Bob As A Kid

Introduction

Everyone has a story to tell. This is Bob’s story to share with my family and friends. I have tried to make this interesting and have focused on sharing the most captivating life experiences as a general observation. I am elderly and have lived a good life. I will point out some of my life’s learning observations, which may be useful for you, as well as pitfalls to avoid. I have found that you never know what opportunities are going to come along, and I’ve realized that if I position myself to be prepared to take advantage of these opportunities as they occur, things work out. I also believe you can force success, and I followed the NASA creed: ‘Failure is not an option.’ However, I have added, ‘If you are failing, fail fast so you can move on to the next project.’ When I graduated from college, I listened to Kennedy, and the message ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’ was instilled in me. I have tried to live up to this calling.

I grew up in an entrepreneurial family in the Midwest with strong ethical values and received an outstanding education. In Iowa, we had brutal winters and what seemed like only a month of summer. So, during the winters, the school kids would end up in the basement to study. The frost line in Iowa is six feet deep, so all homes had six-foot-deep basements, which served as the study zone. After receiving a great high school education and a solid college education, I attended graduate school at the University of Iowa and joined the space program by working in the Cosmic Ray Laboratory of the Physics Graduate Students Department.

After graduate school, I followed the pipeline to Washington DC and to NASA, working as a rocket scientist for the government. I say, ‘working for the government’ because I was officially working for NASA, but I had many assignments working for the CIA, also known as the ‘Company.’ This included developing several high-technology instruments and performing nuclear bomb-in-space radiation analysis. I left the government and started a high-tech electronics instrument business, which is still running today some fifty years later. I will share some of the experiences I had while running the business and I am an Iowa boy, born and bred, the fourth generation of a Czech immigrant. Born on October 9, 1937, which makes me a prewar child. I remember World War II and the downtown celebration at the end of the war. Iowa is a big state, as most people know, and one of the most important agricultural states in the country. Lots of corn, lots of pork and beef. ‘Iowa Feed’ was and still is a factual statement about Iowans. Growing up, we couldn’t get enough of either corn or potatoes: baked potatoes, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato soup, potato and corn chowder, corn on the cob, mashed corn, boiled corn, roasted corn, pickled corn… Lots of pigs too. In Iowa, every square inch of that pig got used and eaten. Pig’s feet, pig’s tongue, pig stomach, the butt, the shoulder, the hocks, every bit, every process, fried, baked, roasted, ground, whatever it took. In Iowa, our family ate ‘High on the Hog.’ The best meat on the pig is literally the highest meat on the critter. Iowa’s best-kept secret is the pork tenderloin sandwich. They are a hundred times better than hamburger sandwiches. We ate our fill of pork tenderloin sandwiches. The recipe is simple: you take a 1-inch-thick cut of pork tenderloin, place it on a butcher block, and whack it with the flat side of a meat cleaver until it is ½ inch thick, where it becomes a 6-inch round patty. Then, dip it in batter and French fry it until golden brown. Put it on a jumbo hamburger bun with mustard. Some of the experiences I have had with a second business I formed after I sold the first one. These experiences range from being deadly serious to completely hilarious. With Laura’s help, she added interest, humor, and spice. I thank her very much for her help.
As a side note, when we were in Washington DC, we stopped at a fast-food restaurant for a sandwich. We walked in, and the manager recommended that we try this new chicken called ‘Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken.’ We did, and by chance, Colonel Sanders was promoting his new chicken recipe. Colonel Sanders came out of the kitchen over to our table and asked how we liked the chicken because it was something new, he was promoting. I said the chicken was OK, but if he really wants something great, he should perfect the tenderloin sandwich. At this point, he looked up, stepped back a step, and said, ‘Can you imagine the cost of food for that sandwich?’ Later, when he was back in the kitchen, we overheard him say, ‘They are from Iowa and not used to having to pick at their food.

