CHAPTER ONE "A Quiet Rampage"
“What do you do?”
“I’m retired.”
“Oh. What did you do?”
“I was with Boeing for thirty-four years,” spoken in a tone which didn’t invite further questions.
Why the squelch? By the usual yardstick I was successful, rising to a position of Chief Engineer of
Avionics and Flight Systems before retiring. When I mentioned that to my mother, she immediately
began telling everyone her son was THE Chief Engineer at Boeing. Congratulations from family members
alerted me to the need for convincing her it was not that big a deal, there were at least ten
chief engineers in the commercial airplane division alone.
No, the squelch was prompted more by a reluctance to delve into what I considered important in a
career and how I measured up by that yardstick. It was a Pandora’s box that, once opened, would
take more time to close than any sane listener was prepared to spend.
Then, my daughter echoed a comment heard occasionally over the years from my wife, “When people
ask what you did at Boeing, I have no idea what to say.” That touched a nerve.
How many people go through life, accomplishing much or very little, only to leave no trail for
future generations? We owe our family a legacy, good or bad, to serve as a threshold for them
to build upon. So, my loved ones, this book tells what I did and to some extent, who I am.
Everything related is factual to the best of my recollection. Nothing is made up or even embellished.
It’s hard enough to remember what actually happened without inventing any expansion. Names
are included when relating something complimentary and omitted when nothing good about the person
can be found. I must hasten to clarify that only a few of the good people in my life are named.
If your name doesn’t appear, don’t slam the book down in anger. You are in good company and
you can take credit for not turning this into a who’s who directory.
In addition to why the book, one might ask why the title? Like thousands of productive people,
my career went unrecognized by prizes or awards, other than the internal company variety. Industry
awards are usually reserved for higher level managers that have the foresight to collect people
with vision and allow them to use it. I was one of the collected.
But there’s more to it than that. I’m proud to say I’m an introvert. Some would say, “Oh, you’re
shy?” No, a shy person is afraid of social interaction. I’m not. I just prefer solitude to
raucous gatherings, to think and work on my own rather than confined to participate on task
teams. Our extrovert culture claims a group will produce better results than an individual.
Better than an individual extrovert, maybe, if one is ever found alone.
Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer working alone. Einstein and Newton didn’t produce
their quantum leaps forward as part of a team exercise. These and countless others are examples
of introverts beavering away in solitude. True, a project benefits from more minds giving
input but lock-stepping a team of diverse personality styles through a project is horribly
inefficient and stressful. And it runs the risk of a loud extrovert leading the team down
a wrong path.
So, I am an introvert. My father was an introvert. Probably almost every generation in my
ancestry contained an introvert. I never thought of Dad as being that until he told me one
day when I was twenty, for no apparent reason:
“As a boy, I crossed the road when I saw a girl coming, so I wouldn’t have to talk to her.”
(Maybe he was a little shy too.)
We’re not a family known for discussing personal things, so it came as a surprise. Dad usually
had a purpose for what he said. Perhaps he thought I was dating challenged, although he
never interfered with my social escapades or even questioned them. His priority for us was
do what’s right, do well in school and work hard during school “holidays”. Social success
was not on the list.
We were raised in the school of expectations. Nobody preached. Seldom scolded, we just felt
the expectations. That’s not to say we didn’t hear about our serious transgressions. As a
carpenter, Dad always seemed to have a three-foot rule folded in his back pocket. The
ultimate punishment was being bent over his knee and whapped by the rule on our bottoms…with
our pants on.
An example. When I was five, I found a hand saw one day and, looking around for something
to cut, spied our rowboat lying upside down in the yard. By the time Dad caught me, the
saw cut was a good third of the way through the hull about a foot from the transom.
That one warranted carrying me into the house and introduction to “The Rule”. Somehow,
he managed to patch up the old rowboat with sheet metal and tar because we were still
using it ten years later.
Mum, on the other hand, was a hair-puller. She had a knack for getting hold of some of
the short hairs at the back of the neck. With them, it didn’t take much of a pull to
induce a sharp pain. Since she felt obliged to take an active role in our disciplining,
I have more vivid recollections regarding the top end than the bottom.
Still, discipline was rarely needed. Between expectations and examples set, it was very
clear when we were on thin ice. Now, sixty years after Dad died, I still feel the
expectations and have a strong sense of right and wrong. Our daughter says we brought
her up the same way so maybe there’s an expectation gene at work.
As stated before, my introversion is not in the shy or autistic direction. Thrown
into a social environment, I respond well. “Thrown” is the operative word here.
I don’t wander, walk, or leap into social environments. As a youth, you could find
me in the center of athletic events, usually in a leadership role. At dances, you
could find me at the fringe, pretending to ignore the girls’ eyes pleading for a
dance. I might have become a hard-core wallflower if I hadn’t started playing the
saxophone. By the second year, our band was just good enough to play for the school
crowd. By the third year, the dance pleading eyes became more like groupie eyes.
But I was safe up on the stage and could even pretend to be sacrificing valuable
dating and dancing time to provide music for my fellow man and woman.
After what Dad said, it was possible to see his introversion at times. I vividly
recall the one time I saw him take a drink. We were visiting his sister, our
Aunt Laura. She and Uncle Lloyd had invited some old acquaintances over for a
little party. Ebullient Laura, who also seldom drank anything, forced a little
scotch on Dad. I can still picture him standing in the background, next to a
wall, sheepish grin, occasionally sipping a little scotch, never saying anything.
