Answering the question, “What motivated you to go to graduate school?”
Well it is the 60’s . It’s Christmas. I wake up and wait for dad to light the fire in the wood stoves. There was one in the kitchen and one in the living room . An annex and a box stove. After the down stairs warmed up a bit we were allowed down stairs to see what Santa had brought. Dad had to wait for Santa to come down the chimney before he lit the stoves or Santa wouldn’t come.
There it was – an electric train set. I couldn’t believe it. It went around and around and you had to plug it into the wall to get electricity. It made smoke that smelled wonderful like diesel fuel. It had an electric head light and a transformer. The transformer converted the 120vac from the wall into 16vac for the train engine, the light, and the heater for the smoke. The transformer had a knob on it that you could turn to vary the voltage from 0 to 16 vac. This would slow the train to a stop or make it go faster. I had a great time with this train and played with it till I wore it out and it wouldn’t work any more. I tried everything to make it run again. Even stole a light bulb from Uncle Chester for it. Dad found out and made me give it back to Chester and say I was sorry. I was in deep shit. They made a big deal out of it. Going to teach me a lesson. Chester let me keep the light bulb in the end.
All of this fooling around with the train introduced me to electricity . I learned a lot from that train. I used what I learned to go on to wiring up flash lights . Fixing can openers . Fixing radio’s . Fixing just about anything that ran on electricity. I even started wiring houses after I took the electrical classes in high school. I was way ahead of the other guys in the class. Guess they never got an electric train for Christmas.
In grade 13 I decided to quit school. I was bored and tired of being broke. I tried to get a job at Vance Refuses TV repair shop. He said no and told me to stay in school. The guidance teacher wasn’t any help. They gave me a test and said I should be a watch repair man or a Forester. He did give me a University of Waterloo course book to look at. I read the whole thing. I came across the course that described how to become an electrical engineer. I read it over and over. It was exactley what I wanted to be.
I quickly reversed my work at school and went from F to A+ on most of my courses . I typically got one F and three A+ . I missed the Ontario scholarship by one mark I got a 74 but needed a 75 average. I was accepted at Waterloo, Queens and U of T. The Co-op course at Waterloo was what I wanted anyway. We could afford it. (We being Mom, Dad and me)
I quit University twice but ended up going back both times. The last time I had a good job as an electrical apprentice at the Kidd Creek Metsite. It was so nice to have some money. The crew I was with was wonderful. They kept telling me I was stupid to not go back to school. I had one year left to do out of the four. My boss even said if I went back I would probably end up being his boss.
So I got married and headed back to school. We used Rita’s Canada Savings Bond to pay the rent at the University married students’ residence. Dad had sold me his car for a dollar the last time I went back so we had that.
Aunty Joe used to send me $50 bucks a month. Mom and dad sent me money when ever I ran out. I had some savings from working so we didn’t need much.
After I graduated, Kidd Creek hired me back as an Electrical Engineer and I was my old boss’s Boss.
The first project they gave me was to get Engine 052, one of their three diesel electric engines, running again. It had been sabotaged by a pissed off electrician that I had worked with in the past as an apprentice. He told me I would never figure out what he had done. It took me a month but I found the little wire he had removed and got 052 running again. During the trouble shooting, we lit the engine on fire twice . The second time the train operator jumped out of the engine. But we were ready with our fire extinguishers. We had walky-talkies.
“053, 053. This is 052 come in please.”
”052. This is 053. What’s your problem?”
“053 this is 052. We need you to tow us back to the shop again.”
“10-4.”
It was pretty embarrassing stuff.
So my little electric train set got me on the rigth track to be able to fix a real 1000 hp “Montreal Locomotive Works” Engine.
The electrician (Benny) that removed the little wire bought me a beer and saluted me.