Inspired Amateurs Author:Kevin Guinagh PREFACE BY ARTHUR E. MORGAN Chairman of the T. V. A. THERE would be some consolation in having nine lives, like a cat, if one could live them simultaneously. Yet it would be incomplete consolation at that, for the lives I want to live run into the scores or the hundreds, and nine would be only tantalizing. Whenever some per son lives one of the ... more »lives I have wanted to live, or does one of the things I have wanted to do, I feel a twinge of jealousy, almost of resentment, that an intriguing and virgin field has been occupied by another. To estab lish a claim to spiritual respectability I should add that this primitive reaction of envy is more or less counter acted by a feeling of satisfaction that an alluring field is not neglected, but is giving interest and zest to some one. When Mr. Guinagh informed me that he was writing this book, I had a feeling of envy that so supremely alluring a subject should be preempted. Yet this is one of the many fields I am destined to pass by with out entering to explore, and so it is a pleasure to stand at the entrance and draw attention to its absorbing in terest. A book which interested and greatly encouraged me as a boy was entitled Illustrious Shoemakers. It con sisted of short biographies of men who had dared to lay down the shoemakers last in order to lead the world in some field. It appears that the mending of shoes does not demand the full attention of an active mind, viii PREFACE and so the old-time shoemaker had time to think. I have almost completely forgotten the contents of that book, but I can still recall the sense of freedom and of added courage it gave me. It is not always true, I found, that the shoemaker should stick to his last, and even so humble a calling might be the doorway to sig nificant accomplishment. Mankind has always paid its highest allegiance to the amateur. The name which has been held in reverence by more men than any other since the birth of the race is that of a carpenter who became an amateur teacher, sociologist, and guide to a way of life. A great body of professionals has grown up who presume to explain and mediate this amateur to the world...« less
ISBN-13: 9780836905007 ISBN-10: 0836905008 Edition:1 ST EDITION SIGNED Rating: