Thanks Bakers, it is definitely on my list of things to watch.
He said that someone had given him woodenware.
That someone would be my Dad.....
Burt was a photojournalist in NYC who got tied of the city and wanted a simple life, so he moved to a little hamlet called Aligerville in the Hudson Valley. If you think he lives a simple live now, back then he bartered with a little general store owner to allow him to live in an abandoned chicken coop. No electricity, no running water, and heat from just a little old wood stove. He was interested in bees, so my dad gave him some old woodenware. Burt spent many of evenings that winter in our basement scraping, patching and painting the equipment. I was very young at the time, but to this day my mom continues to tell the story that she would be cooking a big dinner, Burt would come by (looking very thin and almost emaciated) and marvel at the wonderful smell, but would not eat with us because he was a vegetarian and mom had cooked with meat
A few years later, Burt got sick and tired of NY taxes and decide he was moving to Maine to be free from it. My dad helped him find an old flatbed truck that they got running with bailing wire and duct tape (did we have duct tape back then?). They loaded his 7 hive on the truck and off he went. It was quite a few years later that we where walking through the local craft fair and Burt yelled out to us. He and his girl friend where working the craft fair circuit selling bee goods. We saw them on and off for the next few years. That was the humble start that burst into a huge success.
I often think about putting my dad in the car and driving up to Maine to see if I could hook the two up again.
