The Story:

— It happened on June 25, 1994. I was at Ben’s house, when the town of Snowflake, AZ was putting in a new pipeline. A trench running along the sidewalk by his house was lined with a few of those rubber orange construction cones as a warning to drivers of the danger of driving their vehicle into the long, narrow hole in the ground. Ben and I were in a crazy mood (as usual) and in this particular night Ben was dressed up as Chief Tahoo (complete with a feathered headset), one of the many fictional characters that Ben becomes on occasion.

— It was a clear, quiet Saturday night, just the perfect circumstance for inspiration and revelation to come from the beyond to two crazy kids. We started out that night hiding in the musty pipe trench, waiting for a car to come by. One finally did, and as its headlights hovered above us as it completed a U-turn, we jumped up out of the ditch and went crazy shouting at the car, jumping up and down. The driver came to a sudden stop, then after a brief pause (undoubtedly wondering who in the world we were, and what we were doing) they took off. Ben and I were laughing and cheering with such glee as we watched the car disappear down the road.

— As could be expected in Snowflake, no other cars came by that night, so Ben and I went to the next stage of fun. We armed ourselves with the cones by the trench, and, putting them over our arms as though they were swords, we battled it out. We then put them over our heads, and did some serious head-banging. We then exerted our energies throwing them up as high as we could into the black night, watching them come hurtling back down, bouncing along the asphalt as they landed with that rubbery thunk.

— And then it came. Inspiration, revelation, reformation, power. The experience of all experiences. The next thing we knew, those cones were calling us with an irresistible invitation to bend them. We each took a cone, and, placing our knees over the base and our hands over the top, we bent the cones down to the ground. After having done so, a strong sensation of energy flowed through our beings. Our eyes perceived those cones at that moment not as rubber, but as metal. Orange Metal! All of a sudden those words of energy came rushing through our vocal chords, soaring out of our mouths, ringing in our ears, pulsating through our souls: “Bend the Orange Metal!” Those four words filled ourselves with more energy, and again we yelled “Bend the Orange Metal!!” Each time we pronounced that phrase of divine origin, it gave us power to bring it out with even more energy: “Bend the Orange Metal!!!!” Perhaps to any common individual these words may mean little, or perhaps even cause wonder, but to Ben and me we knew these words had meaning, and a literal power of goodness and greatness.