This was the same man who commanded respect, loyalty and performance from a
hundred different construction crews over a fifty-year career of building
everything from two-hole outhouses to the Vancouver Hotel.
Perhaps my introversion also appears to be an illusion. Certainly, over my first
career I spent countless hours in front of crowds, giving presentations, emceeing
dance competitions, conducting meetings and participating on panels. The
introversion never showed then. Well, perhaps it sometimes surfaced at related
cocktail parties. It’s said that many comedians are introverts, Johnny Carson
is cited as one. He once said, “I’m great with 10 million people and lousy
with 10”. Is forced entertaining a cover-up? I’m fairly entertaining in a group
or in front of a crowd, triggering a succession of chuckles interspersed with
a few honest-to-God laughs. Usually not with a joke but asides, quips and
making fun of either myself or the topic at hand.
Furthermore, my life has been varied, often exciting and always interesting.
For an introvert, it has been a rampage. Few people I know can claim to have
experienced or accomplished more. Don’t expect to find an account of a timid
soul. “Rampage” might be a touch strong but certainly not far-fetched.
Still the introversion is there and often it reaches up to bite, leaving me
in the background, trying to look casually detached, secretly in hopes some
extrovert will drag me back into the social melee.
Only a very small fraction of the multitude of people in the fields of science
and engineering have an opportunity today to develop something they can say is
theirs and theirs alone. Progress is usually made by projects that build step
by step on the work of those before. On the other hand, with imagination and
perseverance, individuals can often remove roadblocks and point the industry
off in a novel new direction. While they can’t take sole credit for the final
product, in a very real sense they share responsibility for its invention. I
believe this happened to me.
Despite that claim, like many introverts, I am inclined to downplay accomplishments,
particularly when praised for them. To illustrate, after a drive straight down the
fairway, another golfer might say “great shot”. My response will probably be something
like “at least it’s not in the woods”. I conscientiously work at simply thanking them
which is the courteous thing to do and the one most appreciated. Still, it’s hard to
break the introvert habit. This book has forced me to push that aside and if the
result at times seems like bragging, I apologize.
CHAPTER TWO Baby Steps
If memoirs should start with one’s earliest memory, mine is of a day at the beach
which, per Mum’s calculations, occurred when I was about one and a half. Oh sure,
you think. Well, it had to be on the half year since my birthday is on the shortest
day of the year (some say the darkest, one charitable niece suggests the world
got brighter after I was born) and the beach only makes ocean water warm enough
for wading on hot summer days. I can vividly recall staggering around on a pebbly
beach awash to my knees pushing a model sailboat around. It was as long as I was
tall.
Why do memoirs feel obliged to start with earliest memories? Mine was hardly noteworthy.
The second memory is not much better. Sometime around age three, I recall sitting
on the bottom rung of a rail fence at Stewart Lake while my older brother Jim took
a swimming lesson from Mrs. Butt. Curiously, the dominant memory is of the pain the
rail exerted on MY butt. From then on, there’s a mishmash of recollections.
Some say early memories are usually of traumatic events. That hardly applies here.
As a baby, I fell on a piece of broken glass which cut my abdomen and left a
crescent scar still visible. Seems like that would be a traumatic event, for my
mother if not me. No memory lingers.
Those early years were spent running rampant on our farm in Fulford Harbour on
Salt Spring Island, paddling an old dugout canoe or poling a small scow on the
creek Dad dammed each year to give a quarter mile of navigable waterway. There
were trout in the creek to catch with a worm on a hook on a string on a pole.
Farm animals often resembled pets. One young ram loved a “push-of-war”. We would
go shoulder to shoulder like a couple of football linemen. He proved that four-legged
traction beats two. Each year we filled the barn with hay to feed the cow through
the winter. That allowed us to climb up in the rafters and jump into the hay or
tunnel forts in it. All in all, an idyllic, carefree time.
There were a few tense moments, however. Once, Jim lobbed a boulder onto a trailer
hooked to our tractor. Only, my head intervened. Another time, my foot became
wedged in the “vee” formed by two alders joined at the base. For a time, it looked
like Dad would have to cut one of them down to free it. Perhaps the most frightening
accident involved stepping on a pitch fork. A tine went completely through my foot.
Dad yelled at younger brother George to run and get a bowl. Then he grasped my foot
and the fork and pulled it back out. As he carried me to the house, George ran along
beside us catching the blood pouring out in the bowl. I remember dreading the thought
of having to drink it. Fortunately, Mum’s nurse training surfaced, she bound the
foot and Dad ran me off to the hospital.
Real trauma occurred during my first few days in school. Life on a farm does not teach
a boy to schedule bathroom visits. My teacher became convinced that I wasn’t pottie
trained and matters came to a head when I left a sizeable calling card on the playground.
Dad had to come and take me home. The remedy involved a stern warning from Mum that
I would not be allowed back in school if I didn’t shape up. Okay, some traumatic
event memories exist.
That part of my education fell in her province. Once he got me home, Dad washed his
hands of the problem. Perhaps he even laughed about it later. However, he didn’t
laugh at one other misstep. When I was somewhere around eight, he taught me to shoot
a small 20-gauge shotgun. The first time he took me hunting, we walked up a road
on the hillside behind our farm, he in front, me a few paces behind. Even though I
wasn’t touching the trigger, the gun went off and kicked up a cloud of dirt not six
inches behind his foot. It must have scared the hell out of him, as it did me.
However, he turned around and calmly explained how to hold the gun when you were
in the front, middle or rear of the line. He demonstrated a fortitude few
could emulate.