This is a living history interview with Tom Edwards, class of 1928, conducted by Marilyn Summers on April the 21st, the year 2004. 

We are at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, and the subject of our interview today is his life in general, his experiences at Georgia Tech. Mr. Edwards, thank you so much for letting us come and visit you here today. 

We're lucky to catch you home between cruises, right? 

You just came from one, and you're getting ready to go on another one. Yeah, my son and his wife came down, and we went on a 10-day cruise. We just came back. Just amazing. I know I had a hard time getting you, and I finally caught you. 

So glad you could make some time for us today. I want you to tell me where you were born and when you were born. I was born in Florence, Alabama in... Your birth date? 6-14-06. 19-06. 6, yeah. 

What were your mom and dad doing in Florence, Alabama? 

Well, my father originally had a job with Southern Railway, a very good job, but he decided he wouldn't go into business for himself and he and two of the men started the, well they didn't start it, they actually purchased the Sheffield Machine and Foundry Company in Sheffield, Alabama. 

So that was close to Florence? 

Right across the river, the Tennessee River. Okay. And your mother, was she from that area? 

Well, he came from Baltimore. He was born in Baltimore. My mother was born in Chicago. In Chicago. 

So neither one of them were southerners? 

No. They just happened to be in the south when you were born? 

That's right. Did you have brothers and sisters? 

I had one brother and two sisters. 

And where did you fall in the family line? 

Were you youngest in the middle? 

You were the oldest? 

Yes. Oh, okay. The last one just died recently. 

So you outlived your brothers and sisters, even though you're the oldest one. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? 

Well, there wasn't too much difference in our ages. You were all close? 

Yes. Did you go to school in Florence? 

No. 

How long did their folks live there? 

We moved from Florence to Sheffield when I was seven years old, and I hadn't started school. I didn't go to kindergarten. Okay. 

So you were seven when you were going to start first grade? 

Right. And it was in Sheffield? 

Yes. Okay. How did you take to school? 

Were you a good student? 

Well, I guess I was. I got bored, and the teachers refused to upgrade me. 

My parents wanted them to move me up a grade, because it so happened when we lived in Florence, we lived on Cherry Street, and right across the street from us, or a little kitty corner, was two schoolteachers, and I used to go over there for breakfast lots of times with them. And they taught me my multiplication division tables and taught me to read and all. Way ahead of time, huh? 

Oh, yes. In fact... You were too smart for the first grade. That's right. I could do more than the first grade before I went to school. Isn't that something? 

You were tutored. That was great. And you liked to learn, so you were a quick study. No wonder you were bored. Yeah. 

Well, a family down the street had two sons, teenagers, and they both were killed, I think, or died from some disease, I don't remember. And they had a wonderful library of boys' books. And the teachers knew the family, and they asked them if I could borrow the books. And so about every week I read a new book. Oh, wasn't that wonderful? 

You had access to all that reading. 

Yeah, and the teachers, every time I finished a book, they asked me what new words I learned in that book. 

Well, you were, oh, you had privilege. Yeah, I was just lucky. Yeah, privileged tutors. That's amazing. 

What could have been better than that? 

So they were having a good time teaching you, and you were soaking it all up, huh? 

I hope so. 

So elementary school was boring because you knew all that stuff already. Yes. Yeah. 

How long did it take before you caught up with yourself? 

Well, I stayed up to the third grade in the school in Sheffield. And then my father and mother transferred me to the school in Florence, Alabama. 

There was a normal school that had all grades from the first grade up through high school and through college. And so they got me in there. And I went in the third grade there, and within one week they raised me to the next grade. 

So it was more paced to what you could do rather than the grade level. Yes. 

So you went right ahead. You accelerated it. Yes. How long did you stay in that school? 

Through high school. All the way through high school. 

Did your parents raise you to understand you were going to college, or were you surprised? 

Never thought about it, I guess. 

Never thought about it? 

Isn't that funny? 

So when you were in high school, did someone start suggesting to you that maybe you should go to college? 

Oh, yes. 

And how did you choose to go to Georgia Tech? 

Well, we considered Auburn, a friend of mine, and we were together and decided we'd go to the college together. And it was either go to Alabama Polytech or go to Georgia Tech. And Alabama Polytech was really Auburn, became Auburn at a later point in time. And so how did Georgia Tech win you? 

