There was a person in my life when I was probably 10 years old that totally influenced my entire life. Thinking about him now, 70 years latter make me feel very melancholic in a good way. Sad because I don\u2019t know if he ever knew the effect he made. But then in a way. I am sure he did.<\/p>\n
Totally depressing is that I don\u2019t absolutely remember his name. I know he was a dentist and his name was Dr. Polieto or something similar. As a kid my brother Jim and I called him Dr. \u201cP.\u201d He lived on Lyons Blvd. in Poland, Ohio. and was a close neighbor to our maternal grandparents. That\u2019s where we spent most of the summer and almost every weekend of our younger childhood.<\/p>\n
My parents were both heavily involved in the operations of the family HVAC business. So escape of us \u201cboys\u201d to Grandparents home was good and helped us to mold into who we became. AKA our “formative years”.<\/p>\n
Grandpa was a carpenter but more a woodworker. Had a full woodworking shop in his basement. He too was a major influence in our creative abilities.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s hobby was building racing stock cars. A full auto engine shop was in our 4 car garage. Jim and I were no stranger to using tools.<\/p>\n
Dr. \u201cP\u201d was a special attraction. His hobby was free flight model airplanes. In those days the field behind his house was open tall grass. Perfect for flying \u201cfree flight\u201d airplanes.<\/p>\n
The sound of the tiny 0.20 C.I. \u201cgas\u201d model engine screaming was an instant attraction. Being free roaming young boys, living about four houses away, we always ran over to the field to watch them fly.<\/p>\n
But that was not all.<\/p>\n
Dr. P never sent us away. In fact he took the time to teach us all about what he was doing. How the model airplanes were built from balsa wood and covered and how he made flight adjustments so they would circle over the field. He took time and talked to us young boys. We help to carefully retrieve a landed model and bring it back to the launch area.<\/p>\n
But amazing to us, he told us we could do the same! Build an model airplane like his from a kit. And he would help us learn how to fly it. That got us both into the hobby and understanding of flying model airplanes. Gone were the days of plastic glue together models. We could build planes that would fly!<\/p>\n
Jim moved to control line (circle flying) models, but I loved the free flights. Dr. P did help me trim and fly my first balsa-wood free-flight airplane. I eventually moved to radio control (R\/C) models (lead picture) and flew them into my early 40 age. By then I had a private pilot license and a \u201creal\u201d \u201cclassic\u201d 1946 8A Luscombe aircraft to fly.<\/p>\n
Jim didn\u2019t stay long with models, but joined Civil Air Patrol in High School and the U.S. Air Force with a tour in Vietnam. I joined the Navy…<\/p>\n
My point is that neighborhood \u201cprofessional person (dentist)\u201d took the time and effort to introduce young boys (Jim and I) into the world of model airplane building and flying that certainly gave me the confidence I could make things from raw materials and fly them successfully.<\/p>\n
I was also into electronics at age 10 or so… and building radios from component parts (transistors, capacitors, etc.) ordered from Lafayette Radio and Allied Radio catalogs. That was more self driven activity and another story of a lifelong (Amateur Radio) interest.<\/p>\n
But here, a great THANKS to Dr. \u201cP\u201d for his HUGE influence to this young boy\u2019s life and what that boy became. Now, not far from age 80, I have to hope that somewhere I made a difference (like that) in someone\u2019s life too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was a person in my life when I was probably 10 years old that totally influenced my entire life. Thinking about him now, 70 years latter make me feel very melancholic in a good way. Sad because I don\u2019t know if he ever knew the effect he made. But then in a way. I am sure he did. Totally depressing is that I don\u2019t absolutely remember his name. I know he was a dentist...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbies","category-musing","category-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6088"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6097,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088\/revisions\/6097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}