A Pictorial History of My Early Interest in Electronics
7/15/2015
At “t = 0”
Now and then a customer of Dr. Zee’s VINTAGE ELECTRONICS HOSPITAL asks, “Oh, were you a HAM
(amateur radio operator)? My reply is unvarying, “No, but my cousin is. I got the bug from him.” If I
close my eyes I can clearly see that sign on his bedroom door at 20 Bienville Avenue:
When I first read this sign I was at the tender age where that sign translated to, “No girls allowed!”
From this interpretation I just knew that radio would come to mean a lot to me. That cousin is David
James Gardberg.
A pathway though life surely meanders but it always seems to follow a certain course. The first
recollection I have of traveling from our house at 184 South Carlen Street to the Loop area of Mobile, AL
was with our maid, Beatrice [AKA “Bea”] Mack. On that trip Bea took my brother Tommy and me to the
back door of a grocery store located at the Loop. This store was adjacent to and south of the applegreen painted Azalea Theater. On the other side of the Azalea Theater was a wonderful little bakery
that had a little, round port hole for a window. This latter little building, with its entrance door to the
left, was painted grey.
What was found at the rear of the grocery store were empty apple crates. These poor crates mostly
received unproductive blows from a hammer as we tried to attach our roller skates to a plank of wood.
[An apple crate’s wooden planks are much too dry to hold a nail!] What we really learned that day is
that the street tar can get really hot and sticky. Little boys in my home town wore no shoes in the
summertime. Maybe I was all of five years old and Tommy was seven.
Just a year or so later, Bea took Tommy, Baby Donald and me to a brand new, modern Delchamps’
Grocery Store at the Loop. This store was located on Government Street right next to the Albright &
Woods Drug Store at the large intersection of the Loop. The most amazing thing happened as one
entered this grocery store: one’s body would interrupt an invisible beam of infrared radiation. This
radiation was transmitted from one aluminum post to a nearby post on the other side of the
entranceway. This second post housed a photocell detector. This beam interruption caused the store
door to open. To a child, this door-opening device was nothing short of a miracle!
The nature of this automatic door phenomenon was as much unknown to me then as was the word,
“phenomenon,” but it intrigued me even more than did my cousin David’s HAM call identification
message,
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“This is W4AMH -- the HAM from Alabam.”
Maybe I had begun to aim at my future studies of the interaction of radiation with matter before I even
realized it!
Here is an Internet link to my Ph.D. thesis in physics:
https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/32967/zivitz_maury_197312_phd_242093.pdf
It is absolutely astonishing what some guys from Mobile, AL did to keep from getting drafted!
Two years of ROTC at Spring Hill College did it for me, especially when classmates soon began
going to Viet Nam. Heck, I’m a lover, not a fighter! I got cured of fighting when Woodrow
Wilson bloodied my nose in the eighth grade, in a whopper of a fight at Memorial Park.
In the acknowledgement section of this thesis one finds the name Eugene Patronis. I speak of
him later in this retrospective narrative.
MY THIRD LOVE AND MY FIRST ELECTRONICS PROJECT
In the summer of 1952, I had just finished the third grade and was smitten for the third time in my
young life. That summer I had befriended hazel-eyed Sadie Lou Roberts at Desi Seaman’s summer camp
just east of Mobile, AL. After I went home from camp, I was missing and missing her something terrible.
So I went to that hobby shop at the corner of South Warren and Dauphin Streets and bought some balsa
wood, some British Racing Green and Taylorcraft Yellow paint and built a much smaller version of my
neighbor Jay Quinlivan’s 26-foot Chris Craft Cabin Cruiser. Near the bow I painted, “Sadie Lou.”
This boat begged for a headlight to signify my undying love. Cousin David helped me wire up a D-cell
battery to a flashlight lamp attached to the front deck. Ah, all was then much better. Well sorta, kinda,
maybe.
I tried to “shake her off” when I did not see her but I found myself looking for her everywhere: at a
house where she did not live, walking with her cousin Mary Harriet Roberts or visiting this little bakery
with her Mom. Her Mom always reached this bakery when driving a light grey Willis Jeepster Panel
truck, which looked much like this, except for the “G” on the license tag and their car was a bit lighter in
color:
Circa 1950 Willis Jeepster Panel truck
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Her Mom always parked along the side of this building, not in the parking lot. On each door was painted
that Roberts Brothers Realty Company sign. Or was that Mary Harriet’s Mom who drove than Jeepster
to the bakery so often? I’ll never know. At any rate, that boat light was my very first electrical project.
