually lower the load to near enough the ground that i was no longer in danger (physically or from a butt-whipping by my father). as i backed the load away from the trailer, i thought to myself that i would from then on pay more attention to what i was doing when 6000 pounds was up over my head.
i set down the bundle in the back of the yard and then came back up to sign the bill of lading. the Georgia-Pacific driver says to me, "son, i was 100% sure you were going to be picking up all those planks for the next couple of hours -- that is, if you lived through it..."
wrooster
