Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506060062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the pouring rain, with a soaked and battered ball machine on his hands, John Schofield was not a happy man.
``This is not good,'' he said as the rain also soaked through his clothes.
It was Friday afternoon during the heaviest downpour of the day and Schofield had just arrived at Festival in the Park in Roanoke, where his ball machine is supposed to make its public debut today.
Whether the curious contraption will work now, however, he doesn't know. ``It's never been wet before.''
Or battered. ``Just tweaking the thing a little bit can throw it off,'' he said.
But if there is anyone who can get the machine up and running after such a trauma, it's Schofield. Plus, his amazing invention is a sturdy thing, made mostly of steel and heavy-duty junk, like saw blades or the odd timing gear from a Chevrolet.
Schofield has spent more than a year laboring on his invention at his home in the Rapps Mill section of Rockbridge County. The ball machine employs an assortment of mechanisms to send billiard balls around an elaborate, interconnected metal tracking system.
It can be mesmerizing to watch.
Festival organizers approached Schofield about bringing the ball machine to Roanoke after seeing stories about it on television and in the newspaper.
Friday, he loaded it onto a flatbed wrecker truck from Bill's Wrecker Service in Lexington. ``We haul what others can't,'' was the slogan painted on the truck door.
Schofield covered the ball machine with a tarpaulin and headed down Interstate 81. The tarp came loose after six miles. The rain started soon after that.
Then, in Roanoke, while he was trying to maneuver the truck onto the festival grounds, the ball machine took a serious hit from a low-hanging tree branch.
The collision banged up the machine's fresh paint job. Worse, it broke the weld on the windmill scooper.
Schofield planned to bring his welder to the festival this morning to fix the break. But he was worried that the tree limb also might have damaged other parts of the machine.
It didn't make him any happier to find that there was no tent waiting for him when he arrived. He said he had been promised a tent.
Wendi Schultz, executive director of Festival in the Park, said that workers were behind in putting up tents and she hoped to have one for the ball machine today. The forecast is calling for more rain.
Either way, if the machine is under a tent, Schofield said he can run it, rain or shine.
That is, if it works.
by CNB