You’re not Bruce Lee.

More questions us carvers hear all too often, “Does the ice break? Can I smash it?” Yes it does, and (most of the time) my answer will be, “No. It’s dangerous, and believe it or not, it can cut you.” I’m reminded of an incident that happened at a wedding last year. We had just finished taking down a beautiful 8ft bar, and I was busy pulling a trolley loaded with ice outside, to discard it somewhere safe. Upon passing three young men, who clearly had been celebrating a little too much, one of them noticed the ice. He rushed over to the trolley, and proceeded to shout “Hey guys watch this, I’m Bruce Lee!” With that he raised his fist, and before I could protest, drove it straight down into the 3, thick slabs in front of him. I’m sure he had grand visions of his iron Bruce Lee fist disintegrating the ice.

Conscience copy

But of course this didn’t happen. I watched, almost in slow motion, as his hand crumpled into itself. The look on his face changed suddenly and visibly, a look of confusion, embarrassment and unspeakable pain.

The ice didn’t break, it didn’t smash. Pile driving a concrete floor would have had the same affect. He quickly retrieved his hand looking up at me, muttered something “oh…”. Cradling it, he walked back inside, pride replaced with pain.

ice_smash

The dream of what could have been?

 

In that moment, I realized again that for the most part, the general public doesn’t know much about what we do, or the material we work with. I guess that’s one of the reasons for this blog…

More from #theicemen next week!