When Love is Love

I first met Joe Friedman in the Summer of 2017 when I brought down a load for our move from Utah to Gilbert, Arizona. He lived across the street with his wife Merle Morgenstern. I was impressed with Joe's friendliness and desire to get to know his new neighbors. Annie was not with me on this trip but I told Joe a little about her and that she was French. The first time he met her he greeted her with a hearty 'bonjour.' When we moved in on the 1st of September 2017, Merle and Joe came over to say hello and to allow us to meet Merle. They brought some lovely flowers, and we were both impressed with their youthfulness and good cheer. It was not long after that we invited them to dinner, and that began a warm and beautiful 4x4 friendship. I say 4x4 because it is rare that two couples mix and blend so easily and comfortably with each other. While our backgrounds are different (they Jewish and we Mormons) we came to recognize that we connected with them and they with us i...

He died at 37, penniless and forgotten—but you're wearing his invention right now, and every day of your life.  In 1880, a pair of shoes cost more than most families earned in a week. Not because leather was rare. Not because cobblers were greedy. But because of one impossible step in shoemaking that no one—not a single inventor in the world—could figure out how to mechanize.  It was called "lasting"—attaching the upper part of a shoe to its sole. It required such extraordinary precision that only master craftsmen could do it. They made about 50 pairs a day, working from sunrise to sunset.  And they knew they were irreplaceable. Dozens of brilliant inventors had tried to build a machine for this. All failed. The work was too delicate, too complex, too... human.  Then a young Black immigrant who barely spoke English decided to solve it. Jan Ernst Matzeliger was born in Suriname in 1852. His father was Dutch, his mother was Black Surinamese. As a boy working in machine...