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The Big Man
Those later Pennington articles make me smile. You gotta admire the sheer audacity of the guy and what he managed to do with larger than life ideas and force of personality. You can see it from those 1909 articles that he went back to his early airship roots towards the end. (He died in 1911). That was his first love and orginal claim to fame as told in part 1.
The Motor Cycle "growed" out of his c1890 airship, specifically the engine, which was unique and different from anything else in existence at the time. It's not like he was totally a fraud by any means, and yet he was!
That makes Pennington almost impossible to fully understand. He was a phenomenon, an enigma. Almost like he stepped off an airship from another planet, bringing wonderful ideas to mankind, and yet delighting in being a trickster too. I've studied the guy for years, and I still don't fully understand him. It's like he's a being out of Greek or Native American mythology, and yet he was operating in our own American Midwest: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc.
You can't get get any closer to home for many of us that that!
Those later Pennington articles make me smile. You gotta admire the sheer audacity of the guy and what he managed to do with larger than life ideas and force of personality. You can see it from those 1909 articles that he went back to his early airship roots towards the end. (He died in 1911). That was his first love and orginal claim to fame as told in part 1.
The Motor Cycle "growed" out of his c1890 airship, specifically the engine, which was unique and different from anything else in existence at the time. It's not like he was totally a fraud by any means, and yet he was!
That makes Pennington almost impossible to fully understand. He was a phenomenon, an enigma. Almost like he stepped off an airship from another planet, bringing wonderful ideas to mankind, and yet delighting in being a trickster too. I've studied the guy for years, and I still don't fully understand him. It's like he's a being out of Greek or Native American mythology, and yet he was operating in our own American Midwest: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc.
You can't get get any closer to home for many of us that that!
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