Ramblings

by John Pokoski

I was asked to write an article about retirement and my plans for the future. I guess I can do that. (Although I don’t know why anyone would be interested. Also, I don’t have to do this. I’m retired, you know!) I thought I would add a few memories of this place over the past thirty-four years. For some reason, most of those that stick are the silly/fun ones.

I have been retired less than a month. I thought it would be good, but it is better than I thought. I feel that I have had three lives: from birth to kindergarten, when my time was my own, with few responsibilities; from kindergarten to last month, when my time belonged to others, and my responsibilities were endless; and from last month to death, as I revert back to stage one. The best thing is going to bed and getting up when I feel like it (lately about 9am) and doing what I feel like doing. Like working in my garden or orchard, cutting wood for the stove, playing with the dog, playing basketball, or going fishing. Right now, I am refinishing our dining room. Next fall, fishing will be replaced by hunting. Last November I got my first deer and the venison tastes great. Now that I’ve gotten the hang of it and have more time, I expect to kill one annually. (Not only more venison, but more orchard and garden will result!) On a larger, long range scale. I have many activities planned. However, I don’t lock in on plans as I used to. Things change! My grandpa told me when I was a pup that the most important thing is health. I thought he was senile at the time, but I have learned that he is right. Or maybe I have attained senility. Anyway, I have traveled a lot, and still like it. I just don’t plan it as tightly. I expect that my wife, dog, and I (Jane and Schnappsie-Jane is the wife) will be south or southwest for a month or two most winters for a while. I really love the west, and always yearn to be there after I have been away a year or two. Especially when one of the John Ford/John Wayne movies pops up on the boob tube. I especially enjoy the big sky, the vistas, the flora and fauna, and horseback riding through the desert and mountains. Jane and I may also take some oversea trips (if the Dow rebounds). Ireland and perhaps northern Italy have been of interest to us. Also, we will probably take advantage of elderhostel trips. Now that I have more time, I expect to do more volunteering—church, charity stuff…

Notice that I haven’t listed any "professional" stuff in the above. That’s because I am in phase three of my life. If I start to run low on money, the part time jobs I would like would include bartender in a not so busy tavern, or perhaps a bag boy at Market Basket. (If I can remember to put the heavy stuff at the bottom.)

Now I will ramble about some of my strongest memories. In the late ‘60’s Durham was a "dry" town. I remember being in line at noon with Hal Wochholz, Dick Skutt, Dick Jennings and a few others to be the first (ever) to be served at the local pub.

The TGIF’s were great. A mix of faculty and students. From about four to seven P.M. (sometimes midnight). One of these led to a challenge basketball game with the faculty and staff vs. students. I can’t remember all the people involved, but it was really hard fought. Many bloody shirts. I sort of remember two fellows from northern NH, one named Smith. Also a 6'7"’guy from NHTI who always had his elbow in my neck. Jim Byrne was a TA who played college ball under Al McGuire. We had a two point lead with three minutes to go, and the undergrads were coming on strong. I told Jim, "Get serious, I want to win this." (He was in my class.) It was all over then. Great celebration afterwards. Losers bought.

I remember the IEEE picnics which we had in my hayfield across from my house. We always had a student/faculty softball game. Usually the faculty won. Not this time. I still marvel at the spot where Herm Gitschier hit a 350 foot home run into the woods in the last at bat. I think Herm is retired from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard now. In those days kegs abounded at the picnic and the drinking age was eighteen. The picnics usually ended about midnight. Things change.

I remember the IEEE Professional Awareness Conference we held in 1980. Perry Yastrov was the IEEE student branch president and I was advisor. Art Hudson (an alumnus) was the state IEEE president who suggested the idea, and got help from IEEE northeast director Hans Cherney. IEEE President Leo Young gave the plenary talk. Although there were two similar conferences the previous year, they weren’t very successful. This one had a huge student turnout, and its great success led it to be a model for the PAC’s which IEEE still sponsors to this day.