This boat light, however, was not my first experience with electricity. A metal clad light switch in our
basement controlled our patio spotlight. Weinstein Electric Company had installed this circuit in about
1948. [Sorry Alan!] Unless one wore shoes, which little boys in Dixie definitely did not at home, the
concrete floor completed an electric circuit back to the fuse box. Ouch! So I learned to dance at an
early age…. Actually I taught myself to jump vertically, throw the switch and then let go before my feet
reached the concrete floor. Really, it was my brother Tommy who made the discovery about jumping
and toggling. Tommy was very clever! He knew curse words and taught me most of the ones I know
today. Often our drain for the washing machine clogged up so the floor got sopping wet. It’s truly a
wonder I am here to type this “history.”
A year passed and it was now 1953, a full year before I met Mr. Fess Parker (“Davy Crockett”) at the
Mobile Municipal Airport.
MY FOURTH LOVE AND MY SCHWINN PHANTOM BICYCLE
Oh, 1954 was magical. I rode most everywhere on my brand new 26-inch red and chromed Schwinn
Phantom bicycle with a knee-action shock absorber, white-wall tires, genuine leather seat and genuine
leather saddle bags, streamers on the handle bar grips, an electric light and an electric horn. Better yet,
I found a brand new girlfriend who now lived much closer to me than did Sadie Lou.
Mine had genuine leather saddle bags. Baby Donald got
the 20-inch wheel version. [Tee hee!]
This brunette doll was Mary Harriet Roberts, a first cousin of Sadie Lou. I would ride to her house at
2255 Old Government Street like the wind on my fantastic new bike or I would ride at super speed to
meet her at her grandmother’s house near the entrance of Williams Court. Yes, I put playing cards in
the spokes so my bike so it would sound like a motorbike. All the “cool” guys were doing that.
Mary Harriet had brown eyes and a face “to die for.” [Sorry, Mizz Hinz!] With her hair in a ponytail, she
could show off the earrings her Mother sometimes let her wear to school. She wrote everything in that
pretty green-colored Carter ink. Her math papers were so attractive and mine were so voluminous in
the number of 3-by-3 multiplication examples attempted that our teacher, Ms. Weldon, penned our
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homework papers side by side just above the blackboard. Sigh! Alas, that love faded as did the
performance of the horn on my now almost new bike. I was not yet skilled enough to salvage my
“relationship” with Mary Harriet nor repair my own bike horn. As the years progressed, I like to think I
got better at both kinds of these things.
RADIO-CONTROLLED MODEL AIRPLANES AND SOME OTHER STUFF
Uncle Abe (David’s dad) then took us to Sage Avenue Park one Sunday afternoon to watch the flying of
radio-controlled model airplanes. It was only last year that I realized that we were at that particular
park. There were few parks in Mobile that were large enough to support such an activity, and I do
clearly recall seeing the baseball wire mesh backstop fence at the corner of this park.
My “brain” could hardly resister what I was seeing! Uncle Abe had been a “sparks” (wireless operator)
on a US Coast Guard ship that roamed the Gulf of Mexico tending to light houses. Another year passed.
Uncle Abe then took us to a HAMFEST that was held right behind the YWCA on Government Street.
Wow! Wires and tubes, and communication gear. I was really blown away by the sight of so many
incomprehensible gadgets and widgets –many of which were housed in WWII olive drab cabinets.
In the 7th grade at Barton Academy I discovered The Boys First Radio Book by Alfred Morgan. I confess
that as I held this book before my eyes, I just knew I was opening a huge door to fun and adventure! My
first project from that book was an elaborate crystal radio set, with a contact slider associated witht e
antenna coil. I could not get this radio to work, so I took it to cousin David who could also not get it to
work. Not even my buddy Dennis Speirs dad could get it to work, and I believe he was an electrical
engineer at Brookley Field (Air Force Base). Ut-oh! I still have two Rider schematic books I borrowed
from Mr. Speirs. [Yes, one day I’m gonna burn!]
