101 YEARS OLD AND STILL DISCOVERING NEW HEROES...
TODAY I wish to share with you my discovery of an unsung hero of the recent past. He was a man several decades ahead of his time whose ideas are only just beginning to be appreciated and clearly deserve to be better known.
John Hoke (1925-2011) was an American who worked in Suriname as a communications resources specialist for the United States Agency for International Development and has been described as a cigar-chomping chap who liked nothing better than donning a pith helmet and venturing out into the rain forest to see what he could find then tinkering to see what he could invent with his findings.
His rain forest trips led to his writing of children’s books on snakes, turtles and sloths for his mother’s publishing company. He is said to have become enamoured of sloths after one bit him in Suriname. Yet his sloth passion was partly responsible for his being sacked by his employers in 1962, although possibly his attempts to get the US government to finance, at great cost, his project to develop a solar-powered boat may also have played a part in his dismissal.
Before Hoke left the Agency, he was quizzed by the Committee on Government Operations about his extra-curricular activities and asked about any paid writing he had done.
“While I was in Suriname,” he said “as a recreational endeavour, I spent a lot of time prowling around in the bush and I studied an animal. I won’t bore you with the details of the type of animal but I did a study on this animal because it is not well-known.”
Later in the interview, he was pressed for more details on this animal and the following exchange took place:
Mr HOKE: “All right. I discovered an animal there that I could find no writing on. This was the three-toed South American sloth. It is a small animal that people pay no attention to, and for good reason. It does not do anything.” Mr HARDY: “What is a sloth?” Mr HOKE: “It is a slow-moving animal that has no economic importance…”
Mr HARDY: “This does not belong to the frog family, does it?”
Mr HOKE: “No. It is a mammal. It lives in the trees and it is a rather endearing creature.”
The conversation then moved on to Hoke’s ideas for alternative energy including solar power and his invention of an electricity generator powered by squirrels on treadmills. Apparently a squirrel on a treadmill can generate enough electricity to power a radio and 20 squirrels could be enough for a basic domestic energy supply.
Hoke’s ultimate plan seems to have been to pilot a solar-powered boat down the rivers of South America to meet the indigenous tribes and teach them how to build their own squirrelpowered generators as energy sources.
Back in Washington, he wished to transform the roofs of the city into gardens and made himself a re-chargeable electric car. Fifty years later, both these innovatory ideas are beginning to be appreciated. Squirrel power as a cure for global warming, however, is still ahead of its time.