Today is August 27, 2026. The date may not mean much to you, but, in my case, it means that I am 90 years old today. I have been enjoying each day without giving any thought to the large number that I am now confronted with. Time flies, and the days add up. I’ll try not to bore you with a bunch of old guy stuff.

My mission today is to thank all of you who have read the stories. My granddaughter, Christie, set me up with this blog, and I hoped to entertain my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids with it. It’s been a real joy to discover that others might like it as well. My wife, Pat, and daughter, Terri, have contributed ideas and helped with the stories. I typed and posted the first 200 or so stories and then, after I lost my vision, Terri took over the typing and posting. She also looked up the statistics that I will share with you now. 461 stories have been posted. The stories have been viewed 11,500 times by people in the U.S. They have also been viewed in 72 other countries. I think that’s amazing.

This is also a good time to say thank you to the Veteran’s Administration. Thanks to them, this old guy who is legally blind can write stories to be posted to this blog. The VA keeps me healthy and has supplied video magnifiers and a text reader to make it possible. Some people take pleasure in criticizing them, but they get nothing but praise from me. The doctors, nurses, and technicians I’ve encountered have all been quality people. I love ‘em.

We have wondered how you all discovered us! The internet is a big and amazing place. It is amazing to me to hear from people all over the world. It has been my pleasure to tell  you these stories about our lives and interesting things that we have come across. I hope to be able to come up with a few more stories to entertain both you and I.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dave Thomas

8/27/2026

Bob Scholl, Innovator

I like this story. It tells of a time when the world loosened up a little and didn’t take itself as seriously. I was working at Electro Instruments in San Diego, a relatively new company that was a pioneer in the design and manufacturing of digital measuring equipment. It must have been 1962 or 1963. Two MIT professors had designed the digital volt meter and were leading the field in both design and sales.

I was an Assistant Assembly Foreman. My job was to circulate on the assembly floor looking for workmanship and quality problems and providing help for the Group Leaders and for the assemblers. We had 45 or 50 electronic assemblers. Some of them were seasoned by jobs in places like IBM, G.E., and R.C.A.  I started as an hourly test technician in April of 1961 and worked my way up to a salaried Assistant Foreman job. Both jobs were interesting, and I learned a lot from both of them.

The building was new, and I don’t think the company had moved in until a few months before I came to work for them in 1961. The shell was complete as were all the offices in the front of the building. However, many of the workspaces still needed to be designed and configured. It was a challenge to figure out how many people and how much equipment would be required in each department work area. To give you an idea of the design challenge or headache, here are the departments I recall:  Electronic Assembly, Test, Sheet Metal/Machine Shop, Stock Room, Special Assembly, Systems Engineering, Print Shop (we printed our own manuals), Precision Resistor Manufacturing, Standards Lab, Cubicles for a half dozen engineers, Drafting Department, Manufacturing Engineer Department, Break Room, Quality Control, and Shipping.

On the west side of the assembly area, a strip of space was to become the main hallway. It would run from the door of the front offices to the breakroom.

Up until sometime in the 1960’s, the dress code was as strict as that of West Point. Managers, Supervisors, foremen, engineers and all bosses were expected to wear dress slacks or the trousers of a business suit, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a matching tie. I was told that this unwritten rule came from places back East like IBM, GE, and RCA. There was no question about that being the standard, and it was practiced from coast to coast. The guy with a white shirt and tie was in charge. Look no further.

Bob Scholl was a manufacturing engineer. He was about 40, well-liked, sharply dressed, and well-groomed. His shoes were shined, and he was just a heck of a nice guy. Bob’s job was to write plans, develop estimates, and help on the assembly floor by answering questions. He was a real gentleman, and I liked him a lot.

It was after 7:30 am, and the 8:00 am staffers had begun coming through the door from the front offices as they headed for the breakroom to get a cup of coffee and get their day started. The door opened again and, this time, it was Bob Scholl and some of his cohorts from Manufacturing Engineering. But was that really Bob? He was wearing a long-sleeved pink shirt, gray pants, and a matching tie.  The room started buzzing and all eyes were focused on the hallway. “Holy smoke! Is that Bob?”  “They will fire him for this!” “He’s history!!”  Most of the comments had to do with questions about whether or not Bob would be fired for this transgression. At the morning break, the situation was thoroughly reviewed, and it was determined to be too trivial to worry about but simply became the object of teasing. Bob was touted to be the man responsible for a cultural revolution.

Life in the factory got back to normal, and Bob was to resume being the nice, quiet guy he had always been. Pastel colors began appearing on many articles of clothing. The fashion industry had gone through all of this 10 years before. Chevrolet had even introduced pink and gray in 1955 as color choices for their Bel Air model sedans.

A partition was built to separate the assembly area from the main hallway, so the assemblers were no longer distracted by giggles or strange shirts passing in front of them.

Dave Thomas

8/20/2026