Road Trip

I came to Burlingame, California with my buddy Tom Riel for a visit in 1951.  His sister lived there, and we came out to see her.  Burlingame in 1950 was a different place.  We went down to The Boardwalk in Santa Cruz and it was fabulous.  Tom’s sister took us all over the area.  To me, San Francisco and the indoor salt water pool there were unbelievable.  I’d never swam in salt water and I thought that was unbelievable.  That was south of San Francisco along the coast. It’s not there anymore.  They demolished that.

After I came back to Minneapolis from California, I needed a job so I applied and got a job for Western Electric, and they gave me one week’s training in how to solder wires.  I worked in the downtown telephone office soldering wires on terminal boards, and to do that I would climb up on ladders and I would clip my tool box on the ladder and the ladder would roll down the shelf.

Throughout my entire career, every change that I have gone through was self-instigated.  I was never laid off.  Not even for one day was I ever out of work.  I came close a few times, but never out of work.  I don’t think I ever left a job I didn’t like.  I left several jobs for the reason that I wanted a better opportunity.

Craftsman like my dad

I’ve always been a bit of a craftsman.  Even going way back to my childhood, I remember my dad was a guy who always worked with his hands.  For many years, when he was working as a cement contractor, I worked with him.  The guy was a hard worker, and proud of the fact that he could work hard.  He taught me to do a lot of things.

I’ve always had a passion for designing things.  I think my engineering background is the result.  I like to design things and build ‘em, and I like to argue with people who are building them for me.  It’s always been a passion for me.  I’ve always felt that whatever I wanted to do, I could go down to the library and pick up a book and read about it and learn how to do it.

Sailing

I was always fascinated by sailing, and in particular I was fascinated with catamarans.  Although I had never sailed a boat in my life, I talked my wife into letting me buy a 16’ "Hobie Cat" catamaran sailboat.  I bought a book and read about how to sail.   I had the boat for about 10 years while the kids were growing up.  Those were the years when I was between 40 and 50 and the kids were all small.   For several years we enjoyed family camping and sailing trips to Lake Comanche in the summers, and those trips meant a lot to all of us, including our beloved dog Murphy who somehow never got used to seeing our Hobie Cat sail away without him!