THE STEAM DREAM

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Surprisingly (or, perhaps, not so surprisingly) one of the all-time favorite articles ever printed in THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS harks clear back to the very first MOTHER printed. The piece, entitled "The Little Car That Could" briefly outlined a method whereby a commune or other group of kindred souls could enjoy both a good life and a good living, building and selling, steam cars on a handcrafted basis. We picked it up from the Berkeley TRIBE where it was first published by a fellow identified only as "MASON" and—whether MASON knows it or not—his little fantasy sparked similar fantasies (we call 'em "steam car dreams") in a whole lot of folk.

Well, for what it's worth, we received a tantalizing glimpse UWE that the steam dream—homemade and handcrafted non-polluting vehicles built and sold from a minifactory out on the homestead somewhere—might still come to pass. For someone, somewhere has designed and built and actually operates a real, genuine steam powered bicycle There it is . . . we've got the photo to prove it.

The only trouble is the that the guy who sent us this photo (and promised to do a test report and construction article for us) has dropped out of sight. What you see here—and the fact that this particular the upper Midwest—is all we know about the machine

Can anyone fill us in with further details? There are a lot of MOTHER readers anxious for the information.