PROPOSED ROBOT DONKEY RIDES: 50 CENTS EACH

I'm working, whimsically, on an invention. After a suitable amount of research I find there has never been put together a robot donkey. If a robot can deliver mail up and down the long hallways of the Pentagon, surely with a little more intense effort, a donkey could be made. Where has science been all these years, especially during these years when my foot traipsing mileage is decreasing?

The laziness and balky characteristics of a donkey would be in the robot genes, i.e. batteries and failing micro chips. The replacement costs of these innards surely wouldn't be more expensive than donkey feed, curry combs, construction and maintenance of a stable plus ongoing lawsuits with neighbors, City Fathers, and Animal Rights Extremists. I suppose that hitching a real live donkey to a two-wheeled cart and urging him to take one on a circuitous, leisurely trip through the park, around the many light poles in a slow motion slalom-like manner, along the creek banks, down Lions Way, around Jaycee and Kiwanis Drives, along Conservation Lane might loom large in the eyes of ARE.

Oops, I just fell into the alphabet soup, of which I'm getting plenty tired. Way down in a printed paragraph I have to look back to see what PXO, YMZ, or BSA stand for.

Due to long ago accomplished expertise in wheels, axles and flat bottomed boxes (My Dad was once a blacksmith and part-time wagon maker, or at least wagon reconstructionist), Lou and I, by curious osmosis and ardent watchfulness knew how buggies and carts were put together. We weren't adept at the brake thing. Most early wagons on a down hill run were slowed by putting a sprag between the spokes. We considered brakes a minor detail. With used wagon hubs (a bit bulky for wheels, but you used what you had), broom sticks, nails for linchpins and a wooden box, we constructed a vehicle that would take us rather speedily down certain long, steep hills.

One road on a long steep hill dipped into the St. Francis River and emerged on the opposite upward inclined side. Without brakes and too-slow dragging feet, we entered the river too. Oh, well, a mere bagatelle. After all, the farm wagon, after harvest, or maybe just during hot weather was driven into the river at a certain spot and left there for some time so that the wooden part of the wheels would swell to again fit the metal rim. Perhaps we thought the broom sticks might swell to better fit the hub holes.

My robot invention, in addition to calling for four legs, a tail and long ears, would have a push-button memory chip labeled, "Don't go near the water."

I would construct the cart bed myself since I have lots of old wide boards underneath something somewhere. I would paint it dazzling red with signs on two sides and the back that said, after checking to see that it was politically correct: "Watch Out! Wild Woman!" "In your face, weakening knees." "Rides 50. 2 for a $1"

It takes so long to get robot patents (I guess) that I may go for a big wind-up key where the donkey's tail should be and rely on a set of interior synchronized - springs to gee, haw, and giddy-up. A bray button to push would be a must so as to alarm the joggers in my way.

If anyone wants to take my idea and run with it, I hereby give you permission and swear not to sue. Oh, well, maybe 10 percent of the 50 rides.

REJOICE!