Completely in the Dark

You see, there’s a photo. I can picture it in my mind’s eye, but I can’t locate the actual print or slide.

It was taken by my maternal grandfather, Ray Adams. Of that I’m fairly certain.

You know how young children often stare meditatively at random things? Well, this photo cast that sort of spell over me. It’s an interior shot, taken in the 1960s, of a huge auditorium, much like the downtown Minneapolis armory. It was snapped from high in the grandstand seats. In the frame is a lone smudged window at the far end of the building.

I don’t know why that image still haunts me, but it does.

***

He was the first modern man.

Ray Adams was born on Oct. 10, 1900. He witnessed nearly a century of change. And he directed the course of the modern world all from a workbench in his Greensburg, Ind., garage.

If I…