The Cricket Trailer at work looking space-age and efficient while inventor Garrett Finney plays the Ukulele. Photo by David Bates.
I’d been chattering for a week about spending the summer in a trailer dropped on the smallest patch of grass and wildflower somewhere Upstate when I came across the Cricket Trailer over at Men and Women of Industry. (If you’re not fantasizing about camping now, you will be once you’ve seen their childhood snaps.) The lightweight, angular trailers were designed by Garrett Finney, an architect who came to camper design by way of NASA, where he worked on the International Space Station’s “Habitation Module” (astronaut-speak for “home”).
Aluminum Canoes
There's nothing like a good old-fashioned canoe adventure. Movie poster from "Deliverance." Via Cinema Masterpieces.
An inexpensive alternative to hand-carved wooden canoes (which are very nice thank you, à la Mad River) was inevitable but it was the end of WWII that precipitated the rush. In terms of production it was a perfect storm of war-accelerated technology and idle airplane factories. In terms of demand, there was a new perception and importance placed on leisure after WWII, with young marrieds and their families enjoying their hard fought freedoms.
Fishing, and so canoeing and boating, was one of the activities that exploded in the 50s… look at any Kodachrome collection you can find and damn me if every third plaid-shirted man isn’t holding up a string of trout or stripers with his son in tow.
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