Willno

Way back in my early high school days, before we were old enough to work, my friend Sonny Mundale and I would go to the State Fair when it was on in late July. We had very little money, but youthful agility, and fences did not keep us out.

We would look at all the free exhibits, and watch the free midway attractions. For a couple of years the free midway attraction was "Willno, the human cannon ball." He had a large cannon mounted on a trailer. When he preformed once every hour, He would come out in his "Cannon Ball" suit of a canvas coverall painted with aluminum pain, and a football helment, also painted aluminum. With all the appropriate fanfare, he would climb up on the cannon truck, and go through all the preliminaries that seemed necessary for a human cannon ball before climbing up to enter the cannon feet first. They would then raise the cannon to the exact angle for him to land in the far end of the net set up a reasonably good distance away. When all was ready, the cannoneers would shout "Are you ready Willno?" From inside the cannon would come a muffled shout "Yes" and BOOM would go the cannon, and Willno would come flying out, his arms out in front of him. He would tuck his head down and turn over length wise to land in the net on his back. After a few bounces in the net, he would get on his feet and walk as one has to walk in a safety net to the edge of the net and swing down to drop to the ground. All this was while the audience cheered.

We watched this every firing. It was free.

One day as we were watching, when Willno slid down into the cannon an the cannon was raised to firing position, and the cannoneers shouted "Are you ready Willno?" From in side the cannon came a muffled "NO." BOOM went the cannon. And Willno came flying out arms akimbo trying to get into landing position and landing on the net not in his usual position. After the momentum bounces, he got to his feet and limped to the edge of the net and swung down favoring his left leg, trying to make the best of it for his bows.

NO BODY LISTENS!

I'm a stranger

In my life as a field engineer in the Gear department I was in cities around the country, and around the world, where I had never been before. I would fly there and the local reps would pick me up at the airport and take me to the job. After work they would drop me off at a hotel, and say "Boy, we have heard about you, you are going to have a good time tonight." Yeah right, I do not know where I am at. So I'm going to have a good time? Where?"

Walking down the street, it invariably happened that a car would pull up and ask for directions, like how do I get to Elm Street? Naturally they assumed that somebody walking down the street lived there. I would reply "Sorry, I am a stranger here myself." They would look at me as if I would not tell them the time of the day. This happened so often that I developed a complex, and dreaded when it would happen next.

So, when in Paris, while walking in the Place de la Opera, a car pulled up along side me with the passenger window rolled down and the girl driving leaned over and asked me "Voleu vous faire l'amour avec moi?" I was totally confused and replied "Sorry, I am a stranger here myself." She got the most puzzled expression on her face, and then asked me in English "Do you wish to make love with me?" Well, it was now my turn to be flabbergasted, and my face assumed just as an amazed expression. There was nothing more for us to say, and she drove on.

Since then, I have been confused in many languages, including English.

Life as a Factory and Field Engineer

When working in Lynn Gear Engineering as a Factory and Field Engineer, which meant I was the one sent when field reps were stuck and I was sent out to solve the problem, if I could. Actually, my endeavours were very successful.

One time, I was sent to Indianapolis to examine a gear driving an exciter connected to a large central station turbo-generator. The turbo-generator had been tripped off the line and coasted to a stop. The problem was that in designing the power station they did not include a back up steam driven oil pump. After all this was where the electricity came from, and electric oil pumps were all that were needed. Unfortunately, when the station got tripped off the line, there was no electric power available in the power house, and the large steam turbine coasted to a stop with out any oil for the bearings. This caused the Babbitt in the bearings to melt, and the rotor dropped to the steel shells of the bearings, where it rolled around wiping out all the inter stage packing rings and totally damaging the shaft journals that were now spinning on on steel.

So when my boss sent me there, he said to stop in Philadelphia first to see what the problem the field engineers there were having with the tooth contact patterns on a main reduction gear they were installing on a navy destroyer under construction. They had been trying to solve this problem over the telephone with my boss for over a week.

When I got there, they met me at the airport and drove me to the shipyard. I could not go aboard the destroyer under construction because my navy security clearance had not been sent ahead, and we would have to wait until it arrived. This seemed silly to me since I had clearance to go on board nuclear submarines. Well, since it was noon we decided to go out for lunch. One of the young GE engineers working on the gear asked, "We do not have the bearing cap on the forward low speed gear bearing, do you think it makes any difference?" I replied, "We do not have to think, put a dial indicator on the shaft and we can see."

