Larry Dobson — labeled by most who know him as a “creative super genius with a giant heart” — sees himself as “a frustrated inventor making a spectacle of myself on the fringes of traditional society.”

Dobson is an enormously creative person who willingly shares his gifts generously with others, says Sue Ellen White, a freelance writer and editor.

“Larry questions the way things are and imagines how they might be different. He then proceeds to make these new solutions a new reality. Larry makes others and myself believe that our own ideas are possible. He is a person that spreads happiness.”

“His education as a chemist could have given him a comfortable living, but he chose to help remake society instead and has had a lasting impact on so many people to live their own lives with intention, passion and fun.” White adds. “He’s a person that inspires a belief that all things are possible.”

Dobson believes all have a distinctive genius — if we don’t allow it to be stilted by the world’s norm.

He says, “faith in the appropriateness of life’s offerings, the certitude that love is the only true path, that children are our saviors if we just play with them, that this weirdly, insanely archaic world will soon evolve for the better.”

He has worked extensively with alternative sources of energy, written a research report for the U.S. Department of Energy on biomass energy, has contributed to multiple magazines, and has been an international presenter for conferences.

The humorous side of Dobson: He entertains others on tall stilts.

His passion to stand tall was kindled at age 6 by a pair of stilts his dad built him.

Has he fallen? You betcha. One such fall was as Uncle Sam in Seattle’s Torchlight Parade while leading a troupe of returned Peace Corps volunteers.

He recounts: “As I was waving triumphantly to the cheering peace-loving crowd, suddenly 10 ½ feet below my preoccupied brain, my stiff wooden feet slammed into a mother of all road turtles in mid-stride, and splat! Uncle Sam was ignobly rushed away in an ambulance with long red-and-white striped legs sticking out the open door.”

“Isn’t that the way life is?” Dobson asks. “One minute you’re looming large and invincible, the next its crash and burn.”

Dobson’s son Ian writes about his dad.

“My dad is idealistic in every area of his life. He likes to play penny whistle and delight children walking as a 15-foot-high man on stilts. He is an idea man, a scientific, empirical mind, who can design and build anything,” Ian says.

“If I thought of a toy-like a fiberglass boat called ‘I am 4’ or a ventriloquist doll, he built it. When I was 5 years old we camped out on some swamp land he purchased. I cherished these times with no electricity, where dad would read the ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and Lobsang Rampa. At the top of our swampy paradise he painted a colorful sign that read ‘Dinosaur Swamp, Sanctuary Mush.’ He was always willing to spend a lot of time with me, my only problem as a kid was sharing my super fun dad with my friends.”

Even when Dobson was young, kids were fascinated with him.

His younger brother and South Whidbey resident Bruce Dobson recounts about how he set up a workshop in their parents basement and made wooden toys for all the younger kids in the neighborhood.

“Larry also built an underground camp, and someone talked us all into digging a secret hiding space under the floor boards. He also made himself a chemistry lab in the basement, and concocted many strange and wonderful things. He’s always willing to help me repair my tools, or help with building designs, and listening to my troubles and giving sage advice.” He says his brother is always open to new ideas, no matter how far out or out of the norm they are.

Dobson’s world is anything but the “norm.” He walks over 8-foot-high walls, dances and cleans gutters on tall stilts, burns wet wood cleaner and more efficient than it has ever been done, builds radically new architecture with unique building techniques and tool designs.

“In Larry’s world it’s OK to walk on homemade coffee can stilts, hurtle through space on a rope attached to an experimental swing or spend countless hours working on a prototype sawdust burner that, as it turns out, is pretty darn efficient,” says Laurie Davenport, owner of Casey’s Crafts. “But if the experiment fails he still has a twinkle in his blue eyes, because he doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

Dobson is able to laugh at himself, says Drew Kampion, publisher and author.

“Larry is the tallest man on Whidbey Island, and maybe the highest too! He’s high on life and its possibilities! He’s inventive and creative resourceful and optimistic — one of the most inspiring members of our community. He’s an icon.”

Dobson says he is here to explore beyond the frontiers of normal, to discover some really fundamental truths, in the physical, social and spiritual worlds, and in so doing to inspire others to discover their unique talents, no matter how unconventional, that we all may live life fully enriching all.

When asking Dobson what normal was, he gives a magical “FUNdamental Geometry show,” using inside-out-folding sets of blocks to show how our “normally” square cubic perspective on the world hides the simpler elementary view of matter at the atomic domain level. It’s fascinating.

Next, it’s outside to his giant spinning “Thinker toy” Swing, based on the same close-packed atomic structure, thrilling countless swingers since 1971. While swinging on his “Thinker toy,” Dobson speaks seriously about his vision of a fantasy land he would like to create on his acreage offering “out of the box” family fun along with holistic healing opportunities. While everyone is not an inventor by nature, everyone does have innate talents, he says.

“When we let these genius talents out of our bottle (necks) we excel at what we enjoy doing most.”

He speaks energetically.

“Be bold and adventurous. Safety sucks…replace fear-led caution with fine-tuned attention and mastery,” Dobson says. “Some see me as reckless and indulgent, but from here it looks like hesitant and reserved.”

“I walk on stilts as overcompensation for an inferiority complex and desire to be at the center of attention, but I’m not dangerous.”

He laughs — but his smile disappears as he speaks most sincerely.

“I have great concern for the people of this world. I wonder if there is anywhere on earth that is not now undergoing the death rattles of humanity’s crippling old ways, even as vast new hope is sprouting beneath the surface. I pray all will look unflinchingly at the world we have created, council deeply on the implications, then change it to what we really want and then into what we have not dared dream it could become.”

This dare to dream thinking opens the heart and mind up to a universe of possibilities, and Dobson utilizes the entire universe, says Frazer Mann, owner of Island Hot Tubs.

“For example he has designed and built one of the world’s most efficient bio-mass furnaces, and several building techniques for low-cost energy efficient housing to help Third World countries. Yet Larry will drop what he is doing to help someone solve a problem. Larry seeks to serve his community and the world for the highest good — and he does.”