In the Beginning

  

Notes on Design/
The Magic of the Moon
In the beginning there were the 0.049 model airplane engines, with their piercing, high-wind and sizzle/crackle of engine fuel and oxygen mixtures.

These gave way to bicycles, with and without fenders, which gave way to Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engines mounted on wood-framed go-carts of my own design, hurtling down the streets and through the walnut leaves of Birch Drive and Elmwood Drive in Walnut Creek, California.

These gave way to
a 1932 Ford, 1949
and ’50 Fords, and
a 1936 LaSalle that my grandfather owned that I should have kept forever.

But school intervened and I became a student, a husband, and a father in a rapid flow of time; a design engineer sending high-altitude rockets over the skies of Viet Nam.

But then art intervened even further and that’s how I got to be the way
I am.

© 2002







From the top: 1932 Ford, 5-window coupe; 1950 Ford; 1936 LaSalle. Highschool was part grease, wrecking yards, and spare parts. Upper right: The push bar connects to a 1940 Ford rearend, Model A welded frame, gusseted roll bar, and loaded flathead engine. Would DVC be this much fun? Time would tell. High school was over.

 

I always felt that there could be
a wedding of the arts and sciences,
as much as there could be a union
of our reason and our passion.
So having been schooled
in the heat and sweat
of a summer-like science,
I longed for the fall
and the magic of the moon.
And herein, within
I have found it.

© 1982, 2002


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