Creative Genius

My grandfather died about 8 years ago now, he was in his 80's when he passed.  He was the son of German immigrants and spent his life working for Hughes Aircraft in California.  It was the time when Howard Hughes was in his heyday.  Ideas were flowing like lightning bolting from the sky.  Invention fed modernization and modernization fed more invention.   Government led the way.  It established the context, the mission and brilliant minds lined up to provide the answers.

When you are a child you never really appreciate the significance of a life, of a talent, until you grow older and place it within the context of your own life.   A micrometer is a tool that allows a human being to nearly create perfection.  It measures the minute and until computers and lasers it was the guide post for human ingenuity when seeking to create the exact.  My grandfather had countless micrometers and his abilities as a machinist created parts the flew with the Apollo missions to the moon.  They answered the call of civilization to reach beyond the boundaries of anything yet achieved, yet discovered.

Behind my grandfathers house in California there was a garage.  It was his equivalent to the man cave of today.  Yet instead of televisions and computers, DVD's and video games my grandfather's man cave existed like a museum to technology and achievement.  Wedged in the middle and covered with boxes was a model A that ceased to run at some point in the past.  It sat like an icon, a statue in the center of a shrine bordered by drill presses and lathes.  Every kind of machine to create seemed present along with an endless number of small boxes holding every imaginable drill bit, screw or nail.  If the part didn't exist, my grandfather could make it.  Like a sculpture whittling away a block of wood he would find the part existing in the soul of a metal block.  Pieces of wood seemed to speak to him and he could create anything the mind could conceive.

Today, if successful, we tend to leave our jobs behind as when we return to the nest of our homes.  My grandfather never seemed to leave his.  Even in retirement, the skill and art that was his profession continued to guide him through life.  It sustained him and renewed him. When questions would grow or difficulties became trying he would take a break for a bit, eat a sandwich and watch the California Angels play.  In truth he was solving a problem in his mind and in time he would return to his temple and resolve the issue that had vexed him.

When my grandfather died venturing into his garage was like venturing into a pharaoh's tomb.  It contained countless signposts and clues to a man's life coupled with unfinished ambitions the likes left behind by Leonardo himself.

My grandfather is embodied in my father who contains within him the flame of his creativity and ability.  He solves problems with his hands and every item found is not seen for is advertised purpose but for its unseen ability.  When an item breaks he disassembles it and patiently develops a repair.  Today he works like an archeologist sifting through the layers of my grandfather's life in that garage.  With each layer of dust he uncovers a memory of a past event.  Some are painful, some produce a smile but each memory is a tracing of a life now lost.

I am amazed to think that when my grandfather was born, manufacturing was a new concept.  Most things were made of wood and metal.  Plastic didn't exist.  Machines were complex assemblages of gears and springs  each with its own purpose.  Today what we create with 1s and 0s in a computer code were fashioned by the mind and hands working in unison. 

Today our world is changing, machines do what our hands once did.  I know talent manifests itself in different ways with each passing epoch of humanity yet, I can't help but lament the passing of a beautiful art that connected the mind and the hands.  It was an art that utilized tools as an extension of the fingers while today, we try to teach the machines to think for themselves.

I often marvel about the change my grandfather saw in his lifetime.  From streetcars and horses to computers, my grandfather saw it all.  He witnessed the Depression, wars and his living memory connected with the memories of those that lived 80 years before him.  People dating back to the Civil War and a different America.  I pause and I think I will never see such change in my life.  Nothing seems different, everything always seems the same.  Yet change is like a melting glacier.  One day it is there, the next day it is gone.  Perhaps the very change I profess not to see is happening before my eyes.  It is in the loss of men like my grandfather.  It is in a society that thinks more with its minds than its hands.  Strangely enough, I miss the idea of a people that could create with their hands.  I miss the genius that was my grandfather.