Life is a big tug of war, but you must never let go of that rope, never stop pulling, and never stop. You have to have the right attitude, that’s all. My brothers and I started taking engines apart and figuring things out from the moment we got started, and we never let anything hold us back.
My first car was a Model A Ford that I bought for $35. I loved it; it meant a lot to me. Since then, I’ve had hundreds of cars, and I always want to find out what makes them tick. Being an innovator, I’ve always tried different approaches. My cars always run something different than everyone else’s, they’re always special, with parts that no one had imagined before. I designed engines for Chrysler, Cadillac, and Studebaker. The Novi was the fastest car in its day, with a supercharged V-8 engine that you had to hear to believe. It ran at Indy from 1941 to 1966. I had a little money by then, so I stepped in and bought the rights, increased the horsepower, and put it back on the track in 1961, making it a four-wheel drive, and raced it for six years. Bobby Unser was one of my drivers. People will always talk about that car; it had such charisma.
In 1967, long after the auto shop days, my brothers and I had been working secretly on a revolutionary type of car, one with a quiet turbine engine. Nothing like it had ever been seen before, so we had to keep it under wraps until it was time to race. Then we wheeled it out, and the media went crazy over how radically different this STP-Paxton turbine car was. It looked good, it ran beautifully, and it was quiet as a mouse.
So, I’ve had a lot of success, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s important for people to know who, at times, are struggling toward their own goals, that nothing ever came easy.There were always major obstacles and misfortunes, and it took work to turn them around. For instance, with the Novi, although it was the fastest car on the track, a car spun out in front of us and totaled the car. That was heartbreaking. We’d worked so hard; the car had even been in a garage fire and we’d got it built up again and put it back in the race. Another time, in 1969, my brothers and I built a very special four-wheel-drive Ford-powered Indy racecar. It took the fastest time on the track. It was going great when my other car hit it, demolishing both cars! I could have hung it up, given up, but that’s not my nature. I try again. This time, we put the previous year’s car back on the track and won the race by a full lap! There’s no point in ever feeling sorry for yourself, you’ve got to fight to stay alive. If there’s no effort, what’s the point? If I give you a million dollars today, you’ll be over the moon. But if I give you a million dollars every day, day in and day out, your whole desire will change; it won’t mean as much, or much of anything, to you, will it?
Every year I take twenty-five to thirty people to Indy. I pay for a private jet, their hotels, the works; they give $50,000 each to charity, that’s the deal. Often the wives don’t want to come; they don’t know what this Indy thing is, this obsession with cars going around a track. But, I tell you, when they hear, “Gentlemen, start your engines,” and that roar begins, and then the biggest single crowd at any specialized sport in the whole world rises to its feet as one and roars back, they understand! And they want to come back.
Regrets? By the time my father died in 1977, I’d been in twenty-two Halls of Fame in twelve different categories, so he knew I was a success, but I still wish he had been around to see me being knighted by the president of Italy in 1994. That would have made his heart sing like one of my engines! More than anything, I wish my mother could have seen my achievements. It would have made her so proud. Throughout all the ups and downs, though, I never let depression enter my sights.
I never look back in life, always forward. You could say I have no rearview mirror!
DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN
Thinking in Pictures
Dr. Temple Grandin has autism. She also designs slaughterhouse systems that reduce stress for animals killed for meat. Long ago, I went to Washington to present her with an award for leadership. Many people were puzzled how I could support Temple’s work, given that PETA and I are anxious to stop people from eating animals. But I admire her. In a world where not everyone is ready to go vegetarian, she has relieved massive amounts of suffering through her innate ability to see, in her mind’s eye, what “spooks” the cows and pigs who are herded into the chutes.
Temple is a scholar and a teacher (she studies and teaches at Colorado State University), as well as an author who describes herself as a “weird nerd.”And it is what’s inside her head that makes her stand out. By putting to use her “dis”ability to see in pictures, she has helped countless individuals, both human and non. She can teach us much because of that and because she has also single-handedly elevated the status and built the self-confidence of people with autism.