Lowa is for farmers; The radio would give you the Hog belly market prices at 5 AM every morning on the radio. I had no idea what a hog belly was, but I knew the price every morning. My family was not of the farming type, but I spent time on the farm. My uncle Fred was a farmer and a tough, proud Czech man. My most formative years as a child were spent on his farm every summer. Great experiences. Cleaning out stalls that housed the pigs, cows, horses, chickens. Gathering eggs. Grinding corn for the cows, feeding the chickens. Feeding the pigs. The pigs loved being in the mud. Feeding the cows, horses, chickens, pigs. As a small child, I recognized that the farm was basically a food factory. The farm imported three things: fuel for the John Deere tractor, blocks of salt for the cows, and oil for the lamps. The farm exported milk, feed corn, beef cattle, hogs, eggs, chickens, vegetables, and Aunt Della’s baked goods. We had no lights because this was before rural electrification. But we did have good roads from the Iowa ‘Farm to Market’ county road program. On the farm, we always had a big breakfast, and after the cows came home and were put in the barn, we had a big dinner. In the late afternoon, before dinner, Aunt Della and I would go to the chicken coop, grab a chicken, and she would swing the chicken around her head to make it dizzy. After the swing, it would just lay motionless. She would grab it, hold its neck out on the chopping block, and using an ax, would chop its head off. The headless critter would jump up without its head and run around the yard, bumping into things, bleeding until the blood was gone. Hence the saying, ‘Running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.’ Then she would pluck the feathers and cook the bird for dinner. The bird was always tough, but that’s a fresh natural chicken. My uncle’s family only spoke Czech on the farm, so I learned the language, or I didn’t get what I needed, like a glass of water, food, clean clothes. So, I learned quickly. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My own family, my parents and I, are one hundred percent Czech, like Uncle Fred’s family.

Mom and Dad PHOTO 1

My father was a tall, slender, classy gentleman and a good dresser. He was a businessman and very entrepreneurial. He had a bald spot on top, like a monk, with pitch-black hair around the fringe. He ruled the family, as was true in most households at that time in the world. My mother was a small, slender woman. She spent a lot of time cleaning. If I were to touch a doorknob with my sticky Cracker-Jack fingers, that doorknob would be clean again in two seconds. I don’t remember her chasing after me as a young child, but she must have. I was very active at the age of three. By that time, I was not just walking around; I was running as fast as my short legs would carry me, and I’m sure I was her biggest challenge. At three, I had not acquired any competition yet, so the entire house was mine, and I took full advantage of that fact. I noticed things in my speedy travels and paid attention to detail. Even at that age, I was very calculating and thoughtful. I noted a shiny thing hanging above our dining table. My mother would touch a switch on the wall, and it would light up for our dinner. By moving a chair out from the table, I could actually climb up on it by myself without my father lifting me onto it (though he didn’t know that yet), and that was the biggest challenge of my mission. Then onto the table I went and, noting the distance from my little hands and that shiny light above my head, all I had to do was reach up with both hands and I could grasp it. By pushing off with my feet, I could swing… which I did. Somehow, I just knew it was probably not something I was allowed to do. I don’t know how I knew that or why I sensed it, but I did. So, I got off the table pretty fast that time. The next time I did it, my mother burst through the doorway, probably looking for a Cracker-Jack riddled doorknob, and caught me in mid-swing. That hurt my bottom a little bit, but not too bad. I did that a lot more times, but I made sure my mother was not so close behind.

The gas stove… now, that was what got my scientific genes in a tizzy. Like I said, I paid attention and noticed things. This was before stoves had automatic lighting, so you would use a match and then turn on the burner. I would follow Mother through the kitchen, turning on all the gas stove handles full ‘ON’ as I walked through the kitchen. She didn’t know I had done that until sometime later. Walking back into the kitchen, the smell was outrageous. She couldn’t really blame me because she wasn’t sure, but I got the glare anyway. I think she was catching on to me. So, one Sunday afternoon, she and Dad took me to the riverfront park in Cedar Rapids called Ellis Park to sunbathe on a blanket. To a kid, this would be very boring, and I would run off on my own. Dad would retrieve me, but soon enough, I would run off again. After a few times of retrieval, Dad decided to put me in the car to control my wandering while they sunbathed. Dad had a brand-new 1940 white Buick convertible. Huge and very white all over, even inside. I loved going for rides in that car. I had the whole back seat to myself. We didn’t have seat belts back then, so I could roll around or do anything I wanted until my mother hollered at me, which she did a lot.

DAD’S EYE POPPIN BUICK CONVERTIBLE
PHOTO 2

We didn’t have seat belts back then so I could roll around or do anything I wanted until my mother hollered at me which she did a lot. I saw that dad used the cigarette lighter to light his cigarettes and I watched what he did. He pushed it in and it would pop back out when it was glowing red then he would pull it out and light his cigarette with it then put it back in the hole. So, being bored in the car by myself I pushed the cigarette lighter in to heat it up, then in looking at the bright red glow when I pulled it out I stamped the center of the steering wheel with the cigarette lighter to melt the plastic into a nice round impression.

BEAUTIFUL NEW BUICK STEERING WHEEL
PHOTO 3

I was being very quiet while doing this, and I guess my father grew suspicious. He came over to the car, not noticing anything yet until he saw my grin that didn’t go away. He looked around more slowly this time. My bottom hurt quite a while longer, but not long enough. The next weekend, again ending up in the car, and this time I made several concentric rings around last weekend’s single ring… I never did that again.