We went to lunch and when we got back my clearance had arrived, so we all went down to the ship. They had set up the dial indicator on the shaft. So I said run the turning gear in the direction to push the gear down into the lower half of the bearings and while doing this set the dial indicator to zero. Now stop the turning gear, and run it in the other direction, which would lift the gear out of its bearings. When we did this, the forward journal lifted .070" out of the bearing. Right then, I became the most useless person in the engine room, and I made my way back to their office alone.

Morgan Sibold was there, he was working on a nuclear powered merchant ship under construction. Morgan and I were old friends, and when I came in he said "Dave, they threw you in a barrel of s***, and you came up with a Gold Watch!"

So I made my way alone out to the airport and was off to Indianapolis.

Such was one incident in my life as a Factory and Field Engineer.

A little more Palermo

Another incident from Sicily.

One Sunday, the workers from Milan and I decided to do a little sightseeing along the North coast of Sicily. We rented a car, they rented it, and I paid, they drove.

We headed West along the coast, through small towns that had been there for centuries. The buildings were built mostly of stone. Many of these villages were fishing villages. The fishing boats are colorfully painted. And all have a pole on the back with a lantern for attracting the fish at night.

In one village there was a magnificent stone cathedral. It looked as if it had been there for centuries. We went inside. It was afternoon, but Mass was being served. The men from Milan all genuflected, and we stood in the back to not disturb anyone. There were beautiful paintings on the ceilings, marble statues along the Altar. We heard a commotion behind us, and looking around, saw it was a tour group, with a guide explaining in a subdued voice, yet loud enough to be heard by the group, in five subsequent languages, the points of interest of the church.

The tour group proceeded along the left aisle, with the guide pointing out the statues representing the stations of the cross. And to observe the paintings on the ceiling. When they got to the front of the church, they crossed along the communion rail, the guide genuflected as he crossed in front of the alter, which the tour group did not.

They then proceeded out the left wall, the guide keeping up his explanations, as they left the church.

When we got outside, the guys were all astounded at what we had just witnessed. Never having seen anything like this.

Cold milk

Now this is not all I have to tell about my time in Palermo, but completing work on the turbo-generator, it was time to go back home. So I flew to Rome to start the journey back home.

At the Rome airport while waiting for the next flight to Paris, I had lunch at the airport. Ordering my lunch from a waiter who spoke very good English, I included a glass of cold milk. I heard him call the order to the cooks. including " A glass of cold milk." As I was eating I discovered I had gotten a glass of "calda"
milk. Calda in Italian is warm. Some times you just have to accept the misunderstandings between languages.

Sally's uncle

Sally, a friend of Italian descent, who grew up in East Boston had an interesting tale to tell. Her uncle who grew up in the family home, which included grandparents, with both English and Italian being spoken there, went to Italy to visit the family. While visiting, on the first meeting, as time passed he felt an urge to go to the bathroom, so he asked "Dove bagouse?" His hosts asked what he wanted as they did not understand him. "Dove bagouse?" " DOVE BAGOUSE" becoming more agitated as urgency set in. (In Italian Dove is pronunced doh-veh").
They said speak English as they did not know what he wanted. "Where is the bathroom?" he said. "Oh, the Water Closet, it is right in there."

Upon his return, they tried to figure out the meaning of "dove bagouse." Finally it dawned on them that this was Grandfather's pronunciation of "Back house."

Salt and toothpicks

Still at the Pont Hotel in Palermo.



On the table in the lower level restaurant there was a small cut glass dish low and flat in front with salt in it, and raised in the back with toothpicks there. Now this is the only place I have seen this type of dish. My reaction was, this was for a pinch of salt, and when needed a toothpick.



Just now, when trying to find a picture of one for this blog, I saw some other salt dishes which came with a small spoon for the salt. In Palermo the table setting did not include a spoon of this type, and it never dawned on me to use a teaspoon. So I had a pinch of salt on my meal. Which in Palermo did not seem all that unsanitary.

A boy hit by a car

One Sunday afternoon in Palermo, while having a cold drink at a sidewalk cafe, a delivery boy from a coffee shop was hit by a car in the middle of a six lane thoroughfare while delivering a coffee order across this street.

Now, unfortunately this is not a rare occurrence, but this one had its own twists and turns.

When the police arrived, they were the wrong ones. There are three uniformed branch's of police in Italy. One is the local city police. Then there is what I would call the equivalent of our State Police Troopers. And then there are the National Police. All branches are on the streets in the cities. The next branch of police to arrive were still the wrong ones. Finally the correct branch arrived and began the investigation.

