[Coco] NitrOS9 with Deluxe RS232 Pak

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 19 June 2015 10:13:19 Ron Klein wrote:
> Hi Gene,
>
> It sounds like your life has been full of many experiences that has
> served you well.  If you do take the mensa test, I'd love to know how
> you do. Quite impressed after reading your comments below.
>
If I know me, I'll be here bragging or sniveling about it. ;-)

> I have a father-in-law who shares a bit of the same story - orphaned,
> dropped out prior to high school, but has a world of experience with
> so many things.
I wasn't orphaned, more like abandoned by my blood father, who boogied 
and joined the army, making a career out of it. Iwent for decades saying 
that if we were ever to meet, I had a couple rounds of "A Boy named Sue" 
in me.  But I got over that when I realised it was both wasted hate, and 
not likely to happen on my watch.  Come Korea, I was getting pretty 
desparate to get that over with so I could tell a girl I would be here 
for the long run if she wanted to hook up with me,  had my number thrown 
into the hat at the next draft board ecause that was 2 years where as if 
I joined outright it was for 4 years.

I had the great good fortune to have a mother who was the only girl in 
the 1929 class on aviation technology at Des Moines Tech High School. So 
a little boys questions usually generated an authoritative answer, which 
if she didn't know, did know where the county library was.  We got stuck 
on gravity, so I was reading high school physics textbooks by the time 
most kids were reading McGuffies Readers. 70 some years later we still 
have only a fairy tale theory that tries to unify it with the rest of 
the forces in this universe.  But the partical that does this 
unification has NOT been found yet that I am aware of, perhaps with the 
rebuilt LHC?

So with that background, I took the AFQT in 1953 and scored a 98.  Next 
best score in 130 some other boys was 36, but that waved red flags to 
the army people because they knew I was not about to march in front of a 
hail of bullets just because some sargent ordered me to, so I was 4F'd 
on the spot.  Suited me because I could then go girl shopping.  But I 
wanted one I could "talk shop" with, someone I could teach because the 
basic smarts was there. Took another 4 years, and came in a strange 
package, the oldest of 12 from northern Arkansas, came with 2 kids, both 
of which were the byproduct of the almost non-existant medical care of 
the day, so both were affected by CP.  But I took them with her as part 
of the deal, so we were married 2 weeks later.

In due time she gave me 3 more, 2 girls, then a boy, and when the oldest 
girl was nearly 10, she had a stroke and died.  Even today, medical tech 
has not reached a point where she could have been saved. She was right 
handed, a blood clot blocked the middle cerebral artery on the left 
side.  By then I had found work at the local tv station in Rapid City, 
and had bought 3 acres of the Black Hills about 3 miles out of town.  I 
picked up the glass hopper at a local bar & brought her home for about 
17 years, but she didn't like WV when I took the 2nd job that had Chief 
Engineer on the office door.  Then I found she had been cooking the 
books with the IRS & left me to clean up the $27,000 mess.  That took a 
while, but by '89 I had said I do a 3rd time, to an old maid school 
teacher, who is just now discovering I am up if you could call it that, 
for the day.  So we celebrated our 25th last December without ever 
threatening to get an Alaskan Divorce.. I stayed at the tv station till 
I was about 66.75 yo and was needing help to keep up.  But I had found 
my niche, so when the head hunters called in '93 checking to see if I 
was ready to move onward and upward, the choice was to LA and 2x the 
money.  I said no, based on the crime environment that went with it.

So I've spent the last 13 years putting roofs in the back yard or on a 
garage & playing with my 2,3,4th hobbies, all of which seemed to point 
to needing CNC'd machinery to do them right.

The 2nd woman gave me 3 more boys before she left, and the 3 from that 
1st have died, the two girls from cancer, and the boy from mixing a 
Hyundei(sp) with a quart of whiskey just this past Dec.  So I have 4 
boys left, and have built the blanket chest on the front cover of this 
past Decembers FineWoodworking, with intentions of doing 3 more so the 
boys will each have something I made in addition to a gun or 2 to grace 
their cabinets when I'm fini.

I went the magazine one better and lined it with aromatic eastern red 
cedar.  And it was nearly 100% carved on a small table top milling 
machine taking orders from a computer, orders I wrote.  This bigger mill 
won't do it much faster, but is big enough I won't have to hold up the 
far end of the board while its working.  But with 2 mills, I can carve 
the little stuff out of Gabon Ebony on the little mill while carving the 
pockets those pieces fit in on the bigger machine.

The youngest of those 4 will be here early next month for a few days so 
we'll get some time together at the local range, weather permitting.

> A blue collar, jack of all trades (so to speak) guy.  
> Tough time growing up but a real good family man and loves to share
> his knowledge and time to help people.  A lot can be learned from
> folks like him and yourself.  He passed a few years ago and certainly
> miss him.

I had an uncle like that, decades back.  But it turned out that I taught 
him way more than he taught me.

The above is largely incomplete, the full story is novel sized.  My work 
history is quite varied, and at times impressive for the time it took 
place in.  Stick around Ron, and I may repeat myself with fleshed out 
details of some of it.  Oldtimers on this list have probably read some 
of it 2 or 3 times now. :)

> Thanks again for your help -- really appreciate it!
>
> -Ron

Now I'd do what Dennis would like us to do, a huge snip.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>