It's a Dome Way of Living
by
David B. South, Jr.
reprinted from The Monolithic Dome Roundup Fall 1997
Technology
always generates intense interest, like the time I brought a Radio Shack
TRS-80 computer to show my sixth grade class. It only had four kilobytes
of RAM and took four to five minutes to load a single program from a tape
recorder.
It
was a pitiful computer by today's standards, but it was the first computer
most of the class had ever seen. Even my teacher, Mrs. Eames, thought
it was amazing. I was a pretty popular kid that day. It is the same with
domes.
When
I'm asked what I do for a living, I say that I work on computers. That
is usually enough. Sometimes an individual may persist to know more about
my work. When I tell them that I work with Monolithic Domes, the topic
of conversation always shifts entirely to domes.
It
happened the other day in the delivery room. My wife had just barely delivered
our first child, we were worn out, and there we were explaining dome construction
to the doctors. (Amy Elizabeth South was born on October 20, 1997, about
two and half weeks early. I had to delay the Roundup for a couple of weeks.
I hope you understand.)
The
extraordinary interest in domes is not only limited to those who build
domes. It affects everyone who is involved. Customers, users, students,
and surrounding communities become dome experts whenever a project is
built nearby.
The
superintendent at Pattonsburg was delighted when an out-of-state school
board wanted a tour of his dome school under construction. However, after
weeks and months of visitors, the superintendent had to quit giving tours.
He did not have the time for everyone who came by.
Home
owners located near main highways get unexpected visitors wanting to see
their dome house. Mundane storage buildings become news events when they
are domes and the Airform is being inflated. Sometimes a national news
organization may even want to broadcast, "live," from your house during
a hurricane. They did at the "Eye of the Storm" dome home in South Carolina.
While at college, I met a girl who graduated from the first Monolithic
Dome school, Emmett High School in Emmett, Idaho. When I found out, I
said, a little sarcastically, "Oh, you went to that DOME school." Immediately
she defended it. She said it was the best school in the whole state and
she would rather go there than anywhere.
I was amazed how much she knew about the domes. Being part of the Monolithic
Dome phenomenon is more than being part of a new building. It is living
a new way of life, a new technology, and a new kind of thinking. It provokes
others to ask questions and learn more. As with that first computer, we
are at the start of something big. This new technology offers great benefits
to its early participants.
In the long run, it can change the world - one dome at a time.
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