The owner of the coffee shop was questioned because the boy was only 15 years old, and you have to be 16 to work. The coffee shop owner said the boy was not an employee. He was just a kid that showed up at the shop an hour ago wanting work. So the owner gave him a white apron and put him to work, no questions asked.

The driver of the car was not Italian, he was an European sailor off a merchant ship in the harbor. He was driving a car he had rented for the day.

He had rented the car from an auto repair shop that had the car in for repairs. The owner had put the car in for repair, and knew nothing about it being rented for the day.

Well, this is all I learned about the affair, but, I suspect the lawyers had a field day with this one.

Hello Joe

When in Palermo, on the weekends, I would sometimes walk over to the business district to see what was in the shop windows. I always followed the same path. And as I passed by a bar along the way, a fellow in a small group siting outside on wooden chairs the sidewalk would always say "Hello Joe." And sometimes in the shopping district a man walking by would say "Hello Joe."

One afternoon on the way back to the hotel, Passing the bar and "Hello Joe" I stopped to visit. "Hello Joe" offered me a chair and said "Sit down." I did and the conversation began. He asked where I was from, and when I said Lynn, Mass, He perked up and said he used to live in Pawtuckett, RI.

As the conversation progressed he raved about how good America was, and how bad Sicily was. After quite a bit of this, I asked, if Sicily was so bad, why didn't he go back to America. He looked at me with an expression of "how dumb can you be" and said he knocked off a guy on orders from the mob. They didn't have enough on him to send him to jail, so they deported him.

Well, the visit didn't last too much longer, and I went on to the hotel.

After this I was always very respectful when passing somebody on the sidewalk and he said "Hello Joe"

Targa Floria

One weekend while in Palermo, an Englishman arrived at the Pont Hotel. He had come to watch the Targa Floria auto race. These were sports cars racing over a 26 mile course on the local roads which were blocked off for the race. Carol Shelby was there with his race cars, and Dan Gurney was driving a car in the race.

I was not familiar with the race, but it sounded interesting, so I went with him to see the race. He had rented a car, and we were off to the races.

With a 26 mile race, you can just see a quarter mile section of the race from your location. So we found a spot on a hillside, and watched the the cars race past every 15 minutes or so. Seeing a nice grassy spot on a hillside nearby, we moved over there to improve our view.

We had just settled down, when we heard a loud shout "ANDIAMO!" Looking around, I saw a large shotgun lying across the lap of an angry looking man up the hill behind us, who was sitting on folding metal lawn chairs with I presume his two grown sons.

We shouted "escuzi" and promptly moved out of his line of sight. We did not stop to ask the translation of "andiamo."

So a new word was added to my vocabulary.

Language 2

To continue with my travails in trying to communicate, I was sent to Spain to work.
Arriving in Madrid, I was met by the American rep for GE who said he was going to send me North in a taxi cab,to where I was going to work. I was to work with American GE field reps installing a large steam turbine-generator. I asked why I could not rent a car and drive up there. He said an American GE salesman did that, and going through a small town, with very narrow streets, which were laid out before the age of automobiles, he hit a young girl and killed her. This caused a big problem, but not as big a problem as it would have caused if it had been a boy. {Equality of the sexes had not reached there yet,}

So I went North to the mountain region near the North coast of Spain in the back seat of a taxi. Getting there and meeting the three GE men, they took me to an apartment house where I was to stay. And they told me to arrange for a maid to cook my meals. These guys were not very civil, which was surprising to me, as most GE men were very friendly.

They cautioned me, that if I was invited to someone's house for dinner, You did not peel an orange with your fingers, you had to use a knife and fork. I decided then and there. if the occasion arose I would forgo the orange.

Easter was in my second week there, and we GE men went down to Madrid for the holiday. The lead GE field rep had a rented car and we rode down in it.

Sightseeing included a visit to the bull fights, where no Matadors were killed, only the bulls. Actually the fights are very one sided against the bulls. After all the Matadors run the show, not the bulls. This was on Saturday, we were cautioned not to order steak on Sunday. Since it was Saturday we ordered steak that night. The consume was made at the table. They brought a silver plated duck press to the table. Into which they put a large piece of meat and squeezed out the juices which was then warmed over an alcohol burner.

In Spain, I learned that bread was "pan" and butter was "mantequilla."

The next week I was sent to Palermo, Sicilly, to assist in inspecting a large steam turbo-generator, which John Dubille had installed years before. He was the first GE field rep I had worked with. So I was redilly accepted. I got a room at the Pont Hotel. the first evening I went down to the restraunt in the basement. The high priced restraunt was on the Ground floor.

Picking up and opening the meneu, which was in Italian and French, on the left was "Antipasto," no problem. The first entre was "Salami e burro."

