Its official: my simple head cold wasn’t; more of a sinus / lung infection requiring heavy doses of antibiotics and some really cool pain meds. Suffice to say that this past week I had noting but time on my hands to feel miserable.
Starting to crawl out of it now, but the older I get the slower the healing process becomes.
Some of that time on my hands was spent reading a small book (small because that is all I could concentrate on with the stuffy head – took me a week to read a 90 page tome!!). This book, “Classic Harley-Davidson 1903-1941,” just made me realize once again why our country is headed to the dustbin of history.
The first chapters of the book concentrated on how William Harley and Arthur Davidson, two boyhood pals, got started building motorcycles. This was truly a family endeavor. The boys utilized Art’s dad’s woodshed, the advice of good friend Ole Evinrude, and the help of family members who worked in the railroad machine shop and foundry, all unofficial of course, as well as many other friends and neighbors. In the small time frame of five years they went from a very small operation to a mindboggling big operation. I had no idea but these guys were the Apple Computer of their day.
Why did this reinforce my belief as to why we are slipping away as a strong country? Easy, innovation and entrepreneurship of this kind cannot legally exist today. Regulations and codes simply will not allow it.
Imagine that you wanted to build some kind of cool widget. You are a young man or woman that is blessed with mechanical abilities. You are also blessed with a dad who has some really neat tools in his garage.
You start making these widgets and advertising them in a local widget magazine. Sales take off. Enough for neighbors to notice that a lot is going on in your dad’s garage. Next thing you know you are being visited by the code enforcement officer, who tells you that you must get a business permit, tax number, and you must build your widgets someplace else, as your parents home is zoned residential only.
You quickly do the math in your head and realize that all of a sudden the money you were making is not enough for you to become “legit.” Frustrated, you simply give up or go “underground.”
Can’t happen? Oh but it does, all the time. I know several people who operate businesses out of their garage on the side. They all fly under the radar of existing codes and regulations – they simple can’t afford to do otherwise. They have become “outlaw” capitalists. Don’t think this stifles innovation? Is it any wonder we are a nation of consumers and not producers?
I look at my Harley Davidson and lift a glass of homemade brew to salute all the backyard innovating “outlaw” capitalists out there in the heartland. May your spirit and ingenuity never die – your fortunes and the fortunes of our country go with you.