For years, my noontime break was taken in Dick Jennings’ (our technician) laboratory, with Dick’s student helpers and an occasional rotating faculty member. Topics ranged from old movies to politics to lab experiments. During the Watergate hearings, Dick set up rows of seats so as many as twelve people could watch Sam Ervin perform. The students learned a lot at these sessions. Dick was a father to them. Ken Fecteau was Dick’s strong man, and Rick Boyle told Ken where to stack the equipment. Now they are both top engineers on the west coast. Larry Bohs (called L.Bows) and Mike DiCelle are two others I recall. Larry found out I was from St. Louis (as was he) and that I craved White Castle hamburgers. One Sunday evening about ten, Jane and I were surprised by a knock at our door. It was Larry and Mike, just returning from a visit to St.Louis. They giggled as they handed me a sack of White Castles and ran off. Larry got his Ph.D. at Duke and works there I believe.

I remember some interesting student projects. Peter Luthi’s cuckoo clock for the deaf comes to mind. A computer controlled LED display flashed CUCKOO on the hour. Mike Frankauski wanted his project to be extremely reliable, so he overdesigned everything. It got so big that he had to wheel it from his dorm room to lab daily on a handtruck. I think Mike works at NSA now. He would never tell me what he was doing there. I’ll bet it is not a camera in a tie clip.

Probably the wildest student project was done by Ernie Sullivan, Bob Zawojski, and Dennis O’Brien. It was a sobriety tester in which the testee tried to follow a moving dot on an oscilloscope using a light pen. A computer controlled the dot and totalled the tracking error. One morning they happily, but blearily, informed me that their project worked. When I asked them how they tested it, they said they brought a case of beer into lab last night, and gave it a real-life test---all night. These guys were members of the craziest class I saw here. They had a kazoo band that marched the halls of Kingsbury on more than one occasion. At the IEEE picnic, they took the field as the visiting team in the student-faculty softball game, called everyone to attention, whipped out their kazoos, and played a beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. They also pulled some interesting pranks in Glen Gerhard"s 8am class, but that would not pass censorship here. Things change!

I remember the brilliance, hard work, and overall niceness of many students. Names like Kontopidis, Lang, and Canfield pop into my head. But I mostly treasure the overachievers-people of average ability who worked their tails off to do well.

I recall Ollie Holt, an apple farmer from New Hampshire, who, for his master’s thesis, developed the first in-circuit-emulator. Before INTEL did it! Our PDP8L tracked the Intel 8008 in real time. Our paper was selected for a reprint in an IEEE summary of early microprocessor work.

I remember the grad students from the shipyard-Mike Regan, Steve Baker, Charlie Walker… who produced a lot of theses in the 60’s and became friends for life.

I remember Bob Hewes as the one who laughed most at my jokes. He got all A’s, but not just for laughing. He got his PhD from Harvard. I remember Phil (Seatz) Dietz receiving a copy of my exam at the beginning of class, looking it over, then barking like a dog uncontrollably. (Ask Phil how he got his nickname. I can’t say here.) Phil and Ed Garcia were also the native workers when Jane and I threw a Hawaian luau at our pond. I butchered a pig, and Dick Jennings and I dug a pit and rolled red hot rocks from a bonfire into it. The wrapped pig, potatoes, corn on the cob, and bananas were laid on top of the rocks and covered with a tarp and dirt. We invited everyone we knew. Students, faculty, friends, neighbors, etc. About 75 people came. Everyone had to dress Hawaian and bring a pineapple or something. The big rock in the pond was labeled as Diamondhead. We had war canoe races (complete with dragon heads on the canoes). Eight hours after burying the pig, we dug it up, not knowing what to expect. Phil and Ed carried it on a rack, parading it around before putting it on the table. Delicious! Whew! (Of course, by that time, the rocks would have tasted good.) This was the year Tom Miller was hired and it was the first EE social event he attended. He and his wife Vickie have said that if life at UNH was like this, they couldn’t wait for more.

Things change!