My heart sank, what was I letting my self in for. It was three day's later I learned this was "salami and butter." Burro, the animal, in Italian is assinna.

Language

Today I was thinking about some of my misadventures in trying to communicate with others. Now I am not meaning when I recite "Jabberwoky" which starts out with "Twas brillig", which of course means mid afternoon, {the time of broiling dinner in Australia} "and the slithy Toves {which everyone knows means the slim lithe Toves} were gyering and gimbiling in the wabe, {the little rascals were rolling and tumbling down the grassy hillside}. I will not run on with this, as I am sure you all understand.

You see, I grew up in Montana, and after College I followed my brothers into the Navy {there was a war on}, I was was sent to Notre Dame for my "Ninety Day Wonder Course" which only lasted 60 day's {as you can see we were smart for our age}. There I was exposed to the strange languages of New England and Georgia which being adept at juggling I soon understood. Then off to the West Coast where they speak American.

Then off to the Pacific, Hawaii where everybody speaks "Aloha" And on to Japan. Where the word for "Hello" is "Ohio" to which my roommate Hickman would respond "No Minnesota" which is where he was from. Now Japanese is nothing like American, so we both did the best we could with a mix of Japanese and American.


Then off to New England where I soon learned the East Boston accent from a neighbor, Terry, and the Brahman from the Back Bay. Burlesqueze at the Old Howard Atheneum,{where I also honed my drawing skills}. Actually New Englandese is much like American, except for the Accent.

While there, work took me to many strange lands, not all of them in the USA. The first venture was to Kuwait, when I flew across thee Atlantic in an upper berth in the DC6. And where I was stunned to see so many Nuns walking barefoot alongside the road. Later I learned this was the women's dress, and was not a Habit.

This was my first exposure to English. The language of the British Iles. I was invited to go to a "Tumbollo" Game one evening. It turned out to be Bingo, But with the Limey accent I soon realized it was " Tumbollo". I didn't understand a word.

On the way back home I landed in Paris for an overnight stay. Where I found out the Gendarmes would only speak French. If you wanted to get directions you had to ask a woman. There I met Hans, who was from Michigan, But was originally from Austria. He escaped from the Russian domination to free Europe, and to France, before being hired by a US Oil company. We Hans, and an American who worked for Westinghouse, who was looking for a mounted butterfly shop, and I went out to find the butterflies. It was a fun experience since Hans was very witty and joked with the women sidewalk push cart vendors.

We gave up on the trying to find a butterfly on the streets of Paris, and went sightseeing to the Eiffel Tower. As we were going up in the elevator everybody was pointing out churches and buildings, and feeling left out I pointed to the Sacre Curre and asked Hans if that was the Vatican. He replied yes, that was the Vatican and pointing to the river Seine he said that was the Tiber. He was naming all sorts of places in Rome. It became very quite in the elevator as Hans explained that the Tower was built with the Marshall Plan Money, but the French were not very good builders, which is why it looks so old.

On the way down, we were quiet, standing jammed in the crowd, just in front of us were two couples, one American and the other English, the men discussing where was a good place to eat. The American was naming various restaurants as being excellent. The Englishman's natural pride overcame him and he proclaimed the best restaurant in the world was in the Savoy Hotel in London. This was a proclamation, and there was an awkward silence. Hans broke the silence be saying "In America we have 50 restaurants as good as the Savoy." The Englishman drew himself up to his full 6'3" and looking down at 5'7" Hans stated, "I HAVE BEEN TO AMERICA, WHERE?"
"Howard Johnson's", Hans replied. Luckily we had reached the landing and we got out of the elevator as fast as we could.

That night we went to the Lido where the ski expedition Hans was on had reservations.
I flew back to Boston the next day.

This is enough for now as my fingers are tired from typing, and your eyes must be tired from reading. However this is only the start of my misadventures.

Tools of my mathematical work

These are the Mathematical tools that I have been exposed to in my days from grade school to today.



In grade school, a yellow wood pencil, I don't have one anymore, and a piece of paper. Which I do have. The Lennes book of the multiplication tables. Chalk and the classroom blackboard.



In high school, a comptometer, a mechanical calculating machine that could do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and with difficulty division.



In college a slide rule, in its leather case with the metal ring which attached to leather strap around my belt, this was the holster in which I carried my slipstick. This took care of the multiplication and division. Adding and Subtracting required the use of the grey matter.



When working at GE in the 1960's, I used a Merchant mechanical calculator.



