FanStory.com - Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 45by Jim Wile

Chapter 45

“Now that everyone is here, I’d like to begin by thanking Abby for setting up this Zoom meeting. I’m Kevin Parsons; I live in Santa Barbara, California, and I’m a mechanical engineer. I love playing golf, but my love for the game is slowly dying because of circumstances beyond my control. As you may know, golfing in California is no longer very appealing since watering of all grassed areas on a golf course as well as all fertilizer and pesticide applications have been banned by our state government. Except for a very few rich clubs that can afford the exception fees, golf courses are in a shambles now. Many have gone belly up, and the golfing population is now only one-fifth the size of just ten years ago. We fear this trend is beginning to extend beyond just California and that we will soon witness a decline in the game nationwide.

“I’ve recently experienced a revelation, and I no longer believe the decline of golf is beyond my control. My friends, Paul Putnam and Ernie Dombrowski and I, plan to embark upon a project we believe will save the game and restore it to its former glory and even expand it. The revelation to which I refer came in the form of time travel to three different eras in the history of the game of golf. Before we get into those, I’ll let my friends introduce themselves.”

“Hello, Kenny, Abby, and E.J. This is Ernie Dombrowski. E.J., I’ve already talked with you. I’m a computer scientist and engineer, also from Santa Barbara. Kevin, Paul, and I have been friends since childhood. I’ve played golf with these guys for about 12 years now, but I was never a golf fanatic or anything close; however, I’ve gained a new appreciation for it lately through my travels through time to Altoona, and I can see real potential in this project my friends and I are about to embark upon. Paul?”

“Hi folks. I’m Paul Putnam, an electrical engineer here in Santa Barbara. I too am eager to begin work on this incredible golf simulator my friends have briefly described in their previous phone conversations with you. We only hope we can interest you in participating in it by selling us your terrific golf swing suits. I’m going to let Kevin describe it in more detail. Kevin?”

“Are there any questions before I begin?”

“I have one,” said Abby. “Is it important for us to believe you have traveled through time for us to get involved with this? Because, frankly, that part is a little hard for us to accept right now.”

“The answer is no; however, we didn’t feel we could pull off a lie about how we learned of the suit. We want to gain your trust so that you will be willing to deal with us.”

“And you think you can do that by telling us what most would feel is an unbelievable tale of time travel?”

“It’s much easier to defend the truth than a lie, for me anyway.”

“Okay,” said Abby. “I guess we’ll reserve judgment until we hear more.”

“Thank you. As I said before, there have been travels to three eras in the history of golf. My friends have been on one apiece, but I’ve been on all three. Let me describe to you now how these travels came about.”

I then launched into a description of how we had met Art Calvin on the first tee of our round at Malimar Park and how I had hit the ball beneath the railroad trestle and what happened when I went beneath it to retrieve my ball. Kenny, Abby, and E.J. mainly just listened, with only the occasional question for clarification. I went into a moderate amount of detail about my trip to 13th-century Holland. I then described the trip Paul and I took to 15th-century Scotland. They had all been familiar with the king’s ban on golf, but not with the details about it that I provided. Then I told of Ernie’s and my trip to Altoona, in which I gave them a huge amount of detail that nobody other than Kenny, Abby, and E.J. would have been privy to, such as the four dance steps comprising Kenny and E.J’s little joke on Abby that were programmed into the swing suit. And finally, I ended with our post-round discussion with Art Calvin in the bar and how we discovered he had actually died four years ago.

At the end of it, Kenny said, “Kevin, as incredible as this tale has been, I can’t think of another explanation for how you would know the details you have related other than by being in my mind and experiencing them firsthand. I, for one, believe you now.”

E.J. then said, “Ernie, I half-believed you the other day when we spoke, but hearing Kevin just now makes me a full believer too.”

“Okay guys,” said Abby, “not having had my mind invaded the way Kenny and E.J.’s were still leaves me skeptical, but at least I believe you sincerely believe what you have related to us. I’m going to suspend judgment for now and just go with it. Could you tell us about your ideas for this simulator you’ve proposed?”

“Gladly,” I said. “Bear in mind that we’ve only been brainstorming this for a few days now, but it will continue for the next five or six weeks before we make a final decision on whether or not it’s a go. If we do, we will pass into the construction phase and begin building a prototype, much as you did with the swing suit. So here goes.”

I then launched into a detailed description of its major features and components. They interrupted me many times with questions and clarifications. E.J. and Ernie got very deep at times, discussing potential algorithms for a number of the simulations. Kenny and Abby both asked excellent questions about some of the design features and even proposed a few things we hadn’t thought of for consideration.

After a few hours of this, we finally got back to one of my main purposes for making this call to them: to find out what had happened with the suit, why it was never produced, and if it could be resurrected and produced now because I saw it as a critical component of the success of this enterprise.

Abby began, “All we were able to successfully produce were the four prototypes. As you well know, the suit contains over a thousand miniature servo motors sewn into the fabric. These servo motors were specially made for us by a firm in China that used a rare metal called dysprosium * that was only mined in China at the time. The dysprosium was alloyed with several other metals to create an extremely powerful servo motor for its size, and these were the only ones strong enough to power the motions of the suit. They are what was used in the four prototypes; however, on our first order for actual production of the suits, once we had ramped up our facilities to make them, the ones they sent us were not made with dysprosium. Even though it was in the specifications, they simply left that out of the alloy and didn’t bother to tell us. The suits would not work as designed.

“When we finally figured out what was wrong, they said they could no longer use dysprosium in these servo motors. Because it was a rare metal, their government had restricted its use to primarily military applications—their own—and the servo motors we needed could not be made with it anymore. We began looking for other companies in the US, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam—all over, really—but none could provide us with servo motors made with dysprosium. China had a monopoly on it. And that was pretty much that. We tried a number of times over the next ten years to see if things had changed, but nothing had on that front, and so we eventually gave up trying as we moved into other things.”

I asked her, “Did you ever try to find a substitute for dysprosium that would work just as well in the alloy?”

“Oh, you bet. But there just wasn’t anything at the time that had the strength of it. It’s possible there is something now; I just haven’t looked into it lately, and my interest sort of waned, much as your interest in golf began waning. But maybe you are just the spark I need to get going again to try to find something else that would work. There’s something about your enthusiasm, Kevin, that is infectious. I would still love to produce this suit and would postpone my impending retirement if we could. I’m willing to start searching again, and maybe this is just the impetus I need.”

Paul said, “That’s wonderful, Abby. We’d be willing to help if you’d like. I have contacts in both the chemical engineering field and with some metallurgists I’ve worked with before who I could consult with. If you’re willing for me to help out and could send me the alloy specifications for the servo motors, I would have a better idea of what it will take and who to talk to.”

“I’ll take you up on that, Paul. You’ve got me excited about this again. If you give me your email address, I’ll send you the specs.”

Paul then rattled this off, and we all ended up sharing our email addresses with each other. Soon after, we said goodbye after promising to have another Zoom meeting with them in a couple of weeks.

(There are 6 more chapters in the novel. It is now 89 % complete.)