Giant Menorah: Happened on Saturday March 21rd 1998

Several years ago I thought that a great holiday tradition for families of mixed religious background would be: "Every night for eight nights, set a christmas tree on fire".

I built a giant menorah. The span of the arms is about 27 feet. We tried to do this back in January, but it sounded like so much fun that El Nino just had to show up and party. It wasn't raining when we got to the beach, but it sure was by the time we had lugged everything over the hill.

At the same time and place, Clan MacDude had their Equinoxious (We offend everyone) beach party.

Apart from some threatening sprinkles, the weather was gorgeous. It was probably a very accurate representation of a Scottish summer day. The menorah went up with little difficulties, the trees burned, the menorah came down, went home, and is awaiting it's next use. We even had air support, with both fixed and rotary wing craft.

We also learned some lessons, such as trees left out in the rain for 3 months don't burn very well without chemical assistance and that flames don't show up very well during daylight hours. The next time that we do this, I'd like to find a site where we can leave the Menorah up overnight and have both day and nighttime burns.

Sometime, in the near future we will be getting together to show each other photos and to scan in the better ones to show on here. Read the MacDude newsgroup alt.org.clan-macdude or contact me for details.

What follows is the invitation to the event:

I am planning on doing this at Bonny Doon Beach on Saturday March 21th 1998. If the weather is kind of bad, we'll probably carouse with the clan in the rain and set a backup date for another attempt, probably either the 22nd or the 28th. If on the 19nd or 20rd the weather is looking like it will be miserable we may decide to reschedule then. Check this space or sign up on the mailing list for details. I do not have the means of transporting 9 or more christmas trees to the beach and could use people's help.

If you would like to help and/or attend, please send me mail at lrc@netcom.com and I'll put you on a mailing list on red4est to let people know of the final arrangements.

Trees: Either bring your leftover tree, or scrounge your neigborhood for trees.

Lumber: Does anyone have any "twobys" they can donate to the cause? I've got it made, but I haven't tried it with a load to see if it can support the trees.

The Plan:

The plan is to bury the 4x4, 5' deep in the sand as the main support.

For the two arms, I have a 2x12 that I cut diagonally into two 13' triangles, and I made a triangular support out of some twobys and onebys that bolts on.

We have all four pieces, ready to go, they just need to be carried to the beach, planted and bolted together. We could also use some steel wire and large stakes to keep the trees in place on the menorah.

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The Menorah: