Since I don’t usually read the preface or foreword myself I will try to make this short.
About eighteen months before my father died in 1991 he asked me to write a book about his father, Arthur C. Pillsbury. I had heard stories about A.C., who my father called Uncle, all of my life but had thought they must be exaggerated. I had loved his photos but was sure time had exaggerated his accomplishments. I discovered the opposite was true. No exaggerations. My father had actually understated matters. I tried to be organized and orderly about writing the book. The original was a brief recitation of his inventions with some biographical material thrown in. I finished that before my father died. But it became clear through the interviews near the end that this is not what Father wanted. Father wanted me to share who A.C. really was with a wide audience and to give others a sense of the experience he had had growing up in Yosemite while at the same time cataloguing A.C.’s inventions, his sense of life, his adventures, his ideals, vision…………….. And the list went on. He had no plan for accomplishing this. Father was an engineer specializing in water resources. He knew what he wanted but not how to get there. But he wanted it more than anything. I promised to give it to him; totally unsure this was possible. Clearly, it was astonishing that history had ignored A.C. So I had to do a lot of research into matters that had not previously interested me. That explains the 14 year gap between my Father’s death and the publication of this first book. There will be more. Raising five kids and dealing with life, earthquakes and disasters of human devising takes time. The kids are mostly raised now. The book is one element of the overall plan for introducing the world at large to A.C. and the unseen ‘why’ behind his amazing body of work. The things that Father articulated last were actually the most important. The most important things in life are values, vision, and doing the right thing, no matter how long it takes. That is really what my Father was saying and what he had learned from his life with A.C. That is what I have tired to convey.