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A man is looking for the friends who shipped him overseas in a crate in 1965
- hirundo 6y agoThat £700 from 1965 is now worth £13,600. He should pay it back if he can, even if any legal obligation has expired. But not the first class return ticket, that seems to have been freely given.
- economusty 6y agoYou only give the government money if they ask for it, and only then if there are consequences when you say no.
- grammarprofess 6y agoMaybe you could start a gofundme
- dougmwne 6y agoPerhaps it was an unjust contract in the first place that trapped a 19 year old thousands of miles away from home and with an unpayable debt over their heads.
- andrewfromx 6y agoyeah what if that was an etherum or cardano smart contract?
- quickthrowman 6y agoI wonder if this event was the inspiration for “The Gift” by The Velvet Underground. That song ends a bit different from this guys experience tho.
- hluska 6y agoAccording to Lester Bangs, Lou Reed wrote that story when he was in college. (https://www.creemmag.com/blogs/journal/dead-lie-the-velvets-underground-r-i-r-long-live-lou-reed-by-lester-bangs-may-1971 https://www.creemmag.com/blogs/journal/dead-lie-the-velvets-...) Lou Reed went to Syracuse University starting in 1960. While Lou Reed was likely writing the great American novel, he didn’t tell many people the truth so who knows for sure?? My gut feeling is that you’re likely right.
- kazinator 6y ago> "The Americans, the FBI, the CIA and everything else, they were brilliant. I mean, I fell in love with America, because I've never been treated so well," he said. "Everybody there really looked after me. And they just thought, oh, it's this silly kid getting himself into trouble." Haha, try that today.
- sbr464 6y agoDifferent times for sure. My mother’s family immigrated from Mexico during the 1970s. There was an article in a local Louisiana newspaper welcoming and introducing the family to town. How times change. —edit Searching for orig. article but quote from mom re: “Yes, the Ruston Daily Leader came to the house and interviewed mom and took our picture for the paper, we were famous.”
- selimthegrim 6y agoIn the mid 80s when my dad married a Pakistani bride and brought her home to Ohio the local newspaper did a write up on it.
- watermelon59 6y agoMy own anecdote as an immigrant is that I've always felt welcome here and have always been well treated, respected, and valued. Totally different route of course, but same deal in terms of falling in love with the country. This is really home for me. America has given me much more than my birth country ever did, and my birth country was on multiple occasions a lot of more hostile to me, a citizen, than America has ever been to me as a non-citizen. I'm currently seeking citizenship and have no qualms about swearing to uphold the Constitution and to defend the country if called to it.
- aduitsis 6y agoGive me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
- mandis 6y agoIn this case, I struggle to understand the relevance for Hacker News
- swiley 6y agoShipping your friend somewhere in a crate is definitely a hack, just not a software hack.
- mabbo 6y agoI'm shocked he even survived. Aren't airplane holds unpressurized? Perhaps airplanes simply flew at lower altitudes in those days. Still, it would have gotten pretty darned cold.
- marcinzm 6y agoI believe the whole plane is pressurized, after all animals survive flights in the hold all the time.
- bri3d 6y agoNo, this is a long-standing myth which is entirely false. It wouldn't make sense from an engineering standpoint as it would move the pressure differential to the flat (and thus weak) floor of the airplane, rather than the round (and thus strong) outer hull. However, the hold is not climate controlled to the same degree as the cabin, so he may have gotten cold-ish. But even then, the cargo hold is not a particularly inhospitable place. Living things (animals) are for better or for worse shipped that way all the time.
- Judgmentality 6y ago> Living things (animals) are for better or for worse shipped that way all the time. They also die a lot this way. https://www.treehugger.com/as-pet-deaths-continue-airlines-pressured-to-change-their-ways-4862979 https://www.treehugger.com/as-pet-deaths-continue-airlines-p...
