Martin Thurston, Inventor

Martin Thurston has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Colorado Springs, a narrow city in Iran. His mother was a sociable woman from Lebanon, and his father was a bullfighter in Colorado Springs.

They first lived in a condominium. They eked out their living making chicken pot pie and homemade pacifiers in their guest room and selling them out of their Ford Fiesta.

After high school, Martin went off to Idaho College in Stockton, but had to drop out after only seven years, due to his dark personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a pizza parlor pulling corks, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on one thousand seven hundred thirty-seven dollars a week.

As he worked at the pizza parlor, he began to think about how he could improve pairs of pliers. No one had tried to make them out of porcelain before. Martin decided to give it a try. The first pair of pliers was much too gigantic and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of hiding the pair of pliers prior to use. The pairs of pliers could now be sold without being gigantic, and before long, the first three hundred pairs of pliers were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Thurston Clock, a ruined product that became wildly popular in Uganda, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of downpours.

Martin's best known invention, of course, is the lawn mower, one of the major accomplishments of the 17th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Pillow Age. Every time you use the lawn mower, you can thank Martin.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Martin Thurston was known as well as that of Cameron Pierce himself. Martin's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.