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Later that same school year Ronnie Schanzer shared a schematic he had found in Popular Electronics
magazine. It was a sensitive AM radio using complementary transistors. Heck, I did not know what a
transistor was, but I built this radio inside a metal Band Aid box -- just the same. That radio (obviously!)
could not work. I regressed in the sophistication of my radio projects and soon built several simple
1N34A crystal radios. They were all very unselective: I could mostly receive WKRG and sometimes
WABB. That radio was reliable. I was amazed with how well a clothes line or a screen window or the
finger stop on a dial Bell telephone (balck bakelite) worked as an antenna.
MORE STORES AT THE LOOP
When you don’t have a Dad anymore, a kid relies upon the kindness of strangers and uncles. Oh, how I
befriended radio-oriented strangers who became fast friends. A batch of them appeared at the
Electronics Supply Company when it was originally located near the foot of Fulton Road, a mere stone’s
throw from where the Roberts Brothers Realty Company was located.
More precisely, this electronics business of Mr. Dave Guess was adjacent to Snow’s Barber Shop, found
exactly at the foot of Fulton Road on the east side of the street. Let’s walk inside the front of this
electronics store. Soon, I would find much more interesting people at the back of this store, including a
mommy and some babies. Today a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurant occupies the footprint of these
two stores, Snow’s Barber Shop and Electronic Supply Co., and more.
Another word about that barber shop is in order. They had two locally “famous” clients: twins,
Sam and Vernon Knight. Maybe they were Sadie Lou’s age. I never said a word to them at
Woodcock, but one day they both gave me a brief ride in the backfield of Murphy High School
on a Crosley automobile their dad had highly modified. The car’s body was completely
removed. Maybe there was only one seat for the driver. The car’s engine had been replaced
with an 8 horsepower (I suppose) lawnmower engine that was located up front and to the right
hand side.
Oh what fun! I have not lost my interest in go carts to this very day….
The door to this electronics shop was on the right-hand side of this building. In we go. Directly ahead
was found a counter with a cash register. Manning this machine was Bob. Presumably this Bob had a
last name but I never found a need for that. Bob was astonishing in appearance! He was of average
height, weighed 127 pounds, had a receding hairline, brown hair, a protruding forehead and a slightly
undersized chin. It was his teeth that made his appearance most memorable. Oh, how rotten all of
them were! Surely he never met my dentist Dr. Maurice Rowell. [Had I had any say so, I would have
never met that dentist either!] When I attended Barton Academy and projected those 16-mm dental
hygiene movies with Alan Weinstein, I was sure I would never actually meet someone with such horrid
teeth, until I met Bob.
You think I was kidding about his body weight. When I worked in our family-owned business,
Buster’s Eagle Pawn Shop located at 650-654 Davis Avenue, I was taught to make a full
description (height, weight, age, etc.) of a person to whom we made a loan. Once I asked Mom,
“Why don’t we use the information that appears on their driver’s license or just ask them? She
said that information was much less reliable than a guess.
I guess She was right. [Mobile speak.]
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It was not easy to have a lengthy discussion with Bob, but I tried. He was interesting, until he would
pause and make this blood-curdling sucking sound to let air pass over all the cavities located right at the
front of his mouth –and everywhere within his mouth, and then he would continue. He explained to me
his concept for a perfect Hi-Fi system. He boasted that one day this scheme of his would sell wildly. His
notion was to split the signal from a phonograph into two signals and thereafter process the lowfrequencies with one amplifier and the high-frequencies with a second amplifier. This idea definitely did
not come to be but he tried. Some people, even those people with excellent teeth, never have the
smallest idea. Bob tried. He smoked too much and that made him too thin, but he tried.
Bob really impressed me with his knowledge of the All American Five Radio -- a radio design that had
really taken over the mass market since the late 30’s. That deign lingered until the early 1960’s. He
asked me if I had ever seen the schematic for such a radio. I said, “Yes, but seeing and understanding
are entirely different things.” He said that in electronics (trade) school, the student had to be able to
draw that entire circuit diagram from memory to pass the course. Wow was I impressed and
intimidated.
Maybe Bob’s last name was Grider or maybe I am merely daydreaming again…. It is no easy to conjure
such a last name, so that may well be his real name.
