Happiness available for $650 /pound.

Builders:

Here is a gratuitous dog story with a moral.  Grace grew up with dogs, but went through a long period of her adult life without one. One day she showed me a thumbnail sized photo of a tiny white fur ball and said “I want this dog”.

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I agreed at once without asking any questions such as “How much is he” or “where is he?” I am glad I didn’t, because the story has a very happy ending and I wouldn’t want it to be told with me as the bad guy.

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Turns out that our future dog was in Idaho of all places, and after everything was totaled up, including his own plane ticket, he would cost about $650 a pound. At first I was a little skeptical of the offer, but a good friend checked it out for us and it turned out that the breeders are a couple who used the funds to support their mission of saving orphans from Africa. Pictures from their home showed many little kids sitting with ScoobE’s siblings. We found a guy in Boise who wanted to visit his mom in Daytona Beach, and we bought him the plane ticket, and he brought ScoobE as carry on baggage. Whole transaction took about a week, and it has been joy and happiness ever since.

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A number of people, (who have never met the little charmer) question the economic logic of spending $650/lb. on a dog, but I point out that it was really an investment in happiness. In a world of worry and negativity, he is a bright spot, available at any moment.  He is a great source of joy for Grace, and that my friends, is priceless.

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Your aviation connection is this: One day you looked at a little picture of a plane and said “I want to build this.” And later you looked at a picture of an engine and said “I want to build that also.”  Maybe it wasn’t the first person you told, but certainly one of the first treated you to an unrequested lecture on the economics of building planes, and how it doesn’t add up as a financial investment strategy.  I usually tell those people “My hero is Steve Wittman, I feel sorry for you because apparently yours is Clark Howard.” It’s a funny thing to say, but you will never explain homebuilding as an investment in your own sanity and self worth to a person who doesn’t get dogs either. Some people know the cost of everything, but don’t understand the value of anything.

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Above, ScoobE at 16 weeks old. He is in his native state of Idaho. To this day his ears still ‘signal for a left turn.’ The child holding him is very small, because the dog weighs less than 3 pounds in the picture. You need never justify your path to the pursuit of happiness to anyone, it is your right as an American to seek it by any path which doesn’t directly harm others, no explanation required.

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Corvair powered homebuilts are actually a great bargain, they rarely cost more than $50 a pound when they are done. P.F Beck built his Pietenpol for about $10 a pound, and it has flown almost 300 passengers and provided joy in life that can not be evaluated with a calculator.

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-ww.