"Inventor - a person who invents, especially one who devises some new process, appliance, machine, or article; one who makes inventions."

"Savant - a person affected with a developmental disorder (such as autism or intellectual disability) who exhibits exceptional skill or brilliance in some specialized field (as  of science or literature)"

Without inventors we would be stuck living in caves coveting our neighbor living in the next cave over for the firestick he has and that he coddles day and night for fear that it will go out, never to be lit again.  Although theoretically everyone can "invent", not everyone is an "inventor".  Without the likes of Johannes Gutenberg, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Alva Edison  and many more we would forever be in the dark, stuck in our own little tiny pieces of the world, not knowing what was going on around us and believing that if we were to stray too far we would fall off the edge of the earth.  We take inventors for granted and never really give much thought to flicking a light switch on and off, or reading the news, or calling our friends and family miles away, or plugging in our electric car or even flushing the toilet!  As history would suggest, most inventors are a little eccentric, geniuses in their own right and often disregarded as being "a bit crazy".  As we travelled further east and on into Ontario, we met such a character.

His name is John and he lives quite simply in a sentry-type tiny home he has built for himself and his Husky, Max, guarding his little piece of the Earth near Thunder Bay, Ontario.  He has opened up his property to folks travelling through to stay a night or two for free through an online community called "Boondockers Welcome".  John and Max met us at the gate and John walked me down into the gravel pit where we would spend the night.  I began to wonder what we may have gotten our selves into when the conversation turned to the fact that he had been "stabbed through the heart" by his motorcycle following a head on collision and that he should have died as he would not accept a blood transfusion because that was "not God's way" and wrong to put another's blood into your body since they now have some sort of "vegan" alternative.  For many reasons, I was not in any position to argue.  Despite this, John seemed pretty harmless, was quite pleasant and seemed truly happy to host us and our six dogs.

As the night wore on, my mind drifted to the small sentry-type home and the oddly cheerful, death defying and seemingly religious fellow residing inside.  I looked around and took in the fact that we were in a gravel pit in the middle of nowhere with one way in and one way out.  I listened to the peaceful sound of the silence offered by such remote and off-the-beaten-track places.  I pondered the philosophical question of the tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?  I thought of the many files that I had worked on or was aware of during my RCMP career in which people had been killed while camping in secluded areas, the serial killers that seemed nice and cheerful and religious and their dogs that seemed well fed.  I was certain that we were likely going to be murdered in our sleep and fed to Max as a midnight snack.  Julie assured me that her aunt and her dad were following our location on their phones, which may have given her some comfort but only assured me that they would find the bodies or, at least, our phones.  I slept with one eye open and was grateful that we had five yappy little dogs that would go off at the slightest sound and that Reba slept on the mat just inside the door and could be quite a convincing deterrent to someone coming in unannounced.  If John was coming to knock us off in our sleep, at least we would have a little warning to mount a counter attack.

When the sun came up in the morning I was quite relieved to find that we were all still very alive and well and everyone (except those of us with over-active minds) had a good night sleep.  As we were packing up, John came to say his goodbyes.  It was at this time we learned just how eccentric our host really was . . . 

John explained to us that he was an inventor.  And not only was he an inventor but that every major energy company, as well as Elon Musk, wanted him dead and were actively trying to locate him to put a stop to him developing his invention.  He told us that he had spoken to Mr. Musk and and had told him he was an idiot.  Admittedly, he said that he, himself, was also an idiot but that the difference was that he was an idiot savant.  He claimed to have developed a type of energy panel (like a solar panel) and that he had sold his ideas through the dark web to many large corporations and that battery powered cars and many types of electrical power sources and other energy sources would become obsolete because of it.  Hence the hit out on him from the power companies and Musk himself.  In a very teacher-to-student science classroom sort of way we stood listening as he explained to us that his panels were like a deli sandwich with various layers that drew in and stored energy from all sources, including the rocks that we were standing on.  There was a solar energy layer, a kinetic energy layer, a thermal energy layer, a  layer that collected x-rays and infrared light, and even a lunar layer to collect energy from the moon.  In this way, these panels offered power 24/7 and never ran out of power.  These panels would be in every home and powering every vehicle, including big trucks like ours.  He was going to buy all of the Tesla vehicles from Elon Musk, put him out of business, and was going to install his panels in them.  Of course, he would leave the battery power as a backup in the event that his panel was to fail. I said "well, we will see you in the news one day" to which he replied, "no you won't ever see that because this is top secret!"  Again, who am I to argue with this?

It takes all sorts to make the world go round and as we drove down the tiny dirt path and back out onto the highway I thought to myself, "I will never again take for granted the fact that I don't live in a cave coveting my neighbor thanks to all the inventors out there . . . and John may be an idiot savant, but thank goodness he's not a serial killer".