The New Ideas Blog

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Six)

Creativity is natural in children, but rather than encourage it, adults often discourage it. They do so by teaching kids to judge the results of their efforts too soon, to compare too much, and to avoid any mistakes as though they are terrible things. They also watch too closely and offer advice too readily, trying to control what their children are doing. Fortunately, my four brothers and I had a mother who tended to allow us our freedom, especially during our long summers at the cabin.

I was probably nine years old when one day we were playing on the beach and (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Five)

As mentioned in the last one of these “stories from the cabin,” I liked to play with kites. I also liked to look at ways to harness the wind in general. As children we were amazed at the strength of the wind on the beach. Two of us would each hold corners of a blanket in each hand and see if we could then stand against the force of the wind. I think we even tried a “blanket sail” on a bicycle, to propel us down the gravel road in front of the beach.

Later in life I lived alone in the cabin, and I wanted a way to expend less energy than usual getting around in the old (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Four)

My kite ideas (and the kites I made) were mostly for entertainment. I was living in a cabin on Lake Michigan as a young man. I used garbage bags, old yardsticks, and tape of whatever sort was available to make the kites - I didn’t have the money for better supplies, and there were no stores around nor did I have a car to get to one. Heavy duty fish line was all I had for for kite string.

Delta-wink kites seemed to work best. In fact they continued to fly even after (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Three)

One way to have more creative ideas is to understand the principles involved in things and apply them in new ways.

The water was gushing out of the eight-foot-high culvert by the little cabin I lived in, because it was the height of the spring snowmelt. I was nineteen and always looking for a bit of adventure. Although there were a few snowflakes in the air, it seemed like there must be some way to have fun in that torrent of water…

“Why not water ski (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part Two)

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. My creative tinkering at seventeen-years-old may have looked more like laziness. Having strings hanging above the couch where I slept - I lived alone in a cabin - meant I could stay under the covers all day while turning on lights, the radio and television with a quick pull. But the reason for the various contraptions was not my desire to relax. It was that it was too cold to get out of bed.

In fact, the refrigerator had been off for weeks, since the food (more…)

(Stories From The Cabin - Part One)

Innovation on paper or in one’s mind is fun, but experimentation is what most often produces the best ideas and makes them useful.

When I was a young man I lived in a cabin in Northern Michigan. White cedars were the most common trees. They are the lightest wood in the area, weighing less than half of what a maple tree of the same size would weigh. When they grow in swampy areas they often are very thin, and when they dry they are relatively stiff. They would be perfect, I decided, for making my own stilts. (more…)