I don't think I can answer that. maybe you boys just wanted to go away to school could have been so by the time you entered Georgia Tech it was 1924 so let's think for a minute up until that time you would have known about Georgia Tech probably football maybe John Heisman was the coach there when you were growing up so you could have heard about him in the paper I'm not sure what really instigated yes finally was the decision to go to georgia tech i think we thought it was a better school um that's good to hear that's good and it definitely was there's no doubt about that yeah you were wise on that one let's think about what the world was like when you were growing up we had gone into the first world war what they called the great war at that time do you have any recollection of that at all oh yes as a matter of fact when i was 11 years old i can't school was just out just before i was 12 i came home and told my mother i was going to get a job this was in a government nitric plant they were building for world war one she says they won't hire you you're only 11 years old and you've got to be at least 15 to get a job i said well i'll go over anyway so i went over and asked the guard to send me to the employment office and i went to employment office and I told them I wanted a job and they said what can you do I said oh I can do a lot of things and they said well can you deliver mail and I said I think so in those days you know you didn't have very many telephones yeah everything was by mail by yeah notes and so on and they sent me over to the mail room and the building next door and the the guy asked me if I could read all right and he gave me some stuff to read some of the kind of difficult scrawls like doctors writing so I guess I did all right because he said that what you do better than the guys on it's just leaving. They hired you? 

They hired me for five cents an hour. Oh, for goodness sakes. 

But you weren't even 12 years old yet. No, I was 11 years old. We didn't have child labor laws in those days, obviously. They didn't ask me how old I was. They didn't? 

No. Oh, for heaven's sake. 

Well, they didn't even have social security cards then or anything. 

Well, you know, they were so anxious to get people to work. They needed people to do things, so they didn't worry about as long as you could live and breathe. 

So you must have gone home and surprised your mother that after all, huh? 

I did. My father couldn't believe it. He thought I convinced him some way by lying about something. I said I didn't have to say anything. Just hired John. 

Well, I was on the mail route for three weeks and one of my stops happened to be the garage. 

In those days, the transportation, of course, was nil practically and the people who came in there and also the people in the organization that had to, there was another nitrate plant nearby, they had to go by car, T-Model Ford. 

So delivering mail to the garage I found out that the dispatcher in the garage was leaving and i asked the supervisor i got to add got to know him if i could have the job and he says well i'll give you a trial so he took me over and asked the guy who was on dispatcher to move over for a while and all it was to it was you took a card out of a rack put it in a time clock and checked the car out but and then you wrote in the log book where it was going so that they could charge the correct department and so I did that for three or four cars and wrote it in the book and he said you write better than the guy that you're replacing. 

So you read better and you wrote better. 

So he says I haven't sent a request in for the for the new man yet but it'll be next Monday if if you want the job and I said well I think I'd like it so I went back and told my supervisor that I'd applied for the job and he said well I hate to lose you but if it's an upgrading well I'm glad you get it. 

Well to make a long story short I went to the employment office they gave me a transfer and I went back to the garage and told the fellow that I was all set to come to work he said come to work Monday morning and I did. Did you get a raise or was it still One cent. One cent raise. 

But you know, that was 20%. Yeah, that was a 20%. Wow, yeah. 

Three weeks in the business and you're already going up the ladder, huh? 

That's just pretty amazing. Did you work the whole summer? 

All summer. 

So you had your first summer job and you weren't even 12 years old. 

Well, you turned 12 that summer. Oh, yeah. 

Well, that's amazing. I turned 12 before I got to... 

So you had pocket money. Yeah. Oh, I was rich. Yeah, yeah. Your father didn't have to go to the war. He was older. Oh, no, he was my daughter. Yeah, so he didn't have to go to war. 

So no one you knew was in the war. You weren't affected that way. 

But you do remember that it was going on. Oh, well, the plant was being built to make nitrates for the war. 

So you knew all that, even though you were just a kid. Yeah. Yeah. 

And then when the war finally was over, and things went back into what we called the Roaring Twenties, that period of apparent affluence in the country. 

Do you remember those as Roaring Twenties for you? 

Happy times? 

Well, I got very interested in radio. 

Ah, radio was coming into its own at that time, wasn't it? 

Yes, it was before the days, of course, of broadcasting. 

So did you build your own crystal set first? 

Yeah. As a matter of fact, I was a ham first, and in those days you had to have a pretty good antenna. 

So my father bought the steel, and I built a 135-foot tower on one end, and I 85-foot on the other end. And we built a radio shack. My father was interested, too. 