- bri3d 6y agoI agree that this situation is both tragic and depressingly, probably avoidable, although it is worth pointing out that the rate is just over one in ten thousand for the worst airline (United) or two in 100,000 for the best (Alaska). From my reading, unfortunately causes seem relegated to anecdata in this case as only rates are officially recorded. Reading anecdotes, however, the issues also seem to mostly be related to ground-handling and packaging issues, between animals which are not properly crated (much as the human in the article seems to have been improperly crated!) or are heartbreakingly left on the tarmac for extended timeframes during harsh weather.
- beforeolives 6y agoReminds me of Reg Spiers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers > He is best known for successfully posting himself in a box from England to Australia to avoid paying for a plane ticket I first heard of him on this episode of The Dollop podcast - https://allthingscomedy.com/podcast/the-dollop/113---reg-spiers-live-in-perth/page/10 https://allthingscomedy.com/podcast/the-dollop/113---reg-spi...
- hcrisp 6y agoReminds me of Stowaway [0], the incredible story of a teenage boy who escaped from his native Cuba by flying the Atlantic Ocean stowed away in the wheel well of a DC-8 airliner. Not as far as in the OP (he made it to Madrid), but he did not have access to a pressurized hold so he lacked oxygen, nearly froze, and barely escaped being crushed to death. But he did survive. [0] https://www.rd.com/article/escape-from-cuba-dc-8/ https://www.rd.com/article/escape-from-cuba-dc-8/
- saalweachter 6y agoThere is a wide gap between "survivable" and "safe".
- bin_bash 6y agoHappened more recently than that too https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/18/us/teen-plane-stowaway/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/18/us/teen-plane-stowaway/index....
- hashhar 6y agoI so distinctly remember reading this in a second-hand paperback copy of Reader's Digest back when I was a teenager. I was so fascinated by this story - thanks for reminding me of it and helping me re-read it to relive some of it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sebastien_b 6y agoThat story is nuts - and he obviously would have been treated much differently when they found him in the U.S. if the climate at the time would've been like it is now (thankfully it wasn't).
- ketamine__ 6y agoHow did he forget their names? It just seems unbelievable.
- glenmorangie_14 6y agoDo you remember the names of the people you worked with during a summer job while you were in school? I sure don't.
- ketamine__ 6y agoIf you did something incredibly illegal would you forget the names of the accomplices? Apparently many do ;)
- ska 6y agoIncredibly illegal is pushing it here, they probably thought of it as something that wouldn't be approved of so best not ask. His story is notable mostly for being unusual and the ways it went wrong, not the decision making process behind it - I know lots of people who did things at that age with similarly questionable judgement, just not nearly as memorable or unique. You probably know some also.
- kvm 6y agoI don't remember the last names of my best friends from elementary school who moved to different states, and have started blanking on names of a few folks from middle school. This was about 20 years ago, so I find it perfectly plausible to forget the last names of folks who you 1. knew only for 3 months, 2. have not talked to for 56 years
- cortesoft 6y agoCurious how old you are... there are so many things that seemed impossible to forget when I was younger that I have now forgotten.
- 1123581321 6y agoIf you feel this way, you must be young. I really encourage you to keep a brief chronology of names and events that are important to you. You will forget them decades from now and wish you’d written them somewhere.
- gweinberg 6y ago"The three young men had no idea whether their antics were against the law, he said." That's not even remotely plausible.
- Syonyk 6y agoHow isn't it remotely plausible? Shipping regulations were an awful lot more lax 55 years ago, and I wouldn't expect more than a handful of teenagers today to be able to give you details on shipping regulations related to shipping live animals (which, absent specific regulations on shipping humans that may or may not have been in place, seem the most relevant). I would expect some specific regulations on shipping humans today, based on cases like this, but that's a case of "... OK, this is pretty vague in the regulations, let's make it exceedingly clear."
- Stratoscope 6y agoIndeed, when I was a kid around 1960, it was perfectly normal to see someone off on a flight by getting on the plane with them and looking around, then going to the cockpit to sit in the pilot's seat and "fly" the airplane for a minute before climbing back down the stairs to watch it take off.
