Evanston: three Robert Fultons
Evanston: three Robert Fultons
It took friends on the far side of the world to bring two remarkable Americans to my attention. My thanks to Rob and Wendy of Perth, Australia, which happens to be one of the great places in the world in which to live.
The Robert Fulton, Jr. you may remember from high school history class lived 1765 to 1815, and is known as the developer of the first commercially successful steamboat.
Jump forward a hundred years and there is a direct descent, also a Robert Fulton, Jr., born in 1909 and died in 2004. Also an inventor, of among other things the Skyhook aerial rescue system and a flying car.
In 1932 at a dinner party in London after a year studying in Vienna, this Robert Fulton was asked if he was sailing home soon. He claims that spontaneously without any previous intention, he replied, “Oh, no. I’m going around the world on a motorcycle.” This being London of a certain level of society, another guest at the table said, “If you haven’t your motor yet, old man, then how about letting me furnish it. You know, we have the Douglas motor works.”
And so the young Mr. Fulton set off on an eighteen month, 40,000 mile, 22 country, first motorcycle circumnavigation of the world, which is superlatively recounted in ONE MAN CARAVAN, available from Amazon.
My only criticism of the book is that I wish it were longer.
Mr. Fulton skips over most of the early and last stages in Europe and the United States to concentrate on what were the more difficult and exotic travels in Asia, across literally trackless deserts, mountains and monsoons. Sometimes crossing gorges on railway trestles, one foot on each rail. He even got up the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. All manhandling a 750 pound machine. It would be quite a feat today. Then it was a truly great adventure.
I found myself thinking as Robert Fulton crossed Asia, passing through Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, China and Japan, that the common denominator is that since then war has come to them all.
Robert Fulton, Jr. had three sons, of whom the eldest, Robert Fulton III, born in 1939, was as remarkable as his father.
A pilot and cinematographer, often called the greatest aerial cinematographer, Robert Fulton III devised a way to shoot footage from a wing mounted camera on a small Cessna 180 and made films in many places, including Alaska, Borneo, South America and the American Southwest. He died in 2002, when on a routine flight home his plane was apparently struck by lightning and crashed in Pennsylvania.
I was given DVDs of two short Robert Fulton films, his Pilot Notes: South America and The American Southwest. As impressive as the images he captured are his own words of narration.
You may recall from the Introduction to this site my belief that the artist’s defining responsibility is to go to the edge of human experience and send back reports. Robert Fulton III was an artist whose films and words are his reports. As ONE MAN CARAVAN was his father’s.
I believe you can view Pilot Notes at www.filmontage.com. Click on the airplane in the second photo from the right and you’ll get a page with “Play Part 1” “Play Part 2”. Both take about a half hour. I have the DVDs and so haven’t taken the time to see if the films play all the way through online. If not, they are worth buying.
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In response to my last post, Larry, a fellow North Point Marina sailor, passed this on:
If the opposite of ‘pro’ is ‘con’, what is the opposite of ‘progress’?
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Last evening after Duke pulled away from Michigan, I watched LIFE IN A DAY again. It was even better the second time. I saw moments I had missed before: a teenage boy’s first shave; a smiling African woman saying that what she loves most is her children; another woman saying that what she loves most is cleaning something really dirty where you can see your progress--I must admit to being partial to that one myself; a man saying that he is now fearless because what he feared most--that his wife’s cancer would return--has happened so there is nothing left to fear; one man pulling from his pocket the key to a Lamborghini, while another shows that his pockets are completely empty.
From night to day to night of July 24, 2010: the best ninety minutes synopsis of the human condition.
I’ll watch a third time.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011