In 1972, in San Francisco, on noon hour, while walking down the street, in a shop window, I saw an electronic Sharp ELSI 8 hand held electronic 4 function calculator. I was working on a ship's lineshaft problem, using the office mechanical calculator, which had an internal fault, that sometimes it would keep running and the only way to stop it was to pull the electric plug.

So I went in and bought one, for $300, it did the 4 functions +-x & divide. If I wanted one memory it was $1oo more. When I got back to the office and showed it to my boss, he said "You bought that! I'm not paying for it!"



Later HP came out with a handheld 41, and when I saw it, I bought one. Since then HP kept bringing out new models, all at $300, and I kept buying them. In the 1980's they came out with the HP 11 and HP12 models. These were $99 each, and I bought 4 of them. One for me and one for each of my daughters. These calculators are still in use, and HP is still selling basically the same calculators today, for about $70.



In the 1980's HP came out with a portable computer with a single line of display that you drew a foot long 1/4" wide piece of plastic recording tape through to save your work. Of course I bought one.



Then Radio Shack had a laptop computer that ran the Deskmate Operating System. Of course I got one. That was before IBM came out with the Personal Computer and got Bill Gates to supply the operating system, DOS, Disk Operating System, which he bought from a guy in Seattle for $50,000.



Then Office Max opened a store in Great Falls, and they had a HP Computer which, it is a given that I had to have. Then a used laptop I bought from a guy who advertised it in the paper.



And after a few more laptops, I saw an ad for an ASUS Eee PC netbook. This I had to have, and now am using my second and third ASUS netbooks.



So that is the history of my mathematical adventures.

My youth

Wenesday 8-12-09

Today I'll tell a little about my youth, grade and middle school ages.

When I was young we boys all had pocket knives, plain, and Boy Scout, which had various blades, can opener, hole boring blade, large and small cutting blades, corkscrew etc.

A lot of summer time was spent playing mumbley peg, a game played on hands and knees and throwing a knife into the lawn by the proscribed motions. The first routine was with the knife laying on the backs of the fingernails with the 4 fingers closed into a fist and the thumb extended. You held your hand palm up with the knife blade pointed toward the thumb, and with a circular moition threw the knife at the ground, the object being to stik the knife blade in the ground.

This first action was the easiest. The next was to do the same with the left hand, There was a series of motions which followed, including putting the knife point on your knee, with your forefinger on the other end of the knife and flipping the knife to stick it in the ground.

The game followed a reutine in which the knife had to be stuck in the ground from various positions on the body, and when you missed, the knife did not stick, it was the next boy's turn. I can not remember any of us being cut.

The other use of the knives was whittling, we cut up a lot of wood. One of the projects we all did was to carve a ball in a cage out of a piece of wood.

Thanks to my mother, she saved one. I knew nothing about this until we were going through her mementos that were at Jack's house after Jack passed away.

This is my first attempt at including a photo, so forgive me if it is not in the right place.

Second time

Well, the first try seemed to be acceptable, so here goes again.

As time goes by, which it does, whether we like it or not, kids games change. My dad threw tops, and since nobody today knows what that is, I'll explain, to the best of my memory. The tops were wood cone shapes with the point of a two pointed sharp nail sticking out of the pointed end. They would wrap a strong string around the top, starting at the small end, and wind it around until they got near the top. They had tied a loop in the end of the string, which they put around their middle finger, and then threw the top to the ground and yanking up on the string set the top spinning.

Then the next boy would throw his top at the one spinning on the ground
trying to split the first top with the nail in his top. Then the next boy would throw. I have tried to throw these tops, but never at another top. Some times the string would catch on the top and when you yanked on it, and the top came flying back at you.

But one thing my dad never showed me was how to spin the dice out on a blanket so that the numbers he had up, stayed up. He never mentioned this skill but, one time when he came back from a company trip to Butte he gave back all the expense money the company had advanced him, and when questioned how he had not spent the expense money on the hotel and meals, he said there was a dice game, and he didn't need the company money.

He grew up in Misouri, and was in the infantry overseas in France in the trenches in WW1.

When WW2 started he told us boys to go into the Navy. You could get killed anywhere, but at least you had a clean place to sleep. We took his advice and all four of went into the Navy, and luckily we all came back alive.

My first

Well, I am not sure what I am doing, it is at the insistance of Shell that I am here. But I guess when everybody starts, we are all in the same boat, totally at sea.

And I have been at sea before. Atlantic and Pacific. But I never crossed the Equator at the Internatioonal Date Line like my brother Chuck did on the USS Heerman.

One caution, I was allways better at math than spelling. And I am flexible when it comes to the truth, by poor memory, and for amusment.