I WAS A TERRIBLE LITTLE KID

As a small kid, and I keep saying this, I paid attention and noticed things. My mother would go to the basement to do the laundry, the big ringer type where you put the wet clothes up against these two bars, and then it pulls the clothes in to wring the water out. That part was automatic; she pushed a button, and it just pulled the clothes in. I guess my mother was upstairs somewhere looking for more Cracker-Jack sticky smears, so I climbed a bundle of clothes on the floor, then put a t-shirt in the wringer, holding it in place because it kept falling off, and then pushed the button. It moved so fast I didn’t realize it until my hands were being pulled into the wringer with the T-shirt. My mother was there so fast, but my hands were crushed. I think that was when my devious days were finally over. I succumbed.

The University of Iowa Hospitals put my hands back together after thirteen delicate surgeries. I thank my dad for paying for all my surgeries at The University of Iowa Hospitals. The surgeries were performed by Dr. Steiner. Remember, this was in an era before health insurance, and everyone paid for medical care out of their pocket. My guess today is that my surgeries would be in the half-million-dollar range.

As the years went by following the surgeries, I realized that because of my hands, I would have to focus on using my brain and not my brawn in life. This was an early indicator that I would have to go into the professions such as accounting, physics, engineering, or sciences, where I would use my head and not my hands.

There were three boys in the family: Larry, Don, and me, Bob, the oldest. There were about four years between each sibling.

Larry, Bob and Don
Beaver Avenue
Photo 4

In the spring of 1952, Larry was diagnosed with polio. Now, polio had been around for quite some time by then. As a matter of fact, it had been around for the better part of two centuries. As far back as the Egyptian era, there were documentations of the existence of polio. There are collections of paintings and drawings depicting humans with withered and deformed limbs, particularly in the legs. Sir Walter Scott, in 1773, was diagnosed with an illness that was more than likely polio, but at that time, polio was not known. My brother’s doctor was Dr. Victoreen, an excellent doctor. He asked Mother to keep Larry in the ‘Sunroom.’ This was the library facing south, with windows all around the room to keep it warm and sunny.

My own personal life, having been riddled with surgeries, missed school classes, and often a non-existent social life, was spent trying to catch up with new friends, playing outside, and studying. My brother Don was not born yet, so it was primarily me and Larry together, walking to school, hanging around sharing mischievous deeds, or collecting baseball cards. So, when he was banished to the library room, I felt I just wanted to spend time keeping Larry company since he was by himself. Later, he thanked me for the companionship, but at the time, I did not think about it because we were just good buddies, and we both just wanted Mom to let us go outside to play. It was months before Larry was allowed to go outside, but we went out together. With great fortune, Larry recovered from polio with minor complications, thanks to Dr. Victoreen. He would later take over, expand, and run Father’s electric motor business and have a family of nine children (2 adopted).

Larry Bob Don in Minneapolis
PICTURE THREE BOYS
Photo 5

Grandpa Janda was a big, proud, strong, fearless Czech man. He could have been a lineman on an NFL football team. He worked at the packing plant, and I say ‘strong and fearless’ because he was a steamfitter, which took smarts, strength, and the ability to face potentially deadly steam explosions. This was the industrial revolution age, you know, with steam trains, steam-operated plants, and no OSHA regulations.

Cedar Rapids had a very large Czech population. The Czech population was centered around the Wilson Meat Packing plant, where the Czech immigrants were employed. The Czechs established a local village near the packing plant called ‘Czech Village,’ with an old-world feel. The street signs were in Czech, the light poles had hanging flowerpots, homes had window boxes full of flowers, and the homes had front doors hand-painted with floral motifs. The butcher sold Jaternice sausage (pronounced Yeternetize), which is a liver sausage using the whole pig, meaning the heart, lungs, liver, and even the tongue. Sykora’s Bakery, in business since 1903 and predominantly serving the Czech community, had poppy seed kolaches, and the restaurants had Czech dumplings. The Czech dumplings are delicious and nothing like the soggy lump of dough Americans eat, called a dumpling.

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library located in Cedar Rapids was founded in 1974 by a group of second and third-generation descendants of Czech immigrants. My brother Don was an official at the museum. In 1995, Czech President Václav Havel, Slovak President Michal Kovác, and U.S. President Bill Clinton presided over the museum’s new building dedication.

Photo 6

President Clinton, among other developed likes, liked food and heard of the Czech Kolache. The bakery just happened to be across the street from the museum and the President, who heard of Kolaches, somehow managed to convince the Secret Service to accompany him to the bakery. My brother found out Clinton was at his bakery and when he tried to get into his own bakery the secret service stopped him abruptly. He said, “this is my bakery, and I am a republican and I do not want a democrat in my bakery!”