A BRILLIANT INSIGHT
I prefer the dictum of Edward M. Barr, Lawrence Sylvan Barr’s dad, who was a Phi Beta Kappa at Ohio
State. Dr. Barr taught Larry that the purpose of a library is to eliminate the need for brute memorization
of anything. Thinking deeply or analyzing a problem is far more important than having a pictorial
understanding of something. Said differently, I have never had the ability to memorize much of
anything more complex than the Boy Scout code of conduct.
William Bradford Shockley, Jr. felt that a picture is the very best way to understand or teach a
physical concept. I agree! That is the reason I included so many pix in this story. This guy and a
couple of co-workers gave us the transistor, so he ought to know. I saw him on the Johnny
Carson Show in the 60’s. He was so brilliant and he received a Nobel prize for this fabulous
invention.
What, by the way, was the merchandise in this store? There were essentially one product for sale:
Dumont radio and TV tubes.
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The DUMONT Television Network gave us TV Star Jackie Gleason. “Oh, how sweet it is!”
There were industrial shelves full of them! To the far left, near the front of this store was a Hickok Tube
Tester that used punched cards to drive the setup of the tube tester for a given tube under test. One to
three plastic cards were inserted into this horizontal holster and the setup for checking some or all of a
given tube’s function was automatically available. Man [Old timey speak], this was high tech in 1957! A
customer could tote a radio or TV to this bench that held this wonderful fully automatic tube tester and
sort out which tube(s) were bad. Bob could bounce from behind the counter to assist the would-be
customer. Should simple tube replacement fail to correct the issue(s) with the device under test, then
there were two or three technicians in the back of the store who could make repairs for money.
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On the left is a Circa 1961 Hickok 123A Tube tester. The black area is a punched card “register.” A tube under test
require from one to three cards. Today, I have two of these testers and two manual-operated testers.
Oh, I can hardly contain myself! Let’s now sashay to the rear of this store. There was a back entrance
door. Inside one found a long, L-shaped work bench covered in Masonite. One technician was named
John Barfield and the other technician was named L. C. Shepherd. I got to know John well enough for
him to loan me his copy of “Elements of Radio.” John had black hair and was burly. He was a no
nonsense kind of guy. One time when I got quite playful in this workshop. I stuck a 75-Volt B-battery on
the back of his neck. After several choice words and a threat to reciprocate, John said, “I don’t have
time to play f—k f—k!” Uh, I still have his maroon book by Abraham Marcus. John was serious and
stern. He wouldn’t fool too much with me. He did get me to purchase a “dog” radio from him, and I
tried very unsuccessfully to make it work. It was a wooden cathedral set from the mid-thirties. I was
learning to solder but I had hardly yet learned to think methodically.
By contrast Mr. Shepherd had a warm smile and was always very friendly. I don’t think I ever saw him
angry. He was a “country boy” about 12 years my senior. Maybe that made him about age 26. He
resembled actor Fess Parker a lot, only Mr. Parker did not have a front tooth that was outlined ina
narrow border of gold. We became thick. I could go to the back of this store most any night and there I
could find “Shep” slumped over his work bench -- dead tired. His days were so long. At night, his wife
and little boys would sleep in this little workshop on the concrete floor. I felt lucky to be able to sleep on
a bed at night. From Shep I learned many seat-of-pants repair techniques that I use to this very day.
How well did I really get to know Shep? I had started college in Mobile. Many a night, I would slip out of
our house and visit Shep. His newer workroom faced Halcomb Avenue. This shop was at the front end
of a wood-frame house that was but a few doors away from Electronics Supply Company, which was
now (and is still) located at 561 Halcomb Avenue. [BTW, Fulton Road soon thereafter got renamed to
Dauphin Island Parkway.]
Shep briefly had a workshop (and home) at the corner of Airport Blvd. and Topic Streets. [In those days,
Airport blvd. was named Grant Street.] In the backyard one often found his 1953 Chevy station wagon
parked. The rear end of this pale blue car had been meticulously and beautifully modified to support
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test instruments for car radio repair. I guess he grew weary of making so many car lot visits, to replace
vibrators and buffers capacitors. Cars used to make a noticeable buzzing sound when initially turned
“on.” [I am sorry, Mizz Hinz. She was my high school English teacher who made us promise to avoid
prepositions at the end of a sentence.] It gets really hot and uncomfortable in Mobile while working in
the back end of a station wagon when one is six feet tall….
