Great innovators don’t necessarily follow straight paths. Often a winding path can shape their defining inventions.
At a farm in Michigan, lived a little boy. In his pocket, as his constant companions, were little trinkets: nuts, bolts, washers and other small pieces of machinery. He would play with them all day long. Experimenting with them, joining them, taking them apart. His father did not much appreciate all this. Like most fathers, he wanted his son to help in the family business: the farm. Mother was different, she gave in to her child’s fancy, perhaps, thinking it was a passing phase that was better indulged than opposed.
