The Wind

I am an engineer by education, but am not sure that that accurately describes me really.

As a kid we moved around quite frequently, as my dad was in the military. I think this is called an army brat, but I don't agree with the connotations of "brat". This moving around often required that things in our new house or apartment were installed, and somehow I had an affinity towards the regular lamps, appliances or other things that required connecting. At the time I did not think this was anything special, but only a required necessity of moving around frequently. Perhaps out of this experience, or maybe something else, I also developed a liking towards building plastic models. This kept me occupied during my early teens, until at about age 17, when I met two guys: Derek Snead and his friend. These two guys introduced me to cars, or rather the fixing of cars. Prior to meeting them, I was of course interested in cars, like any other red blooded boy. But I was primarily interested in driving them. Derek introduced me to fixing, modifying, changing or just plain fiddling with cars. I immediately fell in love. I liked everything about it. The grease, the tools, the learning, the mysteries, the other people, the variety of problems. I just liked it all. We spent hours in the crafts shop (you have to be an army brat to know what that means), changing engines and other parts, talking about cars, sometimes having a beer, and just relaxing. There is almost nothing as satisfying as hearing an engine start up after being rebuilt.

I was sitting in front of our house this evening while a storm was gathering strength. I watched the trees being bent by the wind, and thought about the strength of nature, and somehow this reminded me of engineering. The strength of natural laws and the knowledge of how to harness them is probably what I felt when rebuilding engines so long ago.

When I think about what I do now professionally I feel a bit sad. Surely I earn a living for my family, and the projects I work on deliver products for the whole world. But this is not as personally satisfying as what I felt when actually working on cars, or rebuilding a carburettor or something else similar. The results of what I do for work now seem so distance, almost as if they do not exist.

Growing into professional life I always planned to continue working on cars. But somehow this plan got lost in the typical stuff that happens when growing into mid life. But I do remember real, simple engineering, and I miss it.