Rarely could I find that workroom light extinguished at Sheps latest workshop on Halcomb Avenue.
Shep was a slave to his workbench. Often when I paid him a visit, I knew it was time for a coffee run:
Krystal burgers and coffee. In those days, I travelled from the loop to Catherine Street to find a Krystal
burger. They kept him going. I never begrudged making a burger run for Shep. Shep was a wonderful
human being. Every couple of years, he’d grab his acoustic guitar and wail. I think he was trying to
sound like Hank Williams (Sr.).
He never once complained about his plight. He could sit hunched over that workbench, with his legs
crossed, for many minutes sound asleep or almost asleep. About three years later, when I was well into
my physics undergrad studies at Spring Hill, I paid Shep a memorable visit. I entered this newer
workshop of Shep. Out of the blue he said, “Hi, Jew boy! We both had a good laugh.] I really loved that
man! I never had to tell him so. I could tell from his face he knew it was so. Some years later his son,
no longer sleeping on a concrete floor, entered our house at 184 South Carlen Street to adjust the alarm
system. He told Mom that Shep had died of stomach cancer.
WENDELL STOWE
A great friend, especially in the 6th Grade of Woodcock Grammar School, was Wendell. This guy was big
boney and muscular. He had an Irish mug just like his Dad who was a detective in the Mobile Police,
Department. Wendell had a natural scientific curiosity. On that basis he built small bombs, rockets,
under-water fuses, carbon-arc lamps, etc. In 1956, we crawled beneath his house located at about 609
Westwood Street, tapped his phone line and then phoned 1480 WABB’s Late Date radio program. So
many people tried to phone that radio station at once that we ended talking into the evening with girls
we did not know.
Naturally Wendell’s Mom had built this house, including the pine panelling in Wendell and his brother’s
bedroom. She even did all the electrical wiring, but She did not do the plumbing. When Ellen and I
moved into this house in Indianapolis, I re-wired the entire house! I figured that if Wendell’s Mom could
do it, then so could I.
Two years later, Wendell brought an Edison cylinder record machine (circa 1890) to Barton Academy.
Shortly thereafter he brought a wall phone telephone-ringer, hand-cranked generator to Barton
Academy. He got a bunch of us to form a circular ring, then he proceeded to shock all of us at once, as
he turned that crank! Wendell died from an accident very shortly after his highly decorated service in
Viet Nam. He is buried at Pine Crest Cemetery.
Today I restore some Edison cylinder and diamond disk machines for clients, as well as all kinds of
electronic stuff. With each such acoustic record player rebuild project I remember Wendell. His hands
moved feverishly when he engaged in any physical activity, such as getting a dilapidated truck to run.
He was quite the guy! After some years had elapsed, from a goodly distance I saw Wendell standing in
his U.S. Army dress uniform at Johnnie’s Drive In. I figured he was headed soon to Nam. I did not bother
to wave at him from where I was standing, as I was not sure he would recognize me. I actually felt sorry
for those Viet Cong soldiers he would “meet.” That day Wendell was in excellent physical condition. He
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looked like a barrel-chested Wehrmacht poster boy! He did go to Nam; he returned very well, only to
die much to soon in Mobile.
When I knew Wendell, he had so much potential. He was and would have remained a solid citizen with
much to offer society. So much scum I knew from those days still slither this earth. Now I know better
than to ask the childish question, “Why?” What I do know is that it is important to keep his memory
alive.
MICHAEL GLASS
There was this guy in our neighborhood named Michael. He was quite handsome, had blond hair
combed into a ducktail, and he was an expert bowler. He lived at 1887 Old Government Street in an
upstairs apartment. For many years the Simpson family (former business partner of Uncle Abe) lived
downstairs. As one faces that house today, they can see a tall Magnolia tree growing at the left, front
corner of this wood frame building. When I knew Michael, it was a little tree. In the summers of 1957
and 1958, I would scamper up that tree in a few seconds to reach the second story and then I awoke
Michael so we could play all day long. Sadly, I never could win a bowling game with Michael. He had
terrific control over his body. He approached the pins much as a ballerino [not a typo!] would.
In 1958, I remember watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame on Michael’s family’s black and white TV.
