Dreams Aside

So yesterday I mentioned BART. Near and dear to my heart. At the web page is a history page, which mentions the planning and development of a high-speed electric rail system for the Bay Area being underway even as the existing electric rail system for the Bay Area was being ripped up and paved over by local governments under the influence of gas, tire and auto companies (they don't mention that last part, but the timing -- late 40s, early 50s -- is interesting).

The final recommendation was submitted to the Legislature in 1957, about the time my grandfather was fixing to retire from County service. He was a bigwig by then -- there's actually an office building in Martinez they wanted to name after him, but he refused it -- and among his effects landed a bound copy of that proposal. I pored over it as a kid, enthralled by proposed railroad routes and station designs. Then it disappeared, probably tossed out by his widow.

Crossing my fingers and hoping for an online version, I searched yesterday on my grandfather's name, thinking maybe he'd be listed therein as one of the significant officials and thus serve as the document's hook for the search engine. No luck. What the search engine did find however was at freepatentsonline: his invention, patented May 2, 1967, of a bottle stopper. Seems to be one of those mechanical corks whose piston employs pressure to seal an opened bottle. We've a few of those, and though wine is much better served by the cork that came with it, they occasionally come in handy. I was surprised as hell to find this.

Grandfather was not an inventor or an engineer. He was an accountant and retired as County Auditor in 1958. But he evidently had a curious and disciplined mind. I think it's great that the invention he managed to get filed at the U.S. Patent Office was related to social drinking. I printed out a copy and will give that to my father when next I go to the hospital for a visit (yes, still in). I also printed out another one: This find sparked a vague memory, so I searched on my great-grandfather as well and sure enough, there he is on U.S. Patent 1,363,615, "Feathering-Wheel", patented Dec. 28, 1920:

"Our invention is an improvement in feathering wheels, and has for its object to provide a wheel of the character specified especially adapted for flying machines, by means of which the machine may be made to ascend or descend in a nearly vertical manner and to hover over a comparatively small area or to move forward in the manner of an aeroplane's flight."

As with his son-in-law, my great-grandfather did not capitalize on the effort to get the patent but ultimately let it lie. He wasn't an engineer either. Al was born and raised in gold mining country, and about the time of this patent had two teenage daughters and was shifting from being a small-town postmaster to selling Bay Area real estate. I have no idea what interests, influences or ambitions led him to draw up the plans for an early (and probably impractical) helicopter.

All of which make me feel very much the slacker. I'm the one whose career is in some large high-tech company that enables, nay encourages, its employee base to apply for patents for any and all of their bright ideas. I'm the one who presumably should have a wall full of engraved plaques commemorating my brilliant inventive efforts, not the dabbling businessman-of-all-trades or retired accountant who came before. But no-o-o-o. All I do is slog overwhelmed through my list of customer issues and technical documents and try to absorb endless already-invented technical trivialities, and write blog posts. Oh, and last night I wrote a thousand words or so of fiction. Whoopie do.