Finding Edison
 You
don't hear much about Thomas Edison these days, but he was a superstar
in his time. Sure you know that he invented the light bulb, the motion
picture camera and the phonograph, but he has now been relegated to the
role of distinguished historical figure. No longer do the newspapers
hang on his every word. No more are motion pictures made of his comings
and goings. No more does every boy want to go work with Edison on his
latest invention. Edison is dead, he died in 1931, 14 years before I was
even born, yet he has long been one of my heros and I have often felt
disappointment that I missed him.
One summer in the late seventies Pam and I were in Ohio driving along
I-80 when we saw a sign for the Edison Birthplace. It was a pleasant day
and we had time on our hands so we decided to investigate. Edison was
born and reared for a while in a nondescript two story frame house in
Milan, Ohio. We toured the place with a guide who was writing a book
about Edison and who regaled us with adventuresome tales of Edison's
youth way back in the 1850's. What a life he led in his early days! I
wanted to know more, and our guide said that the best book to read until
his was published was called "A Streak of Luck". He was even good enough
to sell me a copy. I read it and I was hooked. I wanted to visit the
scenes of Edison's triumphs, I wanted to examine his inventions more
closely, and most of all, I wanted to understand how his mind worked.
Later that year, on a cold, drizzly Sunday in November we were in the
neighborhood of Menlo Park where Edison invented his light bulb. For a
lark, we went driving around the town looking for signs of my hero. We
were rewarded for our efforts with a view of a squat ugly memorial to
the light bulb, which was closed anyway. Nothing else relating to the
great man seemed to remain. Henry Ford had carted off Edison's
laboratory, and the people of New Jersey had erected other buildings on
the land. For me the spirit of Edison had departed. I was distressed by
this, but that in itself was interesting, and I fell to asking myself
just exactly what is was that I was after.
On our honeymoon we caught up with Edison's laboratory where it now
stands at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. This was more like
it. Here was the actual building where so many wonders were invented,
here were the tools, here were the reference books, and here were the
actual inventions! Not bad, not bad at all. One of Henry Ford's more
interesting ideas was to gather together the Wright Brothers' bicycle
shop, Edison's laboratory, Ford's own first automobile manufactory and
many other places of invention. He had these buildings transported to
Greenfield Village, which was opened to the public about 1930.
Greenfield Village today boasts a large and clean museum of mechanical
devices in addition to the original village. People come in droves and
destroy the atmosphere of the place entirely. Still, if you come as we
did, early on a showery Monday, and if you hold your head just the right
way, and if you half close your eyes you can catch a faint glimpse of
the way things used to be. Here just for a minute I sensed the spirit of
Edison. I felt as he must have felt when the light bulb first glowed,
and I seemed to share the flash of inspiration that lead to the building
of the phonograph. I went away satisfied.
Just last month, I found myself in Miami with a day to spare, and so I
followed the Alligator Alley across the waist of Florida to Fort Myers,
where Edison maintained a winter home in his later years. It was here
that he worked out a process for extracting rubber from goldenrod, and I
hoped for a repeat of my experience at Greenfield Village, but I picked
the wrong day to visit. The place was packed with elderly, full-time
tourists who had come to see the flowers and spend a pleasant day but
who cared very little about Edison. I tramped around in a group led by a
man who knew his flora but knew precious little else. We zoomed through
the workshops and dawdled in the gardens and I was very unhappy. When we
came to the backyard of the Edison house, I had had enough and I fell
behind the group I was with. Just there a pier juts out toward the Gulf
of Mexico and bird houses sit on piles driven into the floor of the bay.
The guide told us that when Edison wanted to be alone he would sit at
the end of this pier and fish. His family knew that he was not to be
disturbed in his fishing, and since he did not put a hook on his line
the fish did not disturb him either. As I stood there on that muggy
February afternoon, the sounds of the day grew mysteriously quieter.
Then a strange electricity seemed to surround me, and I remembered
Edison's life with the same sense of satisfaction that he must have felt
as he sat here fishing. It was a distinctly spooky experience, but as I
walked away, I knew that this time I had really found Edison. |
 
 |
