Something Big

Quiet Echo — “Something Big” Host: Chloe Papadakis | Cedar Valley News | September 17, 2026 Chloe, who makes things for a living, confesses the secret of people who make things: nearly all of us are quietly waiting for a permission which is never going to come. Then she tells the true story of Simon Rodia, the untrained immigrant tile setter who spent thirty-three years, alone and by hand, building the Watts Towers in Los Angeles out of bent scrap steel and other people’s broken dishes, seashells, and soda-bottle glass, seventeen towers, the tallest near a hundred feet, for no buyer, no audience, and no reason he could name except a wish to do something big. When the city tried to pull them down with ten thousand pounds of force, the cable snapped and the towers stood. A warm, bracing reflection on why you do not need permission, training, a patron, or even a reason to make a beautiful thing, and on the courage simply to begin. Write to us. What is the thing you have in mind to make, and what permission are you waiting for? Send a letter to our Letters to the Editor page: https://bit.ly/40p8jKy Get Cedar Valley News free, every morning. Sign up here: https://publicationconsultants.aweb.page/daily-cedar-valley-news Quiet Echo is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series, written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, and Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. While Chloe and her town are fictional, the story is real. Sabato “Simon” Rodia (born in Italy, died 1965), an immigrant tile setter with no formal training in art, architecture, or engineering, single-handedly built the Watts Towers in Los Angeles between 1921 and 1954, working by hand without scaffolding, bolts, or drawn plans. He shaped salvaged steel and embedded found objects, including broken pottery, tile, seashells, and glass, into 17 interconnected structures, the tallest just under 100 feet. He gave the property away in 1955 and left. In 1959, the city deemed the towers unsafe; an engineering load test applied roughly 10,000 pounds of force to a tower, the test cable failed, and the towers stood. They are now a National Historic Landmark. Sources: the Watts Towers of Simon Rodia State Historic Park and standard accounts of Rodia’s life and work.