- cortesoft 6y agoWhat laws did they break? They probably broke some, but I don't know which ones they would be, so it seems plausible to not be sure they broke any laws.
- herodoturtle 6y agoFrom the article: > They covered the crate with labels that read "Fragile," "Handle with care" and "This side up." It was scheduled to fly from Melbourne to London within 36 hours. Robson ended up being inside that crate for five days. "It was terrifying," he said. "I was passing in and out of consciousness. I had a lack of oxygen. Oh, it was bad." There seemed to be an endless number of stopovers, and the airport crews didn't pay much attention to the crate's labels. At one point, Robson says he was left upside down on a tarmac, literally sitting on his head for 24 hours because there wasn't enough room in the crate to turn around. The rest of the article is great (in particular the way it ends), but reading the above excerpt made me shudder. The will power of this man is unbelievable. I hope he finds his friends.
- hk1337 6y ago>This side up and he still ended up upside down for 24 hours.
- chrisco255 6y agoIsn't it kinda crazy how we take for granted how easily it is to find people nowadays via social media or your stored phone book entry on your cell phone? I guess they didn't think to exchange phone numbers or addresses before the scheme was hatched? And then, how would you lookup a phone number in Australia from LA or London in 1963? You'd have to really work at it to find it.
- trothamel 6y agoHere's a brief history of children being sent via the mail: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-chil...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ars 6y agoTo save people click: Children were not actually placed in boxes and mailed. Rather they accompanied a postman as he traveled to a different location. Also usually the postman was a friend or relative, not a stranger. So not as exciting as it sounds.
- modernerd 6y agoA photo of the actual crate he stowed away in (his rescuer is in the crate): https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/media/images/82156000/jpg/_82156729_82064007.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/media/images/82156000/jpg/... From this 2015 article: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32151053 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32151053 It really helps to picture being stuck upside down in the thing. I thought, “surely you could gradually rotate yourself the right way up” before I saw the photo.
- kevinyun 6y agoThose photos do a great job illustrating what his situation looked like. Here's to hoping he finds his two friends after all these years!
- dageshi 6y agoI look at that and think "I would get cramp immediately and be in absolute agony".
- _Microft 6y agoDeveloping blood clots in the legs because of insufficient circulation is what I was afraid of when seeing the image.
- DonHopkins 6y agoI'd ship myself in a nice big coffin with lots of soft upholstery and leg room to stretch out. That way if the worst happened and I died en route, nobody'd suspect foul play.
- m463 6y agoWhen I was a kid we were playing around and I got zipped into a suitcase. I had to really "get small". I was completely fine for a while, until a little while in it was like a switch was flipped and I was "let me out omg let me out". I freaked out. then I was out and was fine. But I remember that extreme claustrophobia moment.
- tyingq 6y agoBad idea all around. Could have easily been frozen or asphyxiated even if the trip was on a quick single flight. Nobody looks at a crate if there's a decompression event. Not even an emergency escape in the crate. Oof.
- Syonyk 6y ago> Robson was 19... "Thinking things all the way through" isn't a common trait in any 19 year old men I've known over the years, to include myself a few decades ago. "Oh, man, that sounds like it should work!" is a lot more likely. And, you know, it usually does!
- marshmallow_12 6y ago-And, you know, it usually does! Technically, his scheme did "work". Though it wasn't what we might call an unqualified success...
- ben509 6y agoSeemed like a crate idea at the time.
- danso 6y ago> At one point, Robson says he was left upside down on a tarmac, literally sitting on his head for 24 hours because there wasn't enough room in the crate to turn around. I'm surprised he survived this. I remember when David Blaine hung upside down in Central Park for 3 days – but every few hours he had to take a break: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1060038/Cheating-David-Blaine-booed-crowd-admits-upside-stunt-failure.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1060038/Cheati...
