Toolmonger No More

Toolmonger No More

We're coming up on the fiftieth anniversary of the Whole Earth Catalog, subtitled "Access To Tools."

I discovered early, a fascination with making things (when I wasn't breaking them). To make things, fix things, modify things, sometimes just to understand things --- you need tools.

I grew up in the Time Before The Internet, when there were catalogs. Sears and Roebuck, Monkey Wards, Allied Radio, J.C. Whitney. And then, of course, the Bible of the Counterculture, the Whole Earth Catalog.

J. Baldwin was the tools, design, and nomadics editor for the WEC and its descendants. He also spent a number of years teaching and lecturing, and designed and built a number of things. He was a disciple of Buckminster Fuller.

One of the many things he wrote about was the Highly Evolved Toolbox, a truck turned into a rolling multipurpose shop. I wanted one of those almost as bad as I wanted to crew on the NCC-1701 Enterprise. J. Baldwin, in print, seemed to be kind of cranky, exacting kind of guy. I didn't always agree with what he wrote, but I was always interested to read it.

Unfortunately, he has passed on.

Trucks were definitely a theme in the late 60s and 70s. The WEC grew out of Stewart Brand's Truck Store, I understand. And there were lots of folks that were taking old school busses and logging trucks and turning them into rolling hippie pads. At least until OPEC immobilized them.

Keep On Truckin', Jay...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Baldwin
https://www.cca.edu/academics/faculty/jbaldwin
http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/1220/article/280/one.highly.evolved.toolbox
http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/1340/article/66/the.ultimate.swiss.omni.knife
https://redefineschool.com/fuller-too-much-law/
https://archpaper.com/2018/03/geodesic-dome-pioneer-jay-baldwin-passes-away-85/

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