When I was in high school and college I assumed everybody thought in pictures the same way I did. I gradually learned that my thinking was different by interviewing other people about how their mind processed information. I asked them to think about a church steeple and discovered that some people only visualized a vague generalized steeple instead of the specific identifiable steeple pictures that I see. The ability to think in pictures is a real asset for a person who designs equipment. For instance, I can test run equipment in my imagination. I run a 3-D virtual-reality video in my head.
Visual thinking is probably more like how an animal thinks. There was no one single point where I discovered I could see and feel like cows, but some animals do not have verbal language so their thinking has to be based on associations between visual images, sounds, and other sensory-based memories. Having thought patterns that are more like that myself makes it easier for me to understand them. Likewise, my achievements in the livestock industry are not the result of a single event but a long, steady progression of work over thirty years.
When I first started talking about thinking in pictures, some twenty years ago, many autism professionals thought it sounded crazy. Recently, I had my brain scanned with the latest scanner that can map larger brain circuits. I found that I have a huge cable in my right hemisphere that goes from my primary visual cortex up to my frontal cortex. It’s almost twice as thick as the one in my sex-age-matched control scan, which supports the notion that people on the autism spectrum really do think in pictures. What interests me most in this type of research is consciousness, both in my autism and my animal work. To me it was always clear that animals are conscious; therefore, when I started my work, it seemed obvious to me to get down into the chute and see what the cattle were seeing. Not only seeing, but feeling as well. People with autism often have body boundary problems.We don’t know where we end and, say, the chair we’re sitting in begins. This served me well in the chute, because I was able to experience the machine as an extension of my limbs. Because of this, I could “feel” the cattle and know how much pressure was the right pressure, a comforting pressure, one that wouldn’t panic or hurt them during their last moments of life. I believe in a hereafter, and I believe animals have souls, so this time with them was extremely precious, and being able to make this work properly was like a religious experience. Naturally, being involved with watching the animals die made me look at my own mortality. When you look at your own mortality, you wonder about the meaning of life. When it becomes my time to die I will ask myself “Did I do something to make the world a better place?” Looking at your own mortality is a great motivator to do something of value.
But doing something of value isn’t always easy. Early in my career, I was a very nervous speaker. In fact, in 1970 I was supposed to teach psychology class during my first year of graduate school, but I became so nervous that I walked out. I realize now, one of the reasons I panicked was I had no slides.And I needed them to help make the pictures that were so clear in my head a reality for others. This was an important realization for me because I knew I wanted to actively bring about change rather than simply heighten awareness of it. For instance, Zen meditators are able to achieve a state of oneness with the universe, an acceptance of reality as it is, but I wanted to re
form aspects of reality. The dreadful shackle hoist system would still exist if I’d not been involved in convincing the plant to remodel. Therefore, identifying what was tripping me up and figuring out a way to work with it was vital to achieving my vision.
In 1974, I started doing cattle-handling talks. Since I was a weird nerd, I had to show a portfolio of my work to convince people that I was skilled. I learned about the power of showing a portfolio when I was at a meeting of the American Society of Agriculture Engineers. Since they thought I was weird, few people wanted to talk to me.The attitude of many of the engineers toward me really changed after I showed them one of my drawings. They said, “You drew that?” People respect ability, and there are other people on the autism spectrum who’ve had successful careers by selling their work instead of themselves. I encourage other autistic people to show what they can do, rather than wait for people to come to them. Autism is who I am, and by talking and writing about how autism has helped me with my life’s work, I strive to give others with autism courage and confidence. Ideas are passed on like genes, and over the years I’ve discovered I have a great desire to pass on my ideas. I would like for everyone, autistic or otherwise, to experience this same pride of helping other beings, to feel the same satisfaction I get when I see that I’ve changed something that was once awful into something that is now good.
