Tesseract*

*A word from "A Wrinkle In Time" (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle used to explain a method of time travel.

I know many of you say you dislike history and the dry, dusty facts and dates that have little meaning to you.


Consider if you would this picture of four ordinary men. Ordinary in the sense that if you were to go to any town in America forty or fifty years ago you could find four men just like them.

Hard working and skilled at their crafts learned from their fathers and their fathers before them.

From right to left, My Dad Harry Robert "Bob"; Thomas "Tommy" Thomas; Harry Joseph Smith, Sr stand behind my Grandfather, Harry Edwin "Bud", at his 100th year birthday celebration. In a very real sense, the ones standing have always stood behind my Grandfather.

Harry Smith told me that the four of them had been talking and had determined that they had worked with each other and together for 47 years. But that was just scratching the surface of things.

Tommy Thomas' grandfather (George Phillip) started a small machine shop in 1876, a couple blocks from the foundry that my great-great-grandfather built around 1880. My great-grandfather, Harry David, gave George much business machining the raw pieces made at the foundry into finished parts - parts used to build steam train and steam boat engines, bells, and many other things.

Tommy Thomas' father (Virgil) did the same work for my Grandfather. Tommy Thomas then did the same work for my grandfather and father. So the Thomas-Mousley business relationship spans (it continues today) over 125 years.

History, but maybe not "historical" in a greater sense.

Harry Joseph Smith Sr, still works today at the age of 78. His business was started by his uncle just before WWII. He is a 'pattern-maker'; his very gifted hands can turn a piece of fresh sawn lumber into a work of art - furniture, cabinets, or most importantly, into a "pattern" used by a foundry to make the molds that molten metal was poured into to make "castings".

The pattern in the picture below was originally made by Mr. Smith's uncle. And by the way, Harry Smith Junior is about my age and is also a gifted wood-worker like his father.

These four men - more than anyone else in my life - be they teachers, scoutmasters, friends, other relatives, religious instructors or what have you - shaped me at the very deepest most central part of my being.


A wooden pattern used to make a brass plumbing "elbow" used in steam line to carry steam on an aircraft carrier. The steam most likely was used for heat, cooking, or to drive the catapults that shot the planes off the carrier deck.

This large wooden pattern is in my garage. Why? Well, because when Harry Smith Sr. taught me how to make patterns sometime in the 1980s, this pattern was one (of many) that I repaired as his "apprentice".

The core box (the wooden L-shaped "box" on the right) has an "X" chalked on it to mark the piece I repaired. You might notice the wood is much lighter in color there. After I repaired it, the US Government changed its mind about recommissioning a couple aircraft carriers and the pattern was never used again and sat on a rack at the foundry until I cleaned the place out when my Dad closed its doors for all time.

Is this historical? Yes, I think so. The machined part made from castings formed by using this pattern at my grandfather's foundry were used in the USS Oriskany, the USS Forrestal, and USS Constellation amongst most of the other aircraft carriers built in the USA.

USS Oriskany (CV-34): United States Senator John McCain (R-AZ), served on this ship during the Vietnam War. The carrier was on station the morning of 26 October 1966 when a fire erupted on the starboard side of the ship's forward hangar bay and raced through five decks, killing 44 men. In May 2007, it was sunk to make an artificial reef in the Gulf Of Mexico off the coast of Florida.

USS Forrestal (CV-59): In 1967 off Vietnam, fuel from the leaking tank caught fire creating a serious conflagration that burned for hours, killing 134, injuring 161 including John McCain. It is to be sunk to make an artificial reef in the near future.

USS Constellation (CV-64): was heavily damaged by fire while under construction by the New York Naval Shipyard, in Brooklyn, New York during December 1960 when a forklift moving through the hangar bay pierced a fuel tank. Fuel was spilled on welders below decks, igniting a fire which claimed 50 lives and injured 323 shipyard workers. As of February 2008, the Constellation is scheduled to be disposed of by dismantlement.

Time truly waits for no man or group of men.