And when KDKA came on the air in 1922, I put a speaker outside the shack, and people used to come and with folding chairs and sit on the lawn and listen to the radio and they would come inside and couldn't believe they thought I was playing a recording of some sort they couldn't believe it was coming out of the air and I would tune the set a little bit and they still couldn't believe that it was being received my word what changes you have seen in communication alone huh just in that alone so the radio was pretty radical for its time then everybody was excited about that oh yeah as a matter of fact the local paper the reporter lived a few blocks well no a few miles from where we were and he came after he had heard about it and they wanted to see it and I told him all about it and told him that stations there was about six or eight broadcast stations starting up at that time and he wrote an article he was there for two three hours and he wrote an article two page two column the full page and believe it or not he did a good job he told he told everything and I told him oh the whole wonder of the story about the radio isn't that amazing it was a really a novelty thing oh yes most people had never even heard of it. Isn't that? 

And that was 1922. And you were only in the, what, going into your junior year of high school probably then. Because in 24 you graduated. Yes. 

So you were sophomore in high school. 

So you were pretty man about town. 

You were high up on technology, huh? 

So when you made the decision to go to Georgia Tech, your friend came with you? 

Yes, Ellen Berger. Did you write letters to apply? 

Is that how you would have applied in those days? 

Oh, must have. probably wrote a letter and we didn't have a telephone so you would have had to write a letter and wait to see if you were accepted yeah and find out what it was going to cost you yes did you save up money to go no my father paid for father was willing to pay it was only something I think it's 200 and some dollars for a semester pretty pretty reasonable oh yes compared to today had Had you ever been to Atlanta? 

No, but I'd been to Birmingham, and I didn't like Birmingham for some reason. 

And it was beautiful the first day I got to Birmingham, but I got to Atlanta, it was pouring rain there, and I liked it. 

I still liked it, huh? 

What was your earliest memory of Georgia Tech? 

Because you had never been there before, so you're coming really on faith. 

Well, maybe one thing that influenced going to Georgia Tech. 

But when I was in high school, I was in a laboratory explosion, and it blew me out through a window. Wow. And the professor in the laboratory, in fact, it blew his hand off. We were testing the rapidity of a new type of explosion, silver satellite. In fact, I've still got some of it. and they took me to the hospital and I had on a white shirt and it was bleeding all over and they thought they were going to have to give me a transfusion but they didn't have to but a number of well a hundred as a matter of fact once in a while I still got a tiny piece of glass that works out on my system after all these years what was the connection to Georgia Oh, the professor that was in the laboratory that his hand grew up was Hewlett, Amos Hewlett. He became a professor at Georgia Tech. Oh, so you knew him and that's another little connection there. 

So you and your friend, how did you get to Atlanta? 

Did you take the train? 

We had to take the southern up to Chattanooga and then I think the NC and St. L down to Atlanta. In Atlanta. 

Got off at the depot, the train station, and you had all, what, a suitcase or a footlocker or something with you? 

Footlocker, yeah. And how did you get from there to the school? 

Well, we had written back and forth to the Hewlett's. 

So did they help you out? 

Yes. He met us at the train with a two-mile Ford. Isn't that nice? 

An old connection. And, of course, he couldn't carry both lockers, so I stayed out on St. 

Charles Street, and it so happened that they were living on Charles Street, and they met a family or knew a family there that would take in a tech student. And in fact, the boy living there, their son was going to Tech at that time. 

So you rented a room? 

Went and rented a room from them and stayed there a year. And after the first year, we changed over to live on Merritt Street. On Merritt? 

You know, it's a short street. It runs from Peachtree down to Cortlandt, I guess, I think. 

Once you got into classes, were you prepared for Georgia Tech? 

Well, at the normal school, the passing grade was 80, and of course the passing grade at Tech was 60, and I thought this was going to be easy. I think the first semester, I flunked three courses. And they got you coming, huh? 

Yeah, it was very difficult, wasn't it? 

Yes, in the beginning. 

But by the time I reached my senior year, I didn't have to take a single exam because of having enough good grades. It's that first year, that first adjustment of learning how to focus and put yourself straight. And I didn't work any harder in my senior year than I did my first year, but I still live. You did so much better. Yeah. 

In 1924, when you came there, they had just made a couple years, John Heisman had left in 1920, and William Alexander, Coach Alex, was in charge of the football team, all the sports actually that there were there. 

Did you have a good time? 

Was school fun in 1924 and 25? 

