the VAGABONDS

The next time you take a road trip, you can thank four famous Americans for putting the idea in your head to begin with. Jeff Guinn tells the non-fiction story of the ten year summer road trips taken Henry Ford (automotive industrialist), Thomas Edison (inventor), Harvey Firestone (the tire maker) and American naturalist and nature essayist John Burroughs. They didn’t always make the summer trip with all of the four, but most of the time they did. Sometimes they traveled in a  caravan of six to seven vehicles with a large dining tent, butlers, their wives and a professional cook and staff. Other times, they roughed it without all the amenities. Firestone was always in charge of mapping out the trip and making sure hotels were available on the way (if needed). Burroughs was in charge of identifying all the foliage and birds (Ford loved bird-watching with Burroughs). Edison was Edison...overwhelmed by crowds that revered him at every stop. Ford always paid for everything...and I mean everything. Ford was a generous man that always sent over a brand new shiny Model-T to Edison every year at no charge. Other men received  brand new Model-T’s if they pleased him… and that could be as simple as if he liked the way you played a fiddle! (it really happened.) It took Ford awhile to warm up to the crusty Burroughs, who “predicted that automobiles and their drivers would eventually seek out even the most secluded nook and corner of the forest and befoul it with noise and smoke...to him, the Model -T was a demon on wheels.” At the time, there were fourteen million horses on the roads compared to eight thousand cars. What did Henry Ford think of Thomas Edison?...Ford worshipped him.

“Edison and Ford discussed subjects of mutual interest, most business-related, some more general. Edison lectured on the dangers of smoking cigarettes - he claimed that the paper, though not the tobacco, was poisonous when burned.” However Edison chewed tobacco and smoked cigars. Ford immediately outlawed cigarette smoking on any of his properties and factories. In 1915, San Francisco’s telegraph operators hosted a dinner in Edison’s honor (many of Edison’s first inventions involved the telegraph).”The dinner was a merry affair. An estimated four hundred city telegraphers attended. The menu was printed in Morse code, and all the speeches - none by the honoree himself (Edison almost never gave a speech) - were tapped out on telegraphs. While everyone else dined elegantly, Edison asked to be served only a slice of apple pie and a glass of milk (his favorite lunch).” The foibles by Edison and Ford were delightfully recorded throughout this novel by the author, Jeff Guinn. Ford spent a lot of time and money trying to keep the USA out of WWI and went as far as sailing a ‘peace ship’ to Europe in order to get the foes to sit down and make peace, not war. It failed. When America entered the war, Ford converted his factory into making military equipment. Edison spent his time during the war on “the Naval Advisory Board creating devices that would enable America and its Allies to overcome the enemy at sea.” By August 1918, Edison and Ford were worn out and ready for a return to their road trips. You will have to buy your own copy of this wonderful history book that reads like fiction (yea!) to get all the details of the ten years of road trips. You will not need a couple of drops of Visine to get through this book. 

Is it possible that Ford (brilliant in business) was illiterate? He came from a poor family and had to drop out of school after a couple of years. An example of his inadequacies was the way he approached running for Senate or for the president of the USA. In the senate race, he ran as a Republican and a Democrat. He won one nomination, but he lost his bid for Senator by never campaigning, never making a speech and never running an ad...and at a time the whole nation loved him. He would have beaten Calvin Coolidge for President but backed off when Coolidge said he would help Ford get a government project (the Tennessee Valley Authority) that Ford treasured. Ford backed off but never got the project; instead, FDR founded the project in 1933. The best example of Ford’s ignorance was his libel suit against The Chicago Tribune. The newspaper’s lawyer wanted to expose Henry Ford to the jury, and the world, as the ignorant man. The lawyer asked him if he knew anything about history. Ford said he lives in the present. The lawyer asked Ford the date of the American Revolution. Ford guessed, “eighteen-twelve.” The lawyer asked him, “who was Benedict Arnold?” Ford said, “a writer.” Ford’s reasoning was that he didn’t have to know, “because I could hire a man in five minutes who could tell me all about (them).” The lawyer asked Ford to read portions of documents out loud. Ford declined saying he’d forgotten his spectacles. The lawyer pounced on Ford, “I think the impression has been created by your failure to read some of these things...that you could not read.” “Do you want to leave it that way?” Ford said, “Yes, you can leave it that way, I am not a fast reader and I have the hay fever and I would make a botch of it.” The lawyer said, “Can you read at all?” Ford answered , “I can read.” The lawyer said, “Do you want to try it?” Ford said, “No sir.” Ford won the libel suit, but the jury only awarded him six cents.

