James;

After my father was discharged form the U.S, Marines (1946) he began enjoying one of his pre war hobbies - Amateur Radio. He would sit me down at the microphone and have me talk to people all over the world. His greatest love was CW (Morse Code) and one of his jobs in the Corp was as a High Speed CW Operator. I liked to use his “bug”, which is a special type of high speed CW telegraph key. One day he and my mother took pictures of me wearing earphones and my fathers pipe in my mouth. I love that picture – you should see my eyes! I ended up a Radio Amateur and Electronics Engineer just like my father.

Ham Radio became a very popular hobby during the 1950’s for many youngsters and lead to careers in electronics. That is the path I followed. The 1980’s and 1990’s saw the computer become an instrument of interest to teenagers and a stepping stone to careers in the computer field.

Our son (22) and daughter (20) grew up with computers. I had my computer (S-100 Bus) and they had an Apple II, to begin with. When they were 8 and 6 they went with me to pay a bill. They ran over to a lady who was at a computer keyboard and she said: “Oh how Cute”! Would you two like to use my computer? I said: “Kids do not touch the computer. Lady, you do not know what planet we will be on if they get a hold of your keyboard”! That shocked her sufficiently to not let the kids near her keyboard.

Today my kids use computers as a part of their jobs and are not programmers. Thank God for that. Having computer skills in Silicon Valley is an asset.

Wisdom of a two year old: My son was two and saw me very worried. He asked me what was wrong and I answered “I have too many things on my mind”. My son answered: “Daddy, do one thing at a time. Do the most important thing first”. That made me stop in my tracks. We should listen more often to two-year-olds. They have the most wonderful wisdom with out the “interference and self imposed complexities” we have as adults.

Tom