It was a happy time all over the world because the depression hadn't come yet. The war was over. We keep reading in history books that it was a happy time. Do you remember it that way? 

Yes, I think it was. Of course, we had ROTC training. And the other, I didn't live in the dormitory any time. 

So it was harder to take part in social activities. Yes. Did you ever go to any of the dances? 

No. did you go to the football games oh yes well attended all the football games so that was the big social in those days i don't know if they still did or not but they gave you a book of tickets for baseball and basketball and football and i think it cost ten dollars they don't do that anymore i promise you no no no no no no they definitely don't do that anymore so you could go to anything you wanted to you had the way the wherewithal do that did anyone have cars no no none of the kids had cars no do you remember dr floyd field oh yes i think sometimes they called him billy goat field yes now dm smith do you remember oh tell me did you have him for math oh yes in fact uh elec burger was the fellow i went with school but we took special courses under under dm yeah we're told he was one of the finest teachers ever to come to georgia tech would you agree with that well i know he was very good we took the classes at noontime you did you gave up your lunch hour to go learn extra stuff from him that's pretty endeavor that's a pretty hard endeavor on your part so what would it what would a typical day for you be like you'd have to be for classes at eight o 'clock so some days so you walked yes ran ran you in the habit of running to school? 

Well having run the paper delivery. Oh you didn't tell me about that that was in high school you were doing paper delivery. 

I did paper delivery from the time I was about eight or nine until I was in well pretty well through high school I think. 

And you got in the habit of running your route? 

It was a country route at least three miles and I could to get around it. You just sprinted, huh? 

Yeah. 

So did you go up for track when you came to Georgia Tech? 

No. You'd have been great. Didn't have time. I want to know what you can remember about the traditions at Tech from 1924. Help us establish some things. For instance, did you wear a rat hat? 

Oh, yes. 

So that was definitely a tradition. Oh, yeah. And did you mark the scores on it after every football game? 

No. No, you didn't do scores on your hat. Okay. Okay. I don't know when that started. Did you sing Ramblin'' Wreck? 

Oh, yes. That was there. And you went to the football games, you told me already. Oh, yeah. I never missed one. A lot of school spirit in that. Were they on Saturday afternoons? 

Yes. They were. 

What were some of the other things that made your time there unique to you? 

Were the professors particularly good? 

Yes. As a matter of fact, you mentioned the car, that reminds me. 

In my junior year, Ellick and I, we went to an old yard of discarded cars and bought a Columbia car for $40. Of course the tires were no good, and we had to drag it home. He used his mother's Buick to drag the car back to my place because we had more room. And we rebuilt the car, took the body off, it was no good. 

We went back and bought some bucket seats from the same dealer and used those and mounted those on the car and got it running all right and we drove it back to Atlanta. 

You made your own rambling rack then, didn't you? 

Well, when we got it, of course, the engine, in those days, they wore out pretty fast. 

When we got to school that year, I talked to Major Case in the machine shop who was the supervisor in those days, and asked him if I could use a helical grinder to rebore the cylinders. And he said, yes, it would be all right, because they never used a thing. And he said, if you know how to use it, I said, yes. I forgot to tell you that my father ran a Sheffield Machining Foundry. 

So you learned a lot of tricks from him. Oh yes, I worked in the shop. I loved Berlin machines. And I could run every machine in the shop by the time I'd finished to go to college. And so he said yes, I could use the grinder. 

So we took the motor apart and I put it up on the grinder and reboard the cylinders. and he had that class that day come and watch it because they would never see that machine operated. 

So you were the demonstrator, huh? 

Got something done and taught a bunch of people something, too. We re-bored the silden and I got new pistons and put in it. And we could climb up the Cherry Street Hill at one mile an hour, which was wonderful in those days. In those days, that was a good thing, huh? 

Yeah. How many of the uncles can you remember? 

Like Uncle Heine, do you remember him? 

Oh yes. Did you take him for woodworking? 

Oh yes. Everybody took woodworking. And he was quite a character. He was already an old man in 1924. Oh yes. In my senior year, the AAIW came to Tech for the annual meeting. and they asked the students if any one of them could put on some sort of a show and so Ellick and I decided we'd put on a I had felt quite a interest in loudspeakers and so he decided we'd He'd build an amplifier and I'd build the speakers, and we built a speaker, and I used a machine shop to build a speaker, and had the school order me a cone and mounting from RCA, because at that time, the dynamic type of speaker was just being introduced, and so we built the speaker and all, and I went to, I needed a baffle, so I went to Uncle Heine, and I said, I need a board about eight feet square, and I told him what I wanted it for and all, and he laughed, and he says, you know, I've got just what you need. 

