Page 8 - MY STORY

spark ignited some additional fuel when he began to bring

home parts of autos for me to take apart and put back
together. This was accelerated when he went back to auto
mechanic trade school when WWII erupted and he got a

job at the Cadillac agency in Evanston. I marveled at the
complexity of the design and operation of fuel pumps,
carburetors, distributors, and the like and took some

perverse pleasure in the disassembly and reassembly of
those engineering marvels.

My Christmas and birthday presents were also lined up to
grab my technical interests consisting of an Erector Set,

used electric train, chemistry set, puzzles and a bike that I
was always taking apart to fix, clean, lubricate and
modify. Somehow the concept of becoming an engineer
was born by the time I reached the tender age of 10 years.

Never was there a thought as to what “kind” of engineer I
might grow into. It even included becoming a train

engineer!
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I was OK, but not great, in math through 8 grade.

Science was fun, but not terribly demanding mainly
because there was not a strong use of mathematics in the

Chicago grammar school curriculum. In high school, I
was mediocre at best and seemed to get completely lost in