Retrospective & Introspective

With all the poor riding weather (snow? in April? Yuk!) I've been doing some thinking.

Did you know that the 11th of February was National Inventor's Day? Well, it was. That makes me think about my inventive ancestors, particularly my grandfather and great-great grandfather. They were inventors. We have the actual patent certificate to prove that great-great grandfather Marcellus was an inventor.

And I know that Grandpa Harold invented radish rosers, household sized wire cheese slicers and egg slicers along with many more things. I have the prototypes for all those useful items. He invented those things on his own time. For work he invented that little round thermostat that says "Honeywell". And he invented those skinny little green scrubby things...they used to be called Scotch Pads, but I don't know what they call them these days. Those things were never his, but the property of the companies he worked for.

And the things he invented on his own time? Given away, mostly, never patented or marketed by him. Mom thinks it's because he was a bad businessman, but I think it was because he loved the chase more, loved the hunt for the perfect combination of form and function. I don't think he cared much about what happened once the gizmo was invented and functioning well in it's intended purpose. I suspect many inventors are like that. I know at least one genealogist who is more interested in the hunting and finding than in data entry. Yes, that would be me. And there are others like me, all of us with heaps, piles, closets, boxes, file drawers, storage lockers full of collected information. The joy is in the pursuit, the drudgery in the data entry.

Notice the inventive gene skipped a generation? As far as I know, great-grandpa Max never invented a thing, other than a good life for his family, which is inventive enough and entails hard work.

That skipped generation means that the children of my generation might be expected to be busily inventing things right and left. But we're not. Some of us are crafty, one of us is a genealogist, each of us is creative in some way, all of us have been busy enough just inventing a good life for our families. What happened to that inventive gene? I don't see the next generation's children inventing things as of yet, although some of them are too young and may yet invent wonderful things.

Is it gone, that inventive spark? Did it surface in only those 2 generations of our lineage? I don't know enough about the older ancestors to know, but one day I'd like to know. Is it just in waiting for the right descendant to come along? What genetic combination was present in our inventive ancestors that's not there today? Will my grand-nieces and grand-nephews and grandchildren be the ones to bring home workbench inventiveness back to the family?

I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait and see.