Our Town: Arthur Franklin follows the flow

As part of an ongoing, get-to-know-your-neighbors series, The Sopris Sun interviews folks in and around Carbondale that may not otherwise appear in the paper. We welcome guest features of this sort emailed to news@soprissun.com

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Please introduce yourself.

A: I was born in Hawaii, the eldest of four kids. My father was a squadron leader of pilots aboard aircraft carriers. My mother was a nurse and they met in Hawaii. At the age of five, I was living in San Diego and the first skateboards came out, and I ran around telling everybody I was going to be a skateboard pro in 1965. It took quite a few years, but in my mid-teens I became one of the top 20 skate pros in the world, and I was one of the first to start snowboarding.

You’ve probably seen those snowboards in the history museums — the Tom Sims one — with the yellow plastic and a ski on it and a skateboard on top and bungee cords. I was in Sorels and we were jumping off backcountry 10-foot cliffs in 1977 and ‘78, before there were even steel-edged boards.

I always felt very comfortable in nature, so I was interested in things that related to nature. That brought me into studying geometry, some biology and biochemistry and how that all works with nature and supports the human body. And then I got into creating health care products and created the first energy tables before any of the biomats and that other stuff came out.

Q: What’s all that?

A: They use different harmonics, different frequencies that are transmitted through coils or transmitted through some type of tool that puts those subtle frequencies into the body, kind of like a tuning fork, which then the body recognizes creating coherence and bringing it back to balance.

All of that fascinated me, and I was always running into people that were on similar wavelengths, studying these different things. So, about 20 years ago, I came up with the first multifaceted, crystallized fiber in the world. It’s now used for better sleep, exhaustion from fatigue, increased circulation, oxygen. These are all studies that were done, and it really helps support calming the nervous system which is a big piece for people with stress.

Very soon we’ll be coming out with clothing lines, bedding and other things that will be using this technology. I’ve also been researching for many years how it can be used in agriculture, and I’ve already done my first trials with extraordinary results. 

Q: How did you come to live here?

A: I was very fortunate. I had my daughter when I was 52 and she’s now 10. And she’s a very free spirit and she’s very connected to everyone. She’s all about heart and all about the community.

We decided that we wanted to be away from the West Coast at the time, when she was young. We started searching schools all over the western United States over a two-year period and we came to Carbondale, to the Waldorf School and she looked at me when she got onto the grounds and she said, “Papa, this is it. This is my school.”

It’s going extremely well. She’s learning her third instrument, a viola. She knows she’s an artist, a songwriter. She’s been claiming that since age five. 

Q: Any recommendations for our readers?

A: Oh sure, “The Big Thing Effect” is a book that just got released by a local gentleman, Jeff Patterson. My dreams are coming true because of his influence on me and being able to get out of my own way.

I find yoga very helpful, of course there are phenomenal teachers in the Valley, incredible people. I’ve also been weight training with Sandro Torres at Custom Body Fitness for 19 months. Weight lifting takes it to a whole other level in the way it supports the body, the bones.

I think the more live food we can eat has a huge influence on our life force and life condition. There are books that talk about juicing and how it helps build the immune system. My biggest influence was my mother around nutrition and homeopathy.

Bringing it all back full circle to my skateboarding days, I had a wallpaper steamer fall on my ankle and boiling steam water whip my sock off with my skin. My ma and two other nurses used color therapy, essential oils, aloe vera — these kinds of things — for three weeks, day and night. And in three weeks, I had enough skin back on my ankle and I won a national skateboard competition.