There is so much to this book that I only touched a small portion of it. Hooray for Jeff Guinn! He wrote one of the few books that I didn’t find anything wrong.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Ford was fond of Burroughs (the unapologetic old man), who identified all plants, birds or flowers that caught the traveler’s eyes. “In exchange for the privilege of sharing Burroughs’s wisdom, the others overlooked his prickliness and constant complaining.”

Ford considered Firestone a friend on the vagabond trips, but not equals. “Ford paid for everything  and had the overall vision for the trips. Firestone, as a willing lieutenant rather than fellow general, took care of the details.

John Burroughs died at the age of 84 in 1921.
Thomas Edison died at the age of 84 in 1931.
Harvey Firestone died at the age of 70 in 1938.
Henry Ford died at the age of 84 in 1947. 
     

THE LAST ASTRONAUT

David Wellington writes the best surreal first contact sci-fi novel I’ve ever read. What an unusual ending. I’ve read many novels where a undefined body heads to Earth at a breakneck speed from deep outer space and suddenly decelerates as it nears. If it decelerates...it’s not a comet or asteroid. Wellington kept my attention throughout the novel while delivering empathy for his five or six main characters, which was also to my liking. What else did I like? I liked the lack of technical jargon. You can tell me how something works one time and one time only. And I’m not interested in hard to remember acronyms with two exceptions in this novel...NASA and EVA. What didn’t I like? The last two pages, but I can’t tell you why because it would spoil it for you. It’s not inept, but seemed inconsistent with the direction of the story...maybe a tad careless. A good editor would have pointed that out to the writer. Oh well, I have to find something wrong...don’t I? You probably have noticed that I love the use of an ellipsis.
 
It’s 2055 and astrophysicist Sunny Stevens goes to Houston to meet with Roy McAllister, head of exploration and operations for NASA. NASA has been in the doldrums for the last twenty one years after the failed Mars mission of 2034. The spaceship developed a fuel tank leak, and mission commander Sally Jansen and astronaut Blaine Wilson had to do an EVA outside the ship. A fire broke out and Wilson was burned alive. Jansen was blamed for the death of Wilson and the aborted mission to Mars. For the past twenty one years, no new astronauts were trained since Congress severely cut NASA’s budget. America no longer had an astronaut program. To make matters worse, China successfully landed on Mars. In this atmosphere, Sunny landed in Houston with urgent news.
 
Sunny settles down in McAllister’s office. “Sunny cleared his throat. 21/2054 D1,” he said. McAllister says, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.” “That’s it’s name. Its designation, whatever,” Sunny said. McAllister said to stop babbling. “The message you sent me contained the orbital elements of an...asteroid? Comet? McAllister said, “I had one of our people take a look, and they just about split their skin.” Sunny said, “I have more. More data I can give you.” Sunny had been tracking 21 (the name of the body shortened) for over a year where he worked at KSpace, the commercial leader in space travel. He told his boss about it at KSpace. Sunny said he didn’t hear a peep from his boss. “Somebody had to do something. Somebody had to send a ship to go look at this thing. If KSpace wouldn’t do it, then Sunny was sure NASA would. It would have to. Except judging by the look on McAllister’s face, NASA didn’t necessarily agree.”
 
McAllister said, “So why don’t you tell me why you came here.” Sunny replied, “It’s decelerating, Spontaneously. It’s spontaneously decelerating.” McAllister said, “Welcome to NASA.” Finally someone believed him! Now to get a crew together...the only astronaut with experience was the publicly hated Sally Jansen, the last astronaut. Let the poop hit the fan! Oh, well. That’s my review of the first seventeen pages. I loved this novel, grab a copy...it’s different.
 
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I’m a sucker for First Contact novels. I think Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, Contact, was the first ‘man meets alien/alien meets man’ novel that perked my interest. I also loved Larry Niven’s 1985 novel, Footfall. Earth comes under attack by the ‘elephant look alike’ Fithp from Alpha Centauri. Recently (see my review of 4/18/2019) I read Immortal by Nick M. Lloyd. All three were first contact novels, but totally different.