Diesel intended his engine to compete with steam powered engines. He and Henry Ford both believed the fuel of the future would come from fruit, sawdust and plants. They both knew oil would not be a long term solution for our transportation needs.

The happiest moment in a man's life is his weakest moment.

The first thing I encountered on entering the museum was the earliest steam engine built in England. As I walked on, marveling at each successive mechanical wonder, I realized that I was witnessing the history of machinery, as if on parade, from its primitive beginnings to the present day, in all its complex and astounding elaborations.

Henry Ford's so-called "pile of scrap iron" was organized not only with scientific clarity but with impeccable, unpretentious good taste. Relics of the times associated with each machine were displayed beside it. To me, Greenfield Village, inside and out, was a visual feast.

Henry Ford believed the soul of a person is located in their last breath and so captured the last breath of his best friend Thomas Edison in a test tube and kept it evermore. It is on display at the Henry Ford Museum outside Detroit, like Galileo’s finger in the church of Santa Croce, but Edison’s last breath is an invisible relic.

We came down to see the steam cars and there were more than just steam cars, but old gasoline-powered cars and a replica of the Stanley Steamer that set the record 100 years ago.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.