Kurt Steiner is 54 now, his long, gray hair whipping in that familiar wind on a summer Saturday morning. He crouched down on a spit of land between Lake Erie and Twelve Mile Creek, sorting through the endless Devonian shale. He felt each rock’s weight in his palm, rubbed his thumb along its surface, then tossed a few in an orange milk crate. He stood with one rock and faced the creek, digging in with muscular legs. He cocked back his right arm and pivoted as if he were drawing power from the ground. Then his arm came around like a whip, sending the rock skipping across the surface until it spun into a muddy bank 75 yards away.