PETER HAMMARSTEDT
Defending Whales and Seals
While Peter Hammarstedt is only in his early twenties, he is already a driven man, a sea warrior who works aboard the mightiest antiwhaling, antisealing vessel in the oceans, the Sea Shepherd. He is also the first mate aboard the M/Y Robert Hunter, what he describes as, “the newest addition to the Whales’ Navy.” I wanted Peter in this book because he illustrates very well how rewarding it is to follow your heart and have a huge impact on those with no voice. I spoke to him at his home in Sweden, where he was born, but Peter and the Sea Shepherd are seldom there.Their work is off the bloody ice floes of Newfoundland, in the waters off the coast of Japan’s dolphin killing fields, and guarding Mexico’s turtles from human predators.
Growing up I was a bit of a loner, although I have a younger sister. We moved constantly, so I didn’t have steady friends. I lived eight months in Kuwait, going from snow to sand, then two years in Saudi Arabia. At the age of five we moved to China; at six I was living in England; at seven we moved to the United States.
Because of this, I was always sensitive to what was going on in the world. One of my very earliest memories is of my mother yelling frantically for me to get away from the windows. It was the Tiananmen Square massacre.The troops were shooting at the windows, knowing we were foreigners, trying to make sure, I suppose, that we didn’t look out and see what they were doing to the students and other people on the streets. In thinking back, I believe that more than anything, this is when I learned that we live in a world where humans believe that “might makes right.” We had to pack up as quickly as possible and get out. As we were leaving, I saw tanks everywhere. I was allowed to take only one thing. I chose my toy dog, Dizzy, and I still have him.
Back then, I wanted to be all traditional things, like a doctor, a priest. When I was about twelve, I started giving 50 percent of my allowance away to charities. Once, I saved about $100 and I had to figure out what to do with it. I started looking up different animal protection groups on the Internet.That’s when I came across a picture of Antarctica, and it was a life-changing experience. After that, there was nowhere else I wanted to be but in a Zodiac (an inflatable boat) protecting whales.
The first vegetarian I met was a girl in my class in Pennsylvania. A group of kids surrounded her desk and were giving her a very hard time, asking her would she eat this or eat that, lots of silly hypotheticals. She was calm. I accused her of trying to take away my “right” to eat meat. The girl said no, she was just trying to enlighten me. She explained that on a factory farm, a hen lives her whole life in a cage just eight and a half by eleven. My jaw dropped. I didn’t eat lunch that day, thinking about what that must be like. I knew that if what she said was true, I couldn’t say I cared about animals but still eat them. I felt betrayed that no one had told me this before.
There is a painting on my wall that my mother took out of China when we evacuated. At that time, any art was illegal in China if it was not Communist art, and there used to be illegal art shows in homes in the countryside. That’s where she bought this one. It shows thirty hens pecking at grain, and it means a lot to me now. It hangs right beside my “I am not a nugget” poster showing a little chick who doesn’t want to grow up to be inside a KFC box! I think my mom recognized my track in life before I did.
I found I could never shake those original images of Antarctica and the whales, so, as I grew into my teens, I began doing some research. I came across the Sea Shepherd site and read that the ship was looking for crew. By that time, I was old enough to leave home so I signed on right away.
The Canadian seal slaughter that I witnessed still gives me nightmares. People call it a “hunt” but I have yet to meet a single hunter who would call bashing baby seals over the head with clubs, “hunting.” I was there in 2005. The ice is absolutely surreal, heavenly, like a world made of broken fragments of mirrors that sparkle in the light, that reflect the colors of the rising and setting sun. It is a wonderland where mother seals come to have their babies, to leave them to bask in the sun, feeling that they are totally safe, being miles and miles away from man. Not realizing that the boats will come, that human greed will catch up with them and reduce them to a bloody pulp.