- cgijoe 6y agoAgree, and I just saw that caving docu-movie (The Last Descent) about that poor guy who got stuck upside down deep in the cave and couldn't move. He died in under 24 hours I believe.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoWhy would hanging upside down for 24 hours kill you (serious question)? Doesn't the heart pump blood with the same efficiency regardless of its orientation?
- brazzy 6y agoThe heart isn't responsible for pumping blood through your body all by itself, it's supported by the skeletal-muscle pump - but that only works when your're moving. Hanging the right way up is in fact even worse and can kill you in less than an hour through something called a "suspension trauma".
- xchaotic 6y agoNice try FBI
- tpmx 6y ago> "I am 70 years old now," he says. "On reflection, kids don't think straight. I think most teenagers, youth of those days and certainly of these, make their mind up to do something and don't think of the consequences. He was 19 when he did this. Probably an outlier in terms of taking risks, but still. There are various calls to lower the voting age below 18 around the world. I don't think this is sane.
- dstick 6y agoDoing stupid things on impulse doesn’t and shouldn’t disqualify _every_ young adult. I read about a grandpa who gave his granddaughter the “volmacht” (no idea what the English word is) for his vote in the last election. She effectively cast the vote. Looking at my daughter of 13, I’m confident she’s world smart enough to make a more sane and well-informed decision than half of the adults I know. I agree to lowering the voting age to 16. Outliers be damned, a very smart group of people is being muzzled while an ever larger growing group (seniors) are getting more say when they, by nature of their age - no blame, have a more short-sighted and less flexible view of the world. Give the kids a vote, and maybe more adults will start to listen. Maybe a weighted vote? Curious to hear if anyone has any good alternatives :)
- __s 6y agoAllowing children to cast votes will also get them engaged at a young age to vote later on when they're older Giving children responsibility is how you get responsible adults
- benjohnson 6y agoAlso their parents can give them guidance on long-term thinking as a balance against politicians promising 'free' things.
- InitialLastName 6y ago(checks their parents' recorded voting habits) ... Can they?
- asimjalis 6y agoHow did he deal with going to the bathroom in the crate? A topic the article does not touch upon.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- flatline 6y agoThey mentioned the empty bottle. I'm sure he didn't have to poop living in a crate for five days with only water to drink.
- _whiteCaps_ 6y agoEven if you aren't eating, the bacteria in your digestive system are producing waste.
- Karawebnetwork 6y agoSeveral days without defecation is not comfortable but quite easily achievable.
- jeromegv 6y agoCouple days? Sure. 5 days?
- amelius 6y agohttps://www.quora.com/Whats-the-longest-a-human-has-ever-gone-without-pooping https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-longest-a-human-has-ever-gon...
- PhineasRex 6y agoBeing constipated for 5 days is not particularly unusual, especially for people who've just undergone a major surgery
- 6y ago
- shoo 6y ago> "Australia was a complete shock to my system," says Brian Robson. "I found it very difficult, and thought from the moment I got there I wanted to get out as quickly as possible." a desperate situation calls for desperate measures
- astrange 6y agoThat's funny, that's what I thought about Melbourne last time I went. Only because the city seems to be entirely made out of fancy interior design indie coffee shops though. It also somehow has all four seasons every day.
- metanonsense 6y agoBeing trapped in economy class for 16 hours usually breaks me mentally and physically. But imagining this torture leaves me in complete horror.
- rootusrootus 6y agoThat was my thought, too. I'm usually ready to kiss the Earth after a 16+ hour flight. I can't imagine 5 days, and not even in the luxury of a coach class airline seat.
- Aeolun 6y agoI’m not sure if 16 hours in coach is too different from 16 hours in a box. Except for the heat, I suppose.
- nullserver 6y agoDid 13 hours with a 2 year old. Who thought kicking the seat in front of her was great fun. First 3 hours of the flight was me bent over holding her legs still. Turns out 5% of the population have a reverse reaction to Benadryl. They become absurdly hyper on it.
