Date:         Sat, 25 Sep 2004 02:17:47 -0400
Reply-To:     mwmiller@CWNET.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mike Miller <mwmiller@CWNET.COM>
Subject:      Friday/Jerry rigged
Content-Type: text/plain

Well, since you asked...

Joe Hakkapelliitta had a sister, Jerry.  Italian Finns are a little vague on gender differentiation by conventional means,
including names, they usually use stick on tags as you see at big parties and conventions only reading BOY, or GIRL, or
NOT YET DETERMINED.  As you can see an open minded people.

Stay with me here as this all is pertinent to the explanation of "Jerry-rigged."

Anyway Jerry was riding her Segway People Mover around Florence one day [Florence her twin sister was a tad on the
overweight side so it was a good idea to use motorized transport to get around her, they were actually located in Maranello,
as was the remainder of the Hakkapelliitta family.  They all worked at Ferrari building Vanagens.  You didn't know Ferrari
built Vanagens?  Well it does.  That explains the acceleration, they put it all in the cars with little to none left over for the
Vans.  It's not an accident that the engine in a 512 TestaRosa looks just like a Van engine.  Again you will have to pay
attention, this is not fluff but central to our story.]  Anyway she was riding around Florence [remember the twin sister?  Yes,
I'm sure you do] and she got lost and ended up in Finland with twin brother Joe.  [One of the reasons there are so many
Hakkapelliitta's in Maranello is this tendency towards twin.  I believe the University of Fiarenza {SP?} is studying this as we
speak.  But I digress this has nothing to do with the origin of the word 'Jerry-rigged']

Well, Joe had the tire market pretty well locked up and Jerry didn't much care for Finland anyway as her Segway kept falling
into holes in the snow.  This was in the summer as in the winter it's not possible to fall in the holes in the snow are there are
none.  [Darn, another digression]  Anyway Jerry decided to go back to Southern Finland, also known as Italy in some
quarters.  But while she had been tooling around falling into snow holes the land bridge across the Baltic Sea had
submerged again [Sneaky old land bridge, eh?]  So Jerry had to go by way of Russia.

Now Russia, or East Italy, was not a hot bed of Segway technology in those days of Communism and Soviets and all that so
when her people mover had a bit of a problem there really was no help available.  So Jerry [pay attention now we're getting
to the good part] took apart a T 34 tank that had been kind of wrecked when the Germans [also known as Jerrys in some
locales] had tried to establish closer relations with the Russians.  See the Germans, from Germany or North kind of East
Italy as its general known, had the idea that they could impress the Russians with their engineering knowledge by showing
off their military, which they did.  But it left a lot of wrecked tanks and such.  By luck the T 34 used the exact same part that
had broken on the Segway.  Well, almost exact.  Turns out the the badge on the front of the Segway was pretty close to a
tread from the track of the T 34.  So Jerry took out her nail file and modified it to fit.

Hence the term 'jerry-rigged.'  Of course it didn't work very well, actually at all and Jerry was stuck with a 'jerry-rigged'
Segway in Russia.  That gave rise to the secondary meaning of 'jerry' as in 'jerry built.'  None of his would have mattered
except that Jerry met Stalin while she was filing down the tank tread.  Who was so impressed with her industriousness that
he wowed, and won her.  As a tribute to his new bride he encouraged [I believe free trips to Siberia were mentioned
prominently] the Russians, or North Eastern Italians to use the term 'Jerry-rigged' any time they mentioned an almost fixed
Segway People Mover.  Naturally this usage spread to Italy North, Italy a little North and kind of East and Italy, and thus to
the rest of the world.  Including the van list.

At least that's how Unca Joel explained it to me but in blank verse of course and woven into the legend of Beowulf.

Clear now?

Mike

Formerly Sacramento [I was asked to leave] and now of Fairfax [I was asked not to come]

On 9/24/04 8:55 PM, "Joy Hecht" <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU> wrote:

> Yes, PLEASE!  Re explaining jerry rigged, I mean.  Quick, while it's still
> Friday!
>
>
> Joy

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