In the summer of 1940, Dad worked for Dutchland Farms in Hartford, Connecticut, (per his first post-college resume). In the mid 2000’s, Judith and I drove with them from Bethpage to Whitman and back. As we were departing Whitman, he told the story of working as a waiter and soda fountain attendant during the week and hitchhiking back to Whitman for the weekends. On one trip, he only got partway home and had to sleep rough in a town square. We weren’t in a big hurry, and might have been planning to stop and visit Judith’s sister, so we detoured to visit the scene of the crime.

Alas, my memory fails, and I can’t remember whether we took Route 44 or Route 6 to find the town square, but I do remember driving around it. Both routes go through Providence, RI, but 44 continues to meet Mass Route 18, which goes north to Whitman and connects to Mass Route 27 into Whitman Center. Route 6 continues on to Cape Cod and intersects with Mass Route 58 which goes north through Halifax to become Plymoth Street in Whitman. I recall that our detour was mostly through small towns, so my guess is that he camped along Route 44, since Route 6 is more built up these days..

The old Dutchland Farms is gone, but the windmill above the front entrance still remains.

Back in the 1960’s, the NY Times business section had a column on interesting patents.  I think it was in the Friday edition, as the patents were published on Tuesday. The column always gave the address of the U.S. Government Printing Office so you could order a copy, I think for 25 cents. The patents were printed on one side of the page, and the paper was good quality.

At the time, Tom and I used his shirt cardboard for drawing paper, but since he only wore one shirt a day to go to work, these were in short (shirt?) supply. To alleviate the problem (and probably stop us from fighting over who got his shirt cardboard), Dad found a solution.

On Feb. 23, 1960 AT&T received U.S Patent 2,925,957 that ran 620 pages including 354 drawings, which were printed on card stock. Dad ordered this patent and set us up with drawing paper. I am sure he took a perverse pleasure in this clever solution, and (perhaps unintentionally) set me on my path as an inventor. 

Dad kept a book that Tom and I prepared with drawing and stories. Tom was only four years old, so Mom wrote out his stories for him, except for page 10, which looks like Dad’s printing.

Apparently we used up all the paper over the course of a year, so Dad re-ordered the patent. In going through Dad’s papers one last time before shredding them, I came across this 1961 letter from the patent office refunding his remittance for patent number 2,925,957 “Accounting System” because it was out of print and there was no plan to reprint the 620 pages of text and drawings.