Humans don’t belong there at all.We must go there to confront the seal killers, to film what they do, to report their indefensible acts of unspeakable cruelty to the world, to witness their despicable acts that violate the International Seal Protection Act. We see an entire world of white turn to red as the seals’ blood runs across the ice. There are suddenly carcasses everywhere as the babies are killed with the blunt or sharp ends of the Hak-a-piks, and stomped, kicked more than once, sometimes six times or so with the sealers’ cleated boots.
During the hunt, I found myself running from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They’re there on the ice to protect seal killers, not seals. I had video evidence, and I didn’t want them to seize it. But they tackled me and knocked me to my stomach. I lay there, practicing passive resistance, my arms held behind my back. And as I turned my head, there, just two or three meters away, was a pup. I was so close to her, and her eyes and my eyes were linked together. I do believe she knew the difference, she knew I was not a sealer. As long as I lay there, she was safe.
On a good day, we can stop sealing, but the hunt is massive, and they keep coming back. When I know I have saved a seal, it is an extremely personal experience. I don’t care then if I am locked up for years! We’re often assaulted, but we have to stand our ground. Our clients are the marine animals who have no way to fight for their lives; no power. I think Captain Watson (founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and founding director of Greenpeace Foundation) speaks for all of us, whether we are on the ice floes or the high seas. When he was challenged about sinking an empty whaling vessel in Iceland, he said, “The hell with you. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the whales. Find me a whale who would disagree and I’ll stop.” These sea animals have real intelligence, which means they absolutely want to live in harmony with the world. Even the “stupidest” of animals wants that. Captain Watson was once confronted by a whaling boat captain who told him that the reason it is acceptable for human beings to slaughter these magnificent mammals is because “we” have moral reason and intelligence. Captain Watson just stared at him. What is the good of reason and intelligence if all you do is use it to harm others?
RU HARTWELL
Global Flight Control
One look at the long lines at any airport, or at the newspaper ads for low-cost exotic vacations, shows that the skies are full of fuel-guzzling aircraft. And for every 750 gallons of fue
l used on one of these flights (about the amount of fuel it takes to get one from Denver to Tucson), nearly 5,000 pounds of exhaust per hour is pumped into the upper atmosphere. Pretty frightening. Flying as much as I do, I find myself constantly looking down to see more and more acres of woodland disappearing, something that fills me with horror. Every tree is home to countless forms of life, and every tree felled means dirtier air for all the Earth’s inhabitants—not a great prospect.
Ru Hartwell is a gentle and kind man who lives in the woods in the Cambrian mountains of mid-Wales. He loves trees and always has. Now, he has found a way to put his life’s interest to work to help the environment and make people feel a little better about their trips. Through his firm,Treeflights, anyone boarding an airplane can partially mitigate their carbon footprint by sponsoring the planting of a tree, or several. It’s an idea that’s really “taking off” and a grand example of how doing what you love can make the world a better place, which fits the theme of this book to a T.
I’ve been a tree planter for a very long time as well as a frequent passenger on planes. In my youth, I traveled to forty-two countries. Back then, there was nothing I loved more than getting on an airplane in one location, soaring through the skies, and landing somewhere new. It’s funny, although I loved trees then as much as I love them now, I wasn’t connecting how my pleasurable flight here or there was damaging, often destroying, the very thing I loved most. When we fly, we create all this CO2, the very antithesis of what a tree does. A tree absorbs CO2, holds on to it and keeps it safely out of the atmosphere, to put it simply. It was just ten years ago that I heard the phrase “carbon neutrality,” which means neutralizing the effect of the greenhouse gas emissions you are personally responsible for. I was very struck by this concept. Parent forest trees (not the constantly “harvested” forests that get replanted by, say, lumber companies) absorb very large amounts of CO2, and the whole world’s forests absorb 20 to 25 percent of all carbon emissions the world’s industry spews into the atmosphere. We humans forget how amazing trees are. We take them for granted, perhaps because they are quiet, they don’t make any noise. They are just there, doing an incredible job.
One Can Make a Difference Page 8