Charles Laughton was made up to be so ugly. Maureen O’Hara was so beautiful -- almost as pretty as
Mary Harriet Roberts. Often there was but one TV in a home in Mobile in the fifties. At our house on
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South Carlen Street, we had at least three TV’s because we owned a pawn shop. Ask Baby Donald
(Zivitz) who has a photographic memory.
So one summer morning in about 1958 I’m standing in our laundry room and Michael unexpectedly
appears at our back door. “Hey, Buzzy, check this out! You’re not afraid of a flashlight battery are you?”
Handsome Michael is dangling a 1.5-Volt RayOVac cell before my eyes. This was a dare…. “Heck no, I
replied.” So Michael then held forward a speaker transformer he had removed from an All-AmericanFive radio. This was the radio of that era.
Flashlight batteries in the late fifties.
Foolishly, I was not afraid!
That transformer had a primary to secondary winding “turns ratio” of something like 25:1. This
means that a suddenly-connected DC battery could transiently develop a considerable voltage,
when Michael drove this transformer backwards.
Yes, I did the “Saint Vitas dance” as Michael connected the battery to the secondary of this transformer
when I held the transformer primary wires, one in each hand. It was not quite as severe a jolt as I had
previously gotten from that Weinstein Electric Company wiring in our laundry room, but it got my
riveted attention at once. From that moment, I knew that one day I would become proficient in the
field of electronics. Thank you, Michael Glass!
WEINACKER’S SHOPPING CENTER
When Mom took me to Weinacker’s Shopping Center to help her with the groceries, she parked me in
the large wonderful magazine section while she shopped. As She shopped, I devoured every magazine
on electronics that I could find. In about 1958, there appeared an article in the Popular Electronics
Magazine about sending sound over a light beam. A photocell similar to the one at Delchamps was
used, but the photocathode on this photocell was sensitive to visible light. That project brought my very
first chassis punching and drilling experience. I am happy that mess did not survive to this day, but it
certainly worked as it should!
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In those same days, I saw another article on construction of a reverberator. Since such devices have
fallen into disfavor, except among guitar amplifier users, let me explain. When one is seated in an
auditorium, every musical note that is struck hits one’s ear at least twice. [For simplicity in this
discussion, assume that one has one ear covered.] The first time a note reaches one’s ear it has
travelled directly from the instrument to one’s head. The second time that same plucked note reaches
one’s ear it has travelled to the rear of the auditorium and then bounced back to one’s ear. Clearly,
other delays of arrival of that note are possible, but let’s consider this direct and this one reflected path.
What is the time delay between arrivals of this same one note that has travelled along two different
paths? For simplicity, let’s say the delay time is 30 milli-seconds.
Although there are much better ways to do this, my construction project, then, involved the use of two
speakers: one speaker was sending the direct wave and a second, small speaker was connected to one
end of a garden hose that was about 30 feet in length. At the far end of this hose was taped a
microphone that picked up the delayed sound. How much delay? Well, sound travels at a speed of
about 1,000 feet per second, so the delay was about 30 milliseconds -- just as it is delayed in an
auditorium.
I believe the very first time I heard electronic reverberation was in a Ford car. Maybe it was a 1960 Ford
Galaxy that had this feature. Anyway that sound was stunning!!
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Yes, the microphone cable plugged into a second amplifier whose output fed a second large speaker.
Living in Mobile, AL, it was perhaps inevitable that the garden hose was wound neatly and stuffed inside
a Charles (Potato) Chips can.
One or the other of these high-school day projects was shown to my fellow Latin II student Margaret
Luce (Brown), but I’m no longer really sure which project I showed her.
I had a few more high-school day projects! I constructed a Heathkit BC-1A AM tuner, because in Mobile
we had only one FM radio (WALA) station I think. After that endeavor, in 1960 I constructed a Heathkit
Comanche mobile transceiver for my cousin David Gardberg. It was for his brand new grey 1960
Chrysler Windsor, with full-length Lake pipes. It was a “bad” car.
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EINE KLEINE NACHWERK
In about 1960, my junior year at Murphy High School, there was a house being demolished at 1890
Government Street. On that lot today sits a nondescript brown brick office building with four doors. In
my Woodcock Grammar school days that house stood proudly at the foot of Rickarby Street. In those
earlier days, the Hilliard family. That family was an attorney, his wife, a son named Beau and a daughter
whose name my baby brother Donald can’t remember. Moreover they had a German Shepherd dog
that bit my left leg and later that same dog bit Donald’s leg, too. Every school day, both in the morning
and afternoon, in the middle of Government Street stood a Little Miss Sunbeam cutout safety doll that
stood about four feet high:
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Little Miss Sunbeam. (Actually this picture is of a then living person.)
