Destiny vs: George Ruhlman

Call it chance, call it destiny, call it error of judgment, the
sum is the same: One’s number is up, and the addition is
final.

Could be that our search for the answer is futile, that all our
words are centuries old that we are merely helpless spawns mouthing
what is to be.

I prefer to think that the explanation is the extra cup of
coffee the night before that slowed the liver action, which in turn
stayed the hand at a critical turn when it should have been
fast.

Have it your way the past is irrevocable. Could be that O.
Henry’s ‘Three Roads’ epitomizes life then the end
would be the same, only the road different.

Whatever the causes low liver action or predestination one
morning everything went wrong for George Ruhlman. Had a 13 hp. Gaar
Scott. For various indefinable reasons, on this particular morning,
no one could seem to get started. They finally got the team hitched
to the thresher, got it on the road on the way to the next job.

The engine would haul the water tank. Because everything went
contrary-wise this morning it was 10 o’clock before they had
steam up, ready to move.

But finally they were underway. The Gaar Scott engine is rather
close coupled. Its drive wheels are fastened to the boiler’s
sides. The driver’s platform is a comparatively light affair,
lacking the rigid support that engines like Frick and Case have. A
short distance down the road was a bridge over which the thresher
had recently passed. As the engine was going over, the bridge
joists collapsed, the drivers of the engine went down, the engine
platform pancaked, and the steering handle went through George
Ruhlman’s stomach, so that he died in less time than it takes
to tell this. They had to bend the steering shaft to get him
out

‘The Moving Finger writes: and having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.’