Sykora’S Bakery
Photo 7

Later, I said to Don that he should have advertised what he found out, which Kolache Clinton had chosen, so he could advertise it as the ‘Klinton Kolache.’ It turned out that Clinton had a cherry kolache. One of the special items he introduced at the bakery was a Czech rye bread made from Mother’s recipe. I mention this only because I often think of her fresh rye bread cooling on the kitchen counter, and if only I could have a nice, warm slice right now as I type. I’ll leave a copy of this recipe at the end of this book so the world can experience it as well.

President Clinton with Tom Harken (D Iowa)
Eating a Sykora Cherry Kolache
Photo 8

In 2001, the Czech and Slovak Museum held a cooking contest for the best Pork and Sauerkraut Dumpling Stew. About 40 of the best Czech women gathered around and presented their best dishes. As it turned out, our Janetta Janda received 1st Place from the judges, and not only that, but she also took first place in the popular vote by the people.

I WAS A DETASSLER BOSS

IOWA CORN DETASSLING MACHINE AND CREW
Photo 9

DETASSLING B-47 BOMBER

Lowa has a lot of field corn for livestock, and most of its growth is to have the tassels taken off the female corn stalks by hand, so the male corn stalks could pollinate the female stalks. The field would have two rows of male stalks and eight rows of female stalks. I ran a detasseling machine during the summer. It was my fantasy B-47 bomber. I was the pilot and had eight crew members. The detasseling machine had two long arms out from the center, and each arm had four crew members riding between the corn rows. They would pull the tassels off the corn as we went down the rows. At the end of the corn row, my B-47 was rickety and wobbly, almost collapsing as I turned around to go down the next set of corn rows. But I was on an important secret flight mission.

YOU WILL NOT BELEVE

What I have to tell you is unbelievable. To begin, our family lived in a house on Beaver Avenue near Beaver Park in Cedar Rapids. It was a common urban neighborhood. I must tell you a little bit about my childhood and the unbelievable coincidence that occurred later.

Beaver Park Childhood Home
Photo 10

I played with the neighborhood kids like Jim Reinet, Bob Moran, and John Mitchell. There were little kids down Beaver Avenue, like Chris Kellogg, who were too little to play with us big kids.

Later in life, I moved to Eastport in Annapolis. The Eastport drawbridge connecting Eastport to Annapolis got stuck in the up position a couple of years later, and it would take months to repair. The Eastport citizens, ‘in jest,’ seceded from the United States and went to war with Annapolis. The war was a Tug of War for Charity. It was going to be several months to fix the bridge. This isolated the Eastport citizens, where they would have to drive to the end of the peninsula then drive back to get to Annapolis. Well, we had a lot of time on our hands, and our citizens were revolting and argued that since the United States could not provide easy ingress and egress to the United States, therefore Eastport should secede from the union.

Six of us formed the revolutionary committee and formed the ‘Maritime Republic of Eastport’ (MRE). We were structured with a Primer, we had a Minister of Propaganda, Minister of Science (me), Minister of the Treasury, Minister of War, and a Minister of Oil Reserves (owner of our Shell station). The cabinet sat around drinking when one of us said we should declare WAR on Annapolis – Tug of War. One side will be in Annapolis and the other side in Eastport, some 2,500 feet away, separated by the Annapolis harbor. We will start at the ‘Crack of Noon’ and charge for the event with the proceeds going to charity. The city council accepted the challenge, so we went to war. As Minister of Science, I had to design the rope. The rope had to do two things: it had to float and could not break. I thought this would be easy. I figured you just take what a person can pull and add a safety factor. Well, no one had this information. I searched on the internet, called the coaches of the Baltimore Ravens; no one had the answer. So, I did what every scientist would do. I got a bathroom scale, taped it to a post, wrapped a rope so the scale would read, and had the biggest guy from the Petroleum Reserves pull on it. The reading was 100 pounds. The rope was Spectra and would break at 3000 pounds or 300 people, so I rated it at a safety factor of 10 to 1, or 30 people per side. We had a great event and generated $30,000 for charity.

After the event, the MRE Revolutionary cabinet went to our local bar and congratulated ourselves. In the conversation, the Minister of War said, ‘This could never happen in Cedar Rapids.’ My head spun around, and I said, ‘What’s with Cedar Rapids?’ He said, ‘His hometown.’ I said, ‘Mine too, where did you live?’ He said Beaver Avenue. It struck like lightning; this was the kid down Beaver I never played with because he was too little. This was Chris Kellogg who grew up and was now in Annapolis, a very successful businessman who was a buyer and seller of companies.

Maritime Republic of Eastport (MRE)
Flag, Tug-0f-War, Eastport Oyster Boys
Photo 11