Her dress was blue and the ribbon in her golden hair was also blue. Often once could find my older
brother Tommy directing student foot traffic, as he was a member of Woodcock’s Safety Patrol. In that
capacity, Thomas Martin Zivitz did stuff much like this:
My big-hearted older brother Tommy love playing the role of an enforcer or a Big Shot
Now, let’s return to the demolition scene of that house in 1960. The left side of The Hilliard’s house had
already been torn down by this steel ball hanging from a crane that was silent. That crane was quiet
because it was nighttime. Donald and I sneaked into this vacant house and discovered a circa 1915
Edison Diamond Disc Player, Model 250, and a 1932 Westinghouse Columnaire WR-12 radio. Later that
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evening Doanld and I made two wagon trips from our house at 184 South Carlen Street. I was older, so I
naturally claimed both these jewels for me, myself, and I. Today both these restored entertainment
devices proudly sit my sun room. Sham wow! Just a month ago, I rebuilt this radio, again. Today that
Edison disc player is 100 years old. I’m a little older since 1960, too. Sorta, kinda, maybe.
This is not my 1932 radio. Mine is nicer!
This is not my circa 1913 Edison 250. Mine is nicer!
At Spring Hill College I flipped over Father Louis Eisele, S.J.! When one doesn’t have a Dad, they latch
onto surrogate Dads. Father Eisele was a perfect father figure, except he wore a long, black gown,
because he was a Jesuit priest. Mind you, he was no sissy!! This boney faced man made all the gear
used in our physics labs by hand. He built his own seismograph using an actual Admiral Byrd detector
and was the very first person in the US to report the great Alaskan earthquake to the world. Maybe I did
not know him as well as I could have: I mean I cannot recall the brand of cigarettes he smoked. He
found his way to the physics building on a green gas powered(?) Cushman golf cart. He ground the
optics for large homemade reflecting telescopes by hand. He designed and built all the electronics in
support of his seismology work.
One summer, when I was taking his electronics course, I asked Fr. Eisele, ”What is a dummy tube?”
Without a blink of the eye he explained that it was a perfectly good tube that had one of its filament
pins clipped “off.” [Sorry Mz. Hinz!!] He told me I could bring the old radio I was restoring to his lab.
There he taught me how to cancel the parasitic capacitance of a number 24 radio tube, in a hands-on
demonstration. Such technology was used in a mid 1920’s in the so-called “Neutro-dyne” radio.
No, I really don’t remember the brand of cigarettes he smoked, but if I had to guess I would say they
were Camels.
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I graduated from Spring Hill College in 1965 and took a summer job as a soft drink salesman with Russ
Beverage Company on Old Shell Road. At this position I reported to an older woman and her brother,
Mr. H. E. Russ. It turns out Mr. Russ lived almost right across the street from his business and as you
have already guessed, he loved to tinker with old radios. He had a small shack on the left-hand side of
his garage that was devoted to radio repair. Maybe I visited his radio shack twice. We chatted a bit
about radios, and he gave me a signed (by him!) copy of a legendary text on radio repair written by
Alfred Ghirardi.
My last and best radio mentor, by far, is Eugene Tyler Patronis, Ph.D. I learned only two days ago that
Gene is from Quincy, FL. No wonder we can communicate so well. He is from the panhandle of Florida
which is fairly close to Mobile, AL. I met Gene in an electronics course he taught in graduate school at
Georgia Tech. I still have my class notes on the Laplace Transform and re-read them now and then.
Although Gene was in the physics department, he was really electrical engineer in disguise. For a fifth of
Bourbon, one could get their TV fixed by Gene. One time, he asked me for a quart fo bourbon. I asked,
“Why not a fifth?” He said, “Inflation.”
