Tag: childhood

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View of Summer

Summer 1995 I was ten years old.  The Summer was something of a dream to look forward to.  A dream of freedom. A dream of warmth.  A dream of long lazy days laying in the grass.  A dream.

Summer was like the epitome of being alive and acting on impulse and finding fun things to fill those endless days.  Summer was a blast.  Summer was filled fixing and riding bikes. Summer was filled with exploring the world around me whether it was the university nook and crannies or the mountains or desert.

All places were familiar and new at the same time.  There were the spots that were traveled often such as the penny candy store and the swimming pool that we traded cheez-its for entry.

Summer gradually turned from neverending days of exploring and wonder to passing quickly as if in a dream.  The days suddenly were gone and school was creeping up much too fast.

As I grew the feeling of summer changed.  It turned from wonder and freedom to striving for money and a job.  It turned to less freedom than school and eventually was no longer looked at as a dream.

At this point life started to speed up.  High school ended, college started, seeking money drove many decisions. Time kept whirling by.

I look to my children and oh how I wish that their summers could be extended indefinitely.  Wonder extended.  Joy extended. Freedom extended.  The time when money means less than experience.

I strive each day to return to that wonder and awe of those dreamy summer days.  Sometimes when I leave work I head out to the desert where there is only sagebrush and dirt and long trailing power lines.  I take the moment to capture pictures of toys and pursue my hobby.  These are the moments that feel again like the summer days of boyhood.

I take my boys hiking and we search for geocaches and I see the wonder and excitement in their faces and I feel again those days of summer.  I take them to the store with me and it is wonderful to feel their little excited wiggles and happiness that can not seem to escape them.  What a joy it is to have my kiddos.  I have found my return to summer.  I have found my return to dreams.  It is through my family that the days start to slow down and become fun again.

Life is a joy and every time is a wonderful reflection of our past experience.  I want my children to find the wonder in the world and seek to keep those experiences close so that they can make good choices based on them.

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Building Lego is Work we Love


As a kid I thoroughly enjoyed building Lego.  I would work hard doing random things to try and make some extra spending money – which generally went to Lego sets.

I spent many summers traveling out to the mine with my grandfather.  We would ride the backhoe up some haphazard switchbacks he had scraped in the side of a steep colluvial fan.  Sometimes my grandfather would have us switch sides and basically use us as ballast so the backhoe would not slip.

I spent many long hours on a ladder leaned against the cliffs.  I would carry a three foot hammer drill up as high as I could get it and spend 20-45 minutes per drilled hole.  The difficult thing was the cliff was only a foot away.  In order to hold the hammer drill I would have to lean back two feet and hold that position while trying to maintain some kind of pressure.

Once we had made Swiss cheese of the cliff face we would then stuff each hole with dynamite and C4 detonation cord.  My grandfather carried a blasting cap inside his pocket – tinkling with his Wriggleys gum and prospector lens.  He really was an old-time character.  He would take a stick of dynamite and break it in half over his knee.  Then he would dig out the sawdust and nitroglycerin innards with his trusty old timer pocket knife.  He would then tape a blasting cap on the end of the detonation cord and shove it into the hole.  Electrical tape it right and use the end of a broken shovel to ram it down into the hole.

I just imagined how if the cliff blew, I would only hear a slight muffle and then there would be complete and utter blackness.

I mention mining with my grandpa because it was an adventure (We mined Alabaster).  It was a way to truly feel alive.  And that’s how I earned a lot of my spending money that went to Lego.  I loved how each set was created out of so many pieces that had the possibility to be anything I could imagine.  The possibilities were endless…  And so were the options I created to make money. From mining to selling cherries with my dog, there was always something to get me a few bucks in my pocket.

I have since looked back on my childhood and I realized that my days were full of work I enjoyed.  It was fun, creative, and hard.  But it never really felt like work.  I know have boys of my own and I have introduced them to the addiction of building Lego.  Lego is a toy I’ll gladly buy for them (and myself).  I have had many odd jobs from inventory to switch gear design over the past fifteen years but my favorite has been the hardest work that does not feel like work.

I have spent the past fifteen years designing and growing my Wowflutes until it has become my main focus.  I am passionate about making products that can be enjoyed, and ones that never get old.  Like Lego.

My goal with Wowflutes is to show that you can love what you do and be successful to.  I feel that too many folks are focused on earning money as their primary goal.  This is not a bad thing, but what they do not know is that the most successful individuals are those who are doing what they love.  The work does not feel like work but rather play, just like those long hours spent in my childhood working, playing and building Lego.

(see more of my Toy Photography)