Tanks for the memories…

Have you ever con­sid­ered the con­se­quen­tial meta­phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and prac­ti­cal impli­ca­tions of the word “tank” in life? I defer to ety­mo­log­i­cal wiz­ards to divine whether the word derives from the Portuguese “tanque,” a reser­voir, or Old French “estanch­er,” to stop the flow. Here are some per­son­al obser­va­tions; please recline in your La-Z-Boy, close your eyes, reflect on “tank’s” deep import in your own con­scious­ness. No doubt your real­iza­tions will be of ines­timable worth.

For me, “tank” has many asso­ci­a­tions. Our fam­i­ly had a fish tank placed on the end of the kitchen counter that housed a sin­gle African Cichlid named Blue Guy, because he was iri­des­cent blue. I have no idea of the fish’s pro­noun, but it was so fierce that it devoured any oth­er liv­ing organ­ism in its water. Yet, BG’s feroc­i­ty was tem­pered by his intense love for us humans, because he smiled a lot and always greet­ed our return with a vig­or­ous wag of his cau­dal fin.

I obsess about the amount of gas in my car’s fuel tank. Anything below one-half is dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry, a les­son hard won by eldest daugh­ter, who always relied on fumes to sup­ply her half-mile dri­ve to work. That was a viable strat­e­gy until Hurricane Helene wiped half of her town off the plan­et. Luckily, her neigh­bor had a full tank and could dri­ve to a high­point near town to acquire a cell sig­nal. You nev­er know when the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse or an attack by lizard peo­ple will require an escape to a state that has a full, total­ly legal allo­ca­tion of Wonder Bread. Please pro­ceed cau­tious­ly through Rockcastle County.

We would nev­er have known about the incred­i­ble hard and soft sci­ence of Scrub Daddy had it not been for Shark Tank. One lit­tle hap­py-faced tool, so many uses. Go Mavs.

I am con­flict­ed about air tanks, even though they are con­ve­nient for moments when the rim seal of a tire gets tired of hang­ing on. I have a lit­tle red tank that pur­ports to hold 160 pounds of pres­sure, but any read­ing past 120 on the tank’s gauge sig­nals dan­ger. That real­i­ty sug­gests maybe even at low­er com­pres­sions, I have a bomb in my base­ment. The per­son who built my house in the late fifties did add a bomb shel­ter stocked with Maker’s Mark, but that was for out­side bombs.

I have dis­tant mem­o­ries of clean­ing out the inte­ri­or of a tita­ni­um diox­ide mix­ing tank at a chem­i­cal plant dur­ing a stint at one of those young-dude jobs you vow nev­er to do again. Recognizing my con­ster­na­tion at the elab­o­rate safe­ty pro­to­cols nec­es­sary to man­age inte­ri­or tank-life, my boss gave me a break and let me shov­el ore dust on the plant’s rooftop. To this day I am care­ful what I wish for.

I spent most of my life, before dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy, wrestling film devel­op­ing tanks. There are arcane moves in the dark you do to load reels and drop them into a stain­less-steel ves­sel filled with chem­i­cals you would nev­er dump into a drain today. Inverting and bang­ing that cylin­der on the bench to pop air bub­bles off your mari­nad­ing film is a joy known only to those who have been intox­i­cat­ed by the pun­gent aro­ma of acetic acid stop bath.

I am not sure a Bradley Fighting Vehicle is con­sid­ered a tank. It is cer­tain­ly tank-like — it has treads, and the Bushmaster can­non mount­ed on top can make an unam­bigu­ous state­ment. Once, when I was doc­u­ment­ing live-fire tac­ti­cal maneu­vers of a US Army artillery bat­tal­ion, I had the chance to ride 10 clicks in a Bradley. I was thank­ful for the expe­ri­ence. My kid­neys were not.

I hope you don’t find me can­tan­ker­ous. I endeav­or not to be a cur­mud­geon, even though today’s air­waves sure can stank it up.