{"id":385,"date":"2005-06-09T21:58:59","date_gmt":"2005-06-10T02:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.50.194.231\/~vqplgdbg\/?p=385"},"modified":"2005-06-09T21:58:59","modified_gmt":"2005-06-10T02:58:59","slug":"great-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/?p=385","title":{"rendered":"Great Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Couple days ago, Acidman makes mention of his favorite Americans<\/a>; I can definitely agree with him on his list, but I can’t imagine even trying to limit it to ten; America grows ’em great and in vast numbers.<\/p>\n

Two Americans Rob mentions are personal favorites of mine, as well; Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford.<\/p>\n

It’s easy enough to learn about both of these men, form any number of sources, but you can tell a lot about a man by the toys he collects, and such a collection exists in regard to Edison and Ford.<\/p>\n

In Dearborn michigan, there exists a place that is pure magic, to those of us who have a love affair with the Machine, and that place is the Henry Ford Museum, and Greenfield Village, both part of a larger Edison Institute. <\/p>\n

The Henry Ford is a must see. Ford’s first car. Edison’s last breath. (yes, it’s there, in a test tube) One of the largest steam engines in captivity. A huge steam\/natural gas generator, as big as a large home. Watt\/Newcomen steam mineshaft pumps. A DC-3 hangs from the ceiling. Machine tools of all types. Tractors, harvesters, threshers. Rifles, shotguns, vacuum cleaners. A Fullerhome. THe Original Wienermobile. The infamous Rosa Parks bus. The equally infamous Kennedy limousine. The Reagan limousine. The Lincoln chair. All of these things, and hundreds of thousands more. And that’s just the museum.<\/p>\n

The Village, Greenfield Village, that is, contains some very interesting things. Things you wouldn’t expect even existed, anymore.<\/p>\n

The Ford Homestead. The Edison homestead. The McGuffy Schoolhouse (remember the McGuffy reader? “See dick run”) Noah Webster’s home. the George Washington Carver homestead. the Wright Brother’s workshop. The original Henry Ford shed.<\/p>\n

What’s so special about Henry’s shed?
\n
\nIn early summer of 1895, Henry had tinkered together his second internal combustion engine, a two cylinder copper and brass deal. He bolted it into an angle iron frame, turned axles out of crowbars, made a car that looked like two bikes with a buckboard between them.<\/p>\n

Still; he was excited. He had it running, he ran into the house and dragged poor Clara out into the shed, sat her in the putt-putting contraption, and found it wouldnt fit out the door. With Clara still sitting on the thin upholstery, he takes an axe to his own shed, and they take off on his (and her) first car ride. Humble beginnings.
\n\"firstford.jpg\"
\nImagine Clara, trying to scrape by on the $45 a month Henry is making working at Edison General Electric. He’s tinkering in the garage and she’s trying to raise Edsel, less than a year old. She watches him go a little nuts and destroy the door of the shed behind their rented home with an axe. She stood with him, stood by him, though he must have seemed a total fucking lunatic. <\/p>\n

I met a woman like that, years after my divorce from my first wife- a woman strong and tough enough to stand with me through tough times. <\/p>\n

Also in Greenfield Village is a building Henry devoted to his mother and second wife, the Martha Mary Chapel. He built them across the country, non denominational chapels, the last of which exists in the Village.
\n\"Chapel_outside.jpg\"
\nTwelve years ago this september, I took that woman I met, that strong woman with the easy laugh and smiling eyes, I took her to that Martha Mary Chapel and made her the Ogwife. The village, the museum, my favorite places on earth, the best time of my life begun in the happiest place I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Couple days ago, Acidman makes mention of his favorite Americans; I can definitely agree with him on his list, but I can’t imagine even trying to limit it to ten; America grows ’em great and in vast numbers. Two Americans Rob mentions are personal favorites of mine, as well; Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}