[Coco] Today, Boisy is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 19 November 2012 23:19:11 Boisy G. Pitre did opine:

> Gene, I don't mean to get off topic here, but I have to ask… you're 78
> years old.  What's your secret?  Any advice for us "young timers" on
> longevity?
> 
Chuckle.  Not really Boisy, other that never take a knife to a gunfight, 
and don't ever try to convince your self there is a 2nd place winner in a 
gunfight.  There is not.

Help those who ask for help _if_ they are willing to learn to help 
themselves.  And of course help those who aren't capable of surviving 
without help.

Children are the future we will live with, teach them well and they will do 
great things.  They should learn at an early age that reading is both fun 
and educational.

I had the uncommon good luck to have had a mother who was the only girl in 
the Des Moines Tech High Schools class on aviation technology, in 1929, who 
did just that with me, and if she didn't know the answer to a 6 year olds 
questions on things about the physical world, she knew where the library 
was and was helping me to understand what were then high school physics 
text books when I was  about 6 or 7.  She went to her reward without ever 
getting the answer (and neither have I) to a question I asked when I was 
about 7, "what is gravity".  Sure, its there and its related to the mass of 
the object like this planet, but to do more than quantify it on that basis 
we still, 100 years after Einstein & still with Hawking, have yet to 
measure such important things as its Propagation Velocity.  Theoretically, 
nothing can travel faster than C speed.  But if you try to do the orbital 
mechanics math that includes C speed for the gravitational pull vector, the 
math vs the reality of what we observe falls apart, quickly.  That vector, 
for the curious here, points directly at the CG of the sun where it is this 
instant, not where it was 8 minutes ago when that sunlight left the sun to 
come here and keep this planet warm.  I'll let you folks think about that, 
I've had enough headaches trying to find that little loophole that makes it 
all Just Work(TM). ;-)

During WW-II, we visited with an older aunt, whose husband was repairing 5 
tube radios for beer money during the war, and as he was changing the 
filter capacitors in one of them with a gas torch heated soldering iron, I 
asked him what was wrong with the one he was taking out.  He couldn't tell 
me, showing me his radio repair recipe on the back of a cabinet door above 
his worktable and the line that said if it hum's, change the filter caps.

So I went home and looked up what I could about capacitors and what they 
did, and the next time I went back, for thanksgiving dinner IIRC, I, 
playing the typical 9 year old smartass, told him what was wrong with that 
capacitor.  More than likely a bad crimp joint between the lead wire and 
the actual alu foil it was made out of.  That FWIW is still the major 
failure mechanism of electrolytic caps.

I even volunteered to cut one open and show him.  Whether he was impressed 
wasn't terribly important, but I had found something that I wanted to know 
everything there was to know about, electronics.  He went on to become a 
hopeless alky and the aunt found herself a good man.

The rest as they say is history.  I quit school which was not what I 
wanted, but fighting with an allergy that kept me out and a principle that 
wasn't accepting the Doctors excuse notes anymore just wasn't the 
worthwhile hassle.

So I went out to fix these new fangled tv sets for a living in 1949, and it 
was 3 years later when I finally ran into an intern at SUI that nailed the 
allergy.  From there, it really is history.  My food allergies over the 
years have been many and varied, but stay away from the trigger for a year 
or two and I'm back in business.

I've had a fair ride, the worst part was losing the first wife from a 
stroke when she was 34, that was before we met at MicroWare's offices the 
first time, and the two girls out 3 children she gave me have both passed 
from cancers.  Those have been bits of hard times as you aren't supposed to 
outlive your kids.

There are some things I'd do differently of course, like skip the 2nd woman 
I wasted 17 years with, but its done and I have 3 more boys, all of which 
call me fairly often.  Grandkids and even great grandkids galore.  I've 
lost track I'm sorry to say.  The 2nd woman came with 2 of "Jerry's kids" 
and I helped them for as long as I could, but they are also gone now as MD 
victims generally don't get past 30yo.

And of course I worry about the hereafter, I go into a room & then have to 
stop and think "what am I here after?"  ;-)

Its now the 20th in WV, so do have a very happy birthday. And in my best 
imitation but imported hillbilly accent "Thats an order now, y-all hear?"

Cheers, Gene
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
Whitehead's Law:
	The obvious answer is always overlooked.