AMERICANA: Man with the Wrench

It is man's destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence and, as a byproduct of his wonderment, to create a new life on this earth.

So, in later life, said Charles Franklin Kettering, who grew up in wonderment on an Ohio farm. "Why," he asked, peering nearsightedly out of his mother's kitchen window, "can I see through a pane of glass?" "What," he asked, "is magnetism? I would like to know how a magnet reaches out and pulls a piece of metal to it." Charlie Kettering was not satisfied with merely asking the questions: all his life he probed for...

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