Strike from the Void
Posted: August 28, 2026 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, consciousness Leave a comment
One peaceful Sunday morning on the island of Oahu, American sailors gathered for breakfast and went about their routine, enjoying the pacific calm before church service. Incoming B-17 bombers were scheduled so planes in the distance went unnoticed.
Heavy clouds hung low as the first wave of planes approached from the north/northwest, descending low, opening fire. Two waves of aircraft – torpedo bombers, dive bombers, horizontal bombers and Mitsubishi A6M2 Zeros – 353 aircraft in total unleashed a fusillade of fire in a stunning display of strategy.
300 years earlier Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings,” a classic guide to samurai strategy and the way of the warrior, taught one must “strike from the void.” Pearl Harbor was its own strike from the void: unexpected, devastating, and brilliantly executed. 19 American naval ships, including 8 battleships, were destroyed or damaged, 188 aircraft lost or severally damaged, 2,403 American sailors and soldiers killed.
The next day, December 8, 1941 the United States declared war against Japan. On December 11, 1941 Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, prompting the U.S. to enter the European conflict. The world was at war.
War is good for business and the military-industrial complex kicked into high gear. Henry Ford, at his River Rouge Complex, halted all civilian automobile production. The plant’s employment surged to roughly 120,000 workers converting raw materials into tanks, engines and military vehicles. The total American industrial output built 297,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, 124,000 ships, 2.4 million military trucks and 2.6 million machine guns.
The Axis powers were overwhelmed, fascism was defeated. The “Greatest Generation” rallied to the cause, put everything aside, took seriously its task. My father’s three older brothers all volunteered for the Army Air Corps, but the oldest, Danny, was assigned to Iwo Jima where he was killed, stabbed in his heart by Japanese swordsmen while sleeping at night. Many paid the ultimate price. The fortunate, however, lived to see the end and then return home.
William Levitt was a Lieutenant in the Pacific Theatre who served in the U.S. Navy Seabees’ “Naval Construction Force” with motto “Construimus, Batuimus” (“We Build, We Fight.”). Levitt managed a construction unit in Hawaii, as well as in Norfolk, Virginia, where he mastered military logistics and rapid-building techniques. As war is good for business, the war was transformative for the Levitt family business.
Approximately 15.6 million service members survived and returned home alive from World War 2. Housing demand skyrocketed to millions of homes needed. William Levitt had met his market. As Henry Ford had mastered assembly line automation at the Rouge River Complex, so Levitt mastered assembly line housing with Levittown, first on Long Island and next in Bucks County, PA. Levitt could build an entire house in less than six weeks, sold for as low as $100 down payment.
The cover story on Time magazine for July 3, 1950 pictured Levitt with the tag line “For Sale: a new way of life.” The commodification of housing, the American Dream on steroids, everyman could have his suburban castle with white picket fence.
As the crow flies, New Hope, PA is 23 miles from Levittown, but as a philosophy of building it is worlds away. George Nakashima was a Japanese-American woodworker and architect who launched his studio and workshop there. Before the war he studied at MIT then, in 1931, went abroad using a round-the-world tramp steamship ticket.
In Paris, France he was introduced to Le Corbusier, one of the titans of modern architecture. They shared thoughts on architecture as a spiritual activity, with a moral obligation to society. In Japan, he worked on the Imperial Hotel and took time to study Japanese architecture. In Puducherry, India he was a construction consultant for an ashram dormitory. He made furniture for the first time.
He returned to the United States just before WW2. Because he was Japanese American, he and his family were arrested and incarcerated at the Minidoka War Relocation Camp in Idaho.
In life, it seems, the good you seek is seeking you. While locked up at Minidoka, Nakashima was tutored by a man trained in traditional Japanese carpentry. He mastered hand tools and joinery, gained the discipline slowly to focus on perfection every step of the way. Where Le Corbusier spoke of building “as a spiritual activity, with a moral obligation,” at Minidoka Nakashima grounded those ideals into practice.
William Levitt and George Nakashima, both builders of the Greatest Generation, left starkly different legacies. Levitt shaped the physical landscape of millions of lives, casting the blueprint for assembly-line post-war American suburbia. Homeownership was made possible for millions of families, but at a dependence on the automobile. The thought of purchasing one of his homes for $1 down is a relic of the distant past.
In the pantheon of American craftsmen, George Nakashima is a towering figure, who ranks among the founding generation of “Studio Furniture” makers. His influence is profoundly broad. His work honors the “soul of the tree” – making as a spiritual practice.
Levitt addressed, and solved for his time, the need for affordable housing. Nakashima brought to the market objects of exquisite natural beauty, heirlooms worthy of generations. Now is my time to work through these questions.
I am a carpenter. I work with my hands. I make things for my bread labor. I have built handcrafted furniture for Thos Moser and cabinets for private commissions. At times I have been on crew building custom castles by the sea, other times renovating a working man’s home. I have fabricated and installed multiple Public Art projects.
A teacher of mine once wisely said, “You need to go out and break your heart, and then you will come back to what you love.” As a young man I worked in the Chicago commodity markets – the old “open outcry pits” – then spent a decade on a vision quest pursuing humanitarian finance, an oxymoron, my version of “a spiritual activity, with a moral obligation.” Like Icarus I flew too close to the sun, crashed and burned.
Learning to walk again, I met a German woodworker of the Studio Furniture tradition. I managed his Apprentice program and taught woodworking to adults. I came to building late, after failure, but this work has grounded me.
Building is my bread labor, but my full time job is homeschooling my son. I am a Boomer homeschooling a Zoomer, at the dawn of the post literate age.
COVID haunted my son’s 1st grade year, and I homeschooled during the shutdown through 2nd grade. Nationwide, the return to public schools brought a surge of disruptive behavior, absenteeism, and mental health challenges. Locally, an epidemic of teen suicide raged through our town.
Middle school was a huge adjustment – his 5th grade moved to the same building as 8th graders – and although his experience started off well enough, intense bullying could not be controlled. Finally, he made the call and our DIY experiment began.
The picture-postcard paradise of Levittown’s affordable American Dream shaped the world that my generation, the Boomers, inherited. For my son and his Zoomers, however, that seems outdated, unachievable, a dystopian mirage of mass marketing.
Homeschool is not for the faint of heart. But nor is felling a tree, to mill and dry its wood, to handcraft a family heirloom, passed down through the generations.
As with a chisel, I shape wood into a chair, so with words, numbers, ideas, and patience, I shape my son’s mind. Together we learn. He teaches me about his world of AI and online gaming, which makes me reflect upon the starkly different forces that shaped my generation.
From where did we come? To where do we go?
Father and son.
The summer ends. Greek, Latin and English languages are on deck. Our 8th grade is set to begin.
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Lead photo by Milo
an Art Farm 