Michael Barthelmes, family friend

I have many wonderful memories of Steve and they are all overflowing with the same spontaneous creativity that so many people are describing here, but one stands out to me in particular. I was 8 or 9 years old and Steve stopped by our house in Wisconsin as he was passing through. I think his pickup truck was equipped with hoops like a covered wagon, but that’s another story…

Steve quickly found an old rake with bamboo prongs in our garage and began using his pocket-knife to slice the bamboo into thin strips. He helped my brother and I bind the strips together with string, and we lashed some scraps from a plastic grocery bag to the strips to create several tiny kites! We spent the afternoon perfecting the process until we could fly our kites consistently, and even decorate them with tails and the like.

I remember that day with the clarity of a child’s memory: the blue plastic bag we used for the kite, the flaking red paint on the picnic table where we worked, and the thrill of success as the wind caught the kites and carried them up. I share this memory because I think it encapsulates

Steve’s habit of finding beauty in the ordinary and taking something as mundane as an old rake and turning it into something wonderful. That’s who Steve was.