Category: Random

And none have to do with direction . . .

What’s up?

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In the 1960s I worked at RCA with a man (Fred Weubker) who had earlier worked for the RCA Service Co. That unit went into homes to repair tv’s and radios. Usually that meant simply replacing a burned out tube.

One day he was in the home of A rich owner of a jewelry store chain, installing an antenna. The owner was on the phone, yelling at someone at channel 5 tv in Philly, saying if that if they changed announcers for his commercials, he was no longer going to advertise on that station. The announcer was Dick Clark, and he was going to California to do American Bandstand.

Fred also told me of another guy who, after fixing a tv, would set the vertical hold control to get the picture to roll. He would then ask the lady owner to tell him which image was best, and then stop it from rolling She felt pleased to be part of the repair. But of course you never heard of a vertica hold control – they went out decades ago.

I have a long history of starting something and not finishing.

In high school, years, I built a telescope for which I ground and finished an 8″ mirror. I briefly considered astronomy as a career, but electronics, especially television cameras, succeeded in holding my interest.

When I graduated from RPI and went to work for RCA, my boss Chuck Shelton invited me to join him and Aaron Boyd in owning a Stinson Voyager airplane. I took lessons and almost finished my license – I needed only to pass a flight test with a CAA inspector. I did one last long flight to Maryland. Could not find anyone to refuel me for a while. Finally headed back to Echelon Air Field. The sun was setting. I radioed my instructor and ask if I could continue or should land at Vineland. He said I could com on in – he would circle abouve the field with headlights on so I could find the field. I found the field and then him. Made a fine landing. Found the office full of people looking like they were waiting for rhth last bomber from Germany, The CAA man was there, too. I did not want to face him for a flight teest (foolish, I hold have) so I put it off. Then won the fellowship for grad school and quit my share of the plane. Never finished the license.

I took up pottery making after retiring. I wanted to make pottery the southwest Indian way, had coiled with no wheel. I bought a kiln and clay and made several pots. I had a hard time decorating them with good symmetry but had fun for a while. Then I moved on to other things and gave the kiln to our friend Ruth Rooks.

I collected southwest Indian pots for a while. I have about 50 stored away. I tried to give them to the Peabody Essex Museum, but the curator said they want big pots that exhibit well, not my small ones. I have Maria Martinez, Lucy Lewis, and Nampeyo pots, and about 40 or more by Alice Dashee, a Hopi potter that I visited and who made a pot just for me.

In Massachusetts, my business partner Jim Newkirk, an accomplished sailor, suggested we buy a 43′ sailboat. We did, and Sharon and I enjoyed sailing out of Marion MA for several years, and I did several Bermuda races (more on this elsewhere). Then Jim and I arted company and I sold out of the boat.