On my back porch in Roscoe Village, under the L tracks, with an electric drill in a stand that was my father's as my only power tool, Lund and Company took its first steps back in 1984. I spent countless hours and days searching for inexpensive, used equipment. As a start up money was tight. It would be tight again years later when the down years came upon us. But for many a year the future was so bright we had to wear shades. 

 

 

            

I crawled and squeezed my way through the dark and cavernous floors of Kaji’s warehouses, loaded to overflowing with the industrial machinery and office equipment he bought at auction, looking for a good deal on inexpensive used machine tools, lathes, sanders, drill presses, mills, work tables, and desks. We were moving into our first real office and we needed everything. Somewhere in Kaji’s many warehouses, everything was to be had, haggled over, moved, and installed. 

            

Money was tight and everything was used, cheap Chinese tools. I later realized that all the time I spent searching was a trade-off, and maybe not such a good one, for the lower prices I got on the equipment. Time is money, it is irreplaceable, and it is easy to squander it in the interest of saving a few dollars. 

            

We later bought new equipment, to better make use of our time, but still used inexpensive Chinese-made lathes and mills, which were adequate to our needs. Later still, we upgraded to older, US-made machine tools, back when Hardinge and Bridgeport were world standards, now since gone. It was a big step to get our first Bridgeport. 

 

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The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY has to be the greatest museum in the world. It is truly a national treasure.

 

 

            

On a recent trip to the far east reaches of North America (where they have time zones I have never heard of before) I stopped in Rochester to visit the Museum of Play. I had met with some of their people in the past, and even contributed some of our products to a recent display, but I never had the pleasure of actually seeing the place.  

 

 

            

The museum takes your breath away from the moment you enter past the actual working Merry-Go-Round and the authentic, fully functioning, old-time, shiny aluminum diner. You will continue to be amazed as you pass from gallery to gallery, past exhibits celebrating play of all kinds and toys of every description. There is far too much to see in a single afternoon. I would need at least a week to soak it all in. 

 

 

            

While the museum has almost every toy ever made and collects every new toy that comes to market every year, year after year, it is no mere toy museum. It is the documentation, display, description, the living and breathing celebration of play - from dress up, to sticks, stones, and cardboard boxes. It also publishes The American Journal of Play, an academic journal on play, its meaning, and importance - possibly the only such publication of its kind.   

            

Now, I may be biased, but my instinctive response, once I stopped hyperventilating, was that this is the greatest museum I have ever seen - perhaps the greatest museum on Earth. It is not just a collection, or a display. It is an attempt to delve into and present an explanation of all the dimensions of play so that we can begin to understand what play is in the human experience and in the context of culture and humanity. 

            

Go there. See it. You won’t be disappointed.  

 

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My schoolmate Bob, the Comans' youngest son, once thought his older brother was pounding on the bathroom door and spouting obscenities at him for taking too long, only to learn when he came out that his brother was not at home. I always hoped and feared I might experience just one tiny ghostly event, but no. I still do, actually. The next house I buy is going to be haunted.

      

But the Comans had ghosts in abundance.

  

Each day two sets of handprints would appear on their antique cabinets, one over the other. One set appeared to be those of a small child, and above them were an adult's, but with spider fingers - having an extra joint on each finger (perhaps an artifact of inbreeding, as Hillsborough was reported to have the largest degenerate gene pool in the south at the time). One day, as Mrs. Coman was about to wipe off the prints, they began to move, sliding down and off the face of the cabinet, never to be seen again.

 

 

 

I always wanted to keep a brick or a board from that house, in hopes that a ghost remained in it. Then I could store it in a safe deposit box and rent it to people who wanted a ghost in their own home. Rent a Ghost. I think one could franchise that idea if you just got enough pieces of haunted houses.

 

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When the Comans had their house worked on before they moved in, the workers noted that it had a cold heart, a phenomenon often reported in haunted houses. The house had a central cylinder of air noticeably colder than its surroundings. There was also a dark closet that none of the workers would go into. Shining a flashlight into the gloom of the closet had little effect, and if you put the flashlight in the closet and shone it back at yourself, only a dim light could be seen.

 

 

One day a prolonged creak, followed by a loud crack as if a large timber had broken, was heard by all, and suddenly the cold heart was gone and the dark closet was no longer dark.

 

But that was by no means the end of odd events in their home. In a room they called the borning room, where generations of babies had been born over the years, the Comans would often hear murmuring, the faint sound of teacups and saucers perhaps, and the cooing of women who might have gathered to admire a new baby just born. The family was generally unafraid, though, as they felt theirs were friendly spirits. 

 

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