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metal things at the hardware store
I am drawn to Zyback because his manner of living called little attention to itself. I suspect that people in Columbus could not believe that one who lived among them and appeared so common, who attended mass at St. Bonaventure, who bought metal things at the hardware store, who was always puttering in a garage that was so like everyone else’s garage, could think so creatively, could find such passionate pleasure in bringing forth ideas, could be so interiorly different from them, could have such a profound effect on the economy, agriculture, water, and land.
ex Lisa Knopp, her chapter 4, Affinity, on Frank Zyback, inventor of center-pivot irrigators, The Nature of Home : A Lexicon and Essays (2004) : 41-53 (52)