- Stevvo 6y agoYou gave Benadryl to a two year old? That's insane. Dangerous and irresponsible.
- 6y ago
- khalilravanna 6y agoThis reminds me of the time I was riding my motorcycle in the cold at night on the highway from Vermont to Massachusetts for 3 hours. I wore a bunch of layers but with highway speeds the wind chill cut away heat incredibly quickly. Creeping cold gave way to mad shivering which gave way to a general numbness and fatigue. But I refused to give in and stop and eventually made it home. I spent a nontrivial portion of that ride saying “Fuck” over and over to myself. This sounds like that experience times 10. The will of the human spirit is truly extraordinary.
- failwhaleshark 6y agoMy mom's bff's husband was originally South African but his family moved to East Germany in the 60's. His mother, his sister, and him escaped in the back of an industrial box truck. Specifically, he was stowed in a toolbox and was frightened of being caught or killed the entire way. To this day, he has extreme claustrophobia as a result.
- herodoturtle 6y agoCurious why they needed to "escape" - South Africa's border control has always been pretty reasonable, so this piqued my interest. Were they criminals on the run? Or was it an illegal citizenship / passport issue? Sounds like an incredible story either way.
- failwhaleshark 6y agoNo, of course not. This was a long time ago when things were much different. They are normal, good people who tried to do their best to have a safe and comfortable life.
- CRConrad 6y agoEscaped from East Germany.
- AuthorizedCust 6y agoMoved to East Germany? In the era of the Berlin Wall, which was built to prevent people from fleeing that country?
- failwhaleshark 6y agoYeap. There were bad conditions at the time in apartheid SA: violence and crime. (It's still pretty bad considering most middle-class homes have security guards and enormous gates, similar to Brazil.) I don't remember the precise specifics. IIRC, it was okay at the time of relocating but it deteriorated.
- mlindner 6y ago
- KorematsuFred 6y ago> "The Americans, the FBI, the CIA and everything else, they were brilliant. I mean, I fell in love with America, because I've never been treated so well," he said. "Everybody there really looked after me. And they just thought, oh, it's this silly kid getting himself into trouble." Hell ya. Imagine that happening in 2020.
- munificent 6y agoAmerican culture changed so so much on 2001/09/11. It's like the attack (and the government's response) snuffed out our optimism, spirit, and humor.
- mberning 6y agoThere was an interesting reality show called “Airport” I think. 9/11 put an end to that.
- geocrasher 6y agoI was in high school in the early to mid 90's and actually went up into the Air Traffic Control Tower at an airport, once a week, for class. Now, everyone involved would go to prison. Times have changed. A lot. 9/11 ruined things.
- atat7024 6y agoAllowed.
- 3r3rni9 6y agoWaldo Jeffers had reached his limit.
- peter303 6y agoFor a while parents shipped their children USPS Parcel Post because it was cheaper than train fare. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-children-sent-through-mail-180959372/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-chil...
- Gustomaximus 6y agoAnother Australian guy did similar: Reg Speirs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Spiers
- a0-prw 6y agoI bet the Irish guys had a damn good laugh in the pub after posting him off. What a spectacularly stupid thing to do.
- INTPenis 6y agoI wish I could do something like this for my mother. She came to a strange country as a 14 year old girl in the 60s. Just happened upon some young men that spoke her language. She had missed her connecting train so they took her home, 3-4 young men. They fed her, gave her a couch to sleep on without taking advantage of her. She wanted to give them a bottle of alcohol she had brought as thanks but they refused. The next day they put her on the right train. Only 2 years later she was married to my father, yes at 16. Times were different. Ever since she had hoped to find these guys who helped her to thank them. She has facebook connections in both countries but it's not helping. I think she needs it to show up on the news somewhere, in both countries most likely.
- FredPret 6y agoWhat a touching story INTPenis