Time Macines
Model numbers 1813 and 1964, 2006
Time Machine Design
In 1813, my paternal Great Great Grandfather, Abishai Crossman, was born in the Adirondack Mountain Region of Upstate New York. He was a farmer and wood worker. He lived and worked his entire life near water… Lake Champlain, the Erie Canal and the Thornapple River in Barry County, Michigan.
In 1964, I was twelve years old, it was also the year my father died. My father loved rivers, lakes and cars. That year, we’d been trying to build a soapbox derby car together. I didn’t get it finished before he died. I never finished it afterwards either.
The shape of that derby car looked very much like these time machines. Even in its unfinished state it was beautiful.
By the following year, I gave up on the idea of racing in the derby and I tried to repurpose the coaster car into submarine. I almost drown, when I launched it into the lake we lived near.
In 1990 my mother lost her eyesight to a rare disease. She always loved making things and was an expert seamstress. One of those things she took up after going blind was basket weaving. Building these time machines using basketry techniques combined with Inuit skin on frame design was a way for me to honor her creativity and spirit. She flew away on her the ultimate time travel journey in 2006.
Almost all the wood in the machines came from around the house where I lived for 34 years. Some of it was pruned, some was salvaged, some was from trees that had died.
Time machines are chameleon like and can look like something they are not. You have also probably heard one rumbling across the landscape from time to time. They sound almost identical to the distant rumble and whistle of a freight train.
