Bad Words Indeed

I was getting out of the car today after picking up Stephen from school, and he asks me from the back seat, “Mom, what is the bad word that begins with ‘f’?” Oh boy. Here comes that conversation. First the fear spoke and I thought, ‘This could go so wrong.’ (Are we ever prepared for these questions?) Then the shock took over and I thought, ‘Where did you hear that word?!’ and fast-forwarded to banning friends and tv programs and even recess. Then the rationality won out and I turned back into my seat, pulled the car door closed and prepared myself for a meaningful conversation. I looked back at Stephen and calmly asked, “Can you tell me what word you’re talking about, bud?” He looked down at the floor and said, “Well, I know I’m not supposed to say it.” This didn’t help my fears. “It’s ok, bud, go ahead and tell me so I know what word you’re talking about.” “Ok, well,….I think it’s fart.” I almost laughed out loud. Whew, this won’t be as hard as I thought. “Yeah, Stephen, that’s not a very nice word and let’s try not to use it, ok?” I turned to open the car door and get out, but wise thoughts overtook me from my friend Susan about not ever letting teachable moments pass and I knew we weren’t at the end of the conversation. “Uh, Stephen, are there any other bad words that you know?” “Well, yeah, there’s the ‘d’ word.” Ok, that one’s not so hard to explain. But wait, Becky, don’t assume again. “Which word is that, Stephen?” “Darn-blasted.” Relief again. But only short-lived: “And Mom, you know there’s the ‘s’ word.” I raised an eyebrow as I clearly remembered my first time hearing the ‘s’ word (and going home and asking my mom what it meant) was also in first grade. “Well, what word is the ‘s’ word, bud?” Looking sideways at me, he replied, “You know….stupid.” Big sigh on my part. “Oh, of course, Stephen, yeah, we don’t ever want to call someone that word either. It’s not very nice. That really can be a bad word.” Big smile and contented nod from Stephen. Too bad we won’t stay at first-grade bad words forever.

A Good Brother

The closing months of 2008 were difficult ones for the Priest family. As I wrote previously, my dad passed away on November 29. One month later, on December 26, my oldest brother Marshall Allen Priest, passed away in Grand Junction, Colorado, at the age of 55. In January 2008, Dad and I flew to Grand Junction to spend a few days with Marshall, as both of their health was failing, and we knew it would probably be the last time either of them would be up for it. While it was really good to see him again, we could tell that his health was not good. A couple of months ago, Marshall checked into the hospital because the doctors told him he was dying of cancer and had 2 months to live. Unfortunately, they were right.

The day after Christmas, Becky, Stephen, and I were driving from St Louis to Arkansas to spend a few days with my family. On the way, we got the call that Marshall was not expected to make it through the night. I was a little stunned. We stopped for lunch and I called Marshall at the hospital in Grand Junction. His friend, Laura, was at the hospital with him and held the phone to his ear so that I could talk to him. He could barely speak - just a very quiet whisper. I told him that I loved him and thanked him for all that he had done in my life to help me. I told him that I prayed that God had him in His hands and that I was going to miss him a lot. Although I could not understand what he was saying, Laura could and she told me later that Marshall had said that he loved me too. Marshall and I had had some very good, long conversations in the past. This one was our last.

After high school, Marshall went into the Army. He received training in electronics and became a very accomplished electronics technician and designer. He had a number of opportunities to get some of the best electronics training available and spent many years traveling the world and working on the most top-secret, sophisticated, information-gathering technology in the world.

Marshall knew that I was very interested in electronics. When I was about 12 years old, Marshall bought me some electronics books as a Christmas present. I ate them up. One of them, which I still have on my shelf today, was the 'Engineer's Notebook' from Radio Shack. This was back in the day when you could still buy electronic components at Radio Shack - but I digress. I loved that book because it had pages and pages of circuit ideas for neat stuff you could build with just a few components. I wanted to build one of them - and expand it somewhat - but I did not understand how it worked. Marshall sat down with me and walked me through the process of reading a schematic and understanding circuit operation. That was my first lesson in reading schematics. From that, I was really fired up for electronics design. Because of Marshall's instruction, I quickly began designing my own circuits while still in the 6th grade.

When it came time for me to start thinking about college, Marshall gave me a dream. See, growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money and while I knew I wanted to go to college, I had no idea if, where or what we could afford. Marshall stepped in and encouraged me to look at some of the top engineering schools in the country. He told me about how much financial aid would be available and also told me that he, personally, would be helping to pay for it. I applied to, and was accepted at, Washington University in St Louis. The tuition and room and board for a year were almost half my dad's annual salary. Financial aid and scholarships helped a lot but the remaining bill was over $3000 for the first year. That was a lot of money in 1983. Marshall called from England where he was living at the time and asked Dad how much we owed. Marshall wired us the full amount plus a little extra for books and spending money. He continued to contribute money every year while I was going through college. Whenever a tuition bill was due, Marshall would come through and send us the necessary amount.

In the fall of 1984, Marshall moved back to the US from England and began working for a company in a suburb of Washington DC. The next spring, he called me at college and asked me about my summer employment plans. I told him I expected to just go home and work at the computer store again - but he had other plans. Marshall had gotten me an internship with his company, E-Systems, developing software and hardware. I was thrilled! He flew me to out to Virginia, and I arrived on a Saturday night. On Sunday, he took me driving so that I could learn to drive the manual transmission of his new, sporty Pontiac Fiero. After a couple of hours, he tossed me the keys, told me to take him to the airport, and informed me that he was leaving for Germany for six months and then going back to England. The car was for me to use that summer and then to keep when I went back to college! I spent two summers working at E-Systems and gained a huge step forward with the experience I gained there. That cemented my love of engineering and electronics and gave me some real excitement to pursue learning everything I could about electronics design. That had been Marshall's goal all along.

Marshall loved talking to me about my engineering work. When I was in graduate school, and later after I had started my own company, we had numerous discussions about my research and applications of the technology. Marshall was always thinking of new ideas and new ways of doing things and encouraged me to think outside the box and consider the crazier applications which seemed too far out there to obtain. Marshall was certainly not perfect, but he was a good, big brother. My love for engineering and my engineering talent came from him and his strong encouragement of me. I owe him so much!

Allen