Builders,
When I was driving to Corvair College #34 last September, I briefly met the woman below in a north Georgia gas station. She has a sprit and a story worth sharing…….
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At a glance, she was petite, in her 60’s and touring alone. Most people in the station took notice of her, but she didn’t welcome the looks, gave nothing back. Their cars, dress and facial expressions betrayed them was suburbanites with judgments, people who’s instinctive reaction to seeing anyone or anything different is to state how they wouldn’t do that or look like that. This is the part of society that Richard Bach was satirizing in Jonathan Livingston Seagull as the flock of birds trying to peck the different individual to death.
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I was filling Paul Salter’s F-250 with diesel on the opposite pump. I waited a moment and looked around the pump and said “Nice Shovel.” There was a moment of recognition, and a big smile came across her face. I am no expert on Harley’s, but I knew enough to recognize her bike as a late sixties or early seventies “Shovelhead.” This small bit of recognition broke the ice, and we had a really memorable 20 minutes.
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She has owned the bike for 36 years. Toured all over, liked visiting friends, preferred to travel alone. Knew the machine inside and out, did all her own work. Her home was in the Florida panhandle, but she liked riding in mountains also. Her every motion said she was confident and comfortable in her own skin. Everything she said had charm or a bit of wit. Her nature was alert, and a comment about knowing how to take care of herself suggested she was equipped to do so. I am a married man and this woman is half a generation older, but her presence and manner was undeniably attractive. You could go stand in any shopping mall in America for a month, and you wouldn’t see a single person half as interesting as this woman. In a world where most people are homogenized to the point of being difficult to distinguish acquaintances, this woman didn’t remind me of anyone else, she stood out as an individual.
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What made this conversation possible when the other people in the station barely made eye contact with her? Something I call “Camaraderie among the Creative”. Consider this:
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Homebuilder brings his airplane to Oshkosh, parks it in with the Homebuilts, and unfolds his lawn chair behind the wing in a position that clearly identifies him as the guy who brought it. The canopy has stickers from the last 16 Oshkoshes, the prop card says what the plane is, his name, where he is from, what powers it, and in big letters says “This Plane Has Flown 2,000 Hours.”
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A stream of people walk past. Even without saying anything, many of them express a judgment with body language or gesture. Many others stand there, as if the builder was invisible, and loudly express opinions about the choice of designs, the powerplant, the color, etc. A third group comes by and says “Your first trip to Oshkosh?” or “They say these planes glide like bricks when they are loaded”. The fourth, and possibly worst group, are the people who ask questions you would chastise an eight year old for asking: “How much did this cost?” , “Where can I buy one of these?” “Does it come in any good looking colors?” Our Homebuilder puts on his strained smile, and says little to these people. Although they may be EAA members, or pilots, they are not homebuilders. They are just another form of mindless consumers, and engaging them would be just as pointless as our woman with the motorcycle above trying to converse with the couple staring at her through their Prius window.
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Now picture yourself walking up to the same homebuilder: Because you have already had a parade of neighbors and co-workers make stupid comments about the plane you are creating in your shop, you already know what not to say to a person who created any hand made work of art. Because you are actually building a plane, not just walking up and down the rows at Oshkosh pontificating about things, you are skilled at things like reading plans and observing things, so you take the time to read the prop card and note the 16 Oshkosh stickers. Because you have already had two dozen ‘experts’ walk into your shop and tell you about how Ferdinand Porsche built the Corvair (even though he died in 1951) you know that no one ever learned anything by repeating any story that starts with the phrase “They Say…” So you know to say something simple like “Nice Shovel”, and let the creator of the project share with you what they have learned first hand. You know all of these things because you are a homebuilder, and as such, speak an universal language known only by creative people. And I believe that this is one of the greatest benefits of being an actual homebuilder; it is your passport to a different world that that co-exists with the consumer world, but shares almost nothing in common with it. Having escaped the monotonous repressive conformity of consumer-ville, you will be free to lead a interesting and productive individual life and communicate with your comrades in creativity.
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-ww.
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“Strained Smile”:
