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His first whirligig, which he built while he was overseas during WWII, was stolen. He came home from the war and married Jean, the mother of their three children. He farmed and moved houses with trucks before opening the machine shop that eventually became whirligig central. He started on his first whirligig at home in the early 1980s and spent about 10 years building other large ones. "People would drive by here every day to see what I was working on
-- old, crazy man," he told AP. Buyers included a shopping center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Four of them were also put on display at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Last month, the North Carolina House approved a measure making whirligigs the state's official folk art. The whirligigs are known as outsider art, works created by someone without formal arts training. Simpson didn't have an engineering degree, either, but that didn't stop him from constructing a motorcycle with a bicycle and a stolen motor when he was an Air Force staff sergeant on Saipan during WWII. He also built tow trucks to move houses. In an interview last summer, Simpson told AP he was conflicted about the park in his honor. He said he knew he could no longer care for his creations if they stayed at home with him, but he felt lonely without them. "I just hope I live to see it," he said of the park.
[Associated
Press;
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