Bob Stodola remembers his dad:
My father, were he still alive, would have been 100 years old today. I think about him often. Like me (or, I guess, I, like him), he had a fine appreciation for technology, and whenever I use my smartphone as a flashlight, or get into my electric car, I always think: “I wish Dad could be here to see this!” He would have loved every gadget, buying things online, text messages, etc. He would have been the guy with wires running all over his car connecting every gizmo, and a heads-up display in front of him.
When I was growing up, his study was packed with every form of ham radio equipment (only half of which was plugged in at any given time), and we were the only house on the block (perhaps in town!) with a 40 foot antenna in the middle of our back yard and a long wire running to the roof of the house. I was never consulted on the location of the miniature wood Eiffel Tower, so our football games needed special ground rules for “radio interference”. This was not a major problem as the teams were usually me and my dog vs. a friend or two, and my dog was not a great passer or receiver.
Professionally, my Dad was a radio engineer. His degree was in Electrical Engineering, but he generally viewed himself first as a radio engineer, and second, as an engineer of all things in which he was interested. I know - no one in my family could NOT know - that before I was born, he was chief scientist of the team that first bounced radar off the moon. Still, I don’t recall he ever talked about it with me or in my presence - the little he discussed about his work (much of which was classified by the time I was old enough to pay attention) was about things he was working on and interested in. Though I know he very much appreciated the awards and recognition he periodically got, he had more fun figuring out how to trap a mouse or solve some little problem with the furnace than from a lot of the work he did for a living. He loved gadgets, loved making them, and loved improving on them. His name was on 20 patents (two more than I have - so far :) ), but the one he talked about most was the thermostat he designed for the house. One I never heard him discuss, but I found most amusing, was getting pointers in floor and wall tiles to point in the right direction.
I think my Dad would be a little disappointed with the here and now - gadgets and the internet notwithstanding. He might not be sad about the privatization of the space program, but I know he would be heartsick at the dwindling resources - and associated diminished consistency - it is getting. He’d be thrilled that I was driving an electric car, but I think he expected most people would by now and underestimated the industrial pressures that have suppressed the technology. He was a great believer in democracy, and though I viewed him as slightly left of center, he saw himself in the role of an activist liberal, and he expected the country to inevitably follow a progression of - well - progressiveness. So I think he would be frustrated by the ineptness of the current federal government to get anything done, and pained by the rising disparity in wealth and overwhelming power of the rich to control elections.
Well, Happy Birthday, Dad! If you could only see what I wrote this on!
Bob Stodola
Flourtown, Pennsylvania
31 October 2014
(back)
My father, were he still alive, would have been 100 years old today. I think about him often. Like me (or, I guess, I, like him), he had a fine appreciation for technology, and whenever I use my smartphone as a flashlight, or get into my electric car, I always think: “I wish Dad could be here to see this!” He would have loved every gadget, buying things online, text messages, etc. He would have been the guy with wires running all over his car connecting every gizmo, and a heads-up display in front of him.
When I was growing up, his study was packed with every form of ham radio equipment (only half of which was plugged in at any given time), and we were the only house on the block (perhaps in town!) with a 40 foot antenna in the middle of our back yard and a long wire running to the roof of the house. I was never consulted on the location of the miniature wood Eiffel Tower, so our football games needed special ground rules for “radio interference”. This was not a major problem as the teams were usually me and my dog vs. a friend or two, and my dog was not a great passer or receiver.
Professionally, my Dad was a radio engineer. His degree was in Electrical Engineering, but he generally viewed himself first as a radio engineer, and second, as an engineer of all things in which he was interested. I know - no one in my family could NOT know - that before I was born, he was chief scientist of the team that first bounced radar off the moon. Still, I don’t recall he ever talked about it with me or in my presence - the little he discussed about his work (much of which was classified by the time I was old enough to pay attention) was about things he was working on and interested in. Though I know he very much appreciated the awards and recognition he periodically got, he had more fun figuring out how to trap a mouse or solve some little problem with the furnace than from a lot of the work he did for a living. He loved gadgets, loved making them, and loved improving on them. His name was on 20 patents (two more than I have - so far :) ), but the one he talked about most was the thermostat he designed for the house. One I never heard him discuss, but I found most amusing, was getting pointers in floor and wall tiles to point in the right direction.
I think my Dad would be a little disappointed with the here and now - gadgets and the internet notwithstanding. He might not be sad about the privatization of the space program, but I know he would be heartsick at the dwindling resources - and associated diminished consistency - it is getting. He’d be thrilled that I was driving an electric car, but I think he expected most people would by now and underestimated the industrial pressures that have suppressed the technology. He was a great believer in democracy, and though I viewed him as slightly left of center, he saw himself in the role of an activist liberal, and he expected the country to inevitably follow a progression of - well - progressiveness. So I think he would be frustrated by the ineptness of the current federal government to get anything done, and pained by the rising disparity in wealth and overwhelming power of the rich to control elections.
Well, Happy Birthday, Dad! If you could only see what I wrote this on!
Bob Stodola
Flourtown, Pennsylvania
31 October 2014
(back)