Gene was distinctive in his attire. He always wore a Bolo Tie (“cowboy necktie”). Such things were not
seen often in Mobile, AL. I figured I had better pay attention in his classroom. Above that necktie is
parked his plastic face. It could be relaxed and even a bit naughty or it could be as stern as that of a
stepfather’s. In the classroom he was no nonsense. His sense of humor displayed outside the classroom
is rich, but he doesn’t let on that he is humorous at first. No, not at all. Virtually every student needing
to do something extraordinary in electronic detection in their physics thesis work paid Gene a visit. He
developed a superb scoreboard at Georgia Tech. [A brother of Uncle Abe’s named Joe developed the
first digital display scoreboard at the Superdome. It was the very first scoreboard of its kind.]
I could try to describe some of the circuitry that Gene designed, but I will spare you. Let me simply say
that most of his designs were far superior to anything commercially available at the time. When Gene
was a student at Georgia Tech, he maintained the 35-mm motion picture projectors in the movie hosues
of Atlanta. Yes, even in the Fox Theater. It was Gene who kindled my interest in restoring sound motion
picture projectors. So many elements of physics are coordinated in a vintage sound projector!
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A late 30’s 16-mm, sound, Bell & Howell Model 142A Projector I restored. Finding real wool and then gluing it
neatly to the interior walls of this cabinet were both challenging activities. Now it works like new!
Not too long ago, Gene published a text on the engineering challenges of acoustical design. The name
of his text is “Sound Engineering.” You just gotta like a fellow who is exceptionally witty!
If I close my eyes I can see a pair of 6-foot tall heavy duty speaker enclosures that Gene designed for use
at Grant Field. No, this football field is NOT named after Ulysses S. Grant! Gene developed many
successful innovations in loudspeaker design. All I ever managed to do in a novel way with a
loudspeaker was inadvertently poke a hole in a customer’s speaker and then repair that speaker’s cone
damage so it was virtually imperceptible.
Gene and I speak on the phone these days more often than we did forty years ago. His knowledge of
radio programming material precedes mine by 15 years, so he is invaluable source of fun and of
scientific (radio!) know how. When I come across a problematic radio, called in the repair industry a
“dog,” Gene can often bail me “out.” [I am truly sorry, Mz. Hinz!!!]
I retired from “full-time” work about two years ago. Now I am a full-time restorer of vintage electronic
equipment of most any kind. I’m sure this is something I always really wanted to do. Why vintage
electronics? Only vintage electronics (say, pre 1970) is truly amenable to repair. I hate the idea of
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tossing perfectly good stuff in the garbage can! Even an empty apple crate can sometimes be put to
good use.
Did you ever notice the gorgeous hue of that purple paper they used in apple crates? That paper was
much prettier than the yucky red, white or green tissue paper one could buy from Wienackers’ when
they were a little wooden store on Catherine Street in the 1940’s. That store was much like a general
store in that stuff was plied all the way up to the ceiling. That store was my source for 10-cent kites,
until I finally wised up and started making them myself with help, of course, from my other maid Ella
Dodd who showed me how to make paste from flour and water.
Oh how I loved to make and fly kites! We had far too little wind in Mobile, so Dennis Speirs and I got an
empty plastic clothes bag from Chin Laundry and filled it with natural gas from Mom’s stove. Then we
took that bag of gas to Murphy High School’s back field and set it aloft. Before releasing that bag, we
discussed how it could strike an airplane, but we supposed that risk was sufficiently small.
How wrong all those newscasters were! The first satellite to orbit our little planet earth was not
Sputnik, rather it was this gas-filled bag that we two “geniuses” set aloft. It was all Dennis’ idea. He
realized that natural gas, though more dense than hydrogen, was lighter than air. Dennis died several
years ago, but his legacy lives on. [I am very, very sorry, Mz. Hinz!]
Sputnik. Balderdash! That exclamatory word was a favorite of Dennis’ dad.
In the summer of 1966, I worked at the Geroge C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL as an
Aerospace Engineer. [This was part of a government program to give graduate students exposure to the
Space industry.] I did work for nine years at one of my favorite fav companies in this whole wide world,
Texas Instruments.
Mom was absolutely right. Everyday life is not always a lot of fun, but now and then something good
unexpectedly happens -- like a raise or special recognition at work (or, the birth of a grandchild), and
then suddenly everything seems more than worthwhile. Both my kids thought the study of science was
only so interesting. Maybe one of my grandkids will also study physics or electrical engineering. Wer
weiss?
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