They had built a board up for some project before that, and he said, all I'll have to do is bore a hole in the center for you. 

So it was ready to go, huh? 

Yeah, so he did that, and I came back and got the board, and we used it, and I borrowed a pickup and a player from the WSB and we put on the show and made the rotogravity section all over the country. Really? 

Yes. 

Because you were broadcasting out for a large group of people through your speakers? 

Well, it was in the auditorium of the physics building. Oh. In fact, Shorty Bortel was there. And he was kind of looking after the program, I guess, for the meeting there. 

And so we told him what we were trying to do, and he said, Okay, you set it up, and I'll listen to it. And so we set it up for him, and he listened to it. He thought it was great. Did he? 

Of course. He was a physics professor. Yes. And he was also the tennis coach. Yes. Yeah, so he was pretty active at Tech. Yeah. And he thought you guys did a good job then, huh? 

Well, we put on the show. 

In fact, we were the first number after, I guess it was, I can't remember the first day or the second day. Anyway, the first program right there. And he said, everybody goes to sleep on that. 

But when we opened up, nobody went to sleep. 

It was pretty loud, huh? 

Well, yeah, because in those days, audio power was very difficult to come by. The tubes, of course, were just being invented. Yeah. 

So you actually were amplified way over what anyone expected. Yes. We built a push-pull type of circuit for amplifiers. It was very new. And Ellick built the amplifier, and I built the speaker. And what were you broadcasting? 

What were you putting out over it? 

A show from WSB? 

Well, yes. 

When I borrowed the pickup, I happened to know someone at WSB, And I asked him if we could borrow a pickup because Western Electric had just developed a new pickup, which was very good. And I told him what I wanted to use it for and all. And he said, I'll talk to the manager and we'll see if we can fix it up. Because it was their spare, and if anything went wrong... Yeah, you'd be in trouble. 

So anyway, he talked to the manager, and he said, you can have it for the one day. And he says, I'll pick you out some good records. Oh, so you played music? from RCA Red Seals that had unusual sound effects in them. 

So fun. This was a thrill to everybody then. Yeah. 

So when we put it on, everybody was amazed. They'd never heard anything like that. Isn't that something? 

That's pretty exciting. Do you remember a man by the name of Professor Kuhn, Uncle Cy Kuhn? 

He was like the administrator. He was keeping track of everything you boys did. Does that ring a bell for you? 

The name sounds familiar, but I don't remember him. I can't place him. He was one of the uncles, that's what we called these guys, was the uncles, you know. They ran the shops. Oh, I remember the welding shop. Yeah, there was a welding shop. A metallurgical, yeah. Yeah. Early on it used to be a forge even. Oh, yes, we worked the forge. 

You worked in the forge? 

As a matter of fact, when I was working in the machine shop at home, my father taught me all kinds of welding and brazing and so on. He taught me how to weld steel without brazing or an arc, just like the old days. 

When they heated a piece of steel and put some flux on it at the right temperature and hit it together, it bonded. 

Well, when we got to the laboratory, the test, as I recall, was you had to make a chain about two feet long out of links. 

They gave us, I think it was a quarter-inch rod to make them out of, and I bent up the links and flattened the side and heated them up and put them together. I did all of mine, and I think about it, well, it was one afternoon. Oh, no. Everybody else spent weeks on it, probably. Some of them never did make them. Your daddy did right by you. He taught you some real practical things, didn't he? 

Oh, yes. It helped me an awful lot. You must have had the best chain of anybody there, huh? 

Well, it passed the test. They put it on a pull test. 

What did you make for your woodworking project? there was always different things that people made oh yes in the machine shop they had a drill press project that was supposed to be made by four students so i asked major case if i could bake it and he said you he talked to me for a half an hour trying to coax me or tell me i couldn't do it and he finally said i think he let me do it and ellick built a quarter horsepower motor that went on it and so I built it for the drill press in fact I got through I think a week before the end of the season and I worked some on Saturday you proved he was wrong and you were right do you remember if there was a radio club going then when you got there in 24 was that still too little too early for the radio club well WGST was in business but very meager I mean it was just uh so you would just have to find other people that were interested in radio yeah you belong to something called the high tension club was that just people that were advocates of radio yeah that eventually became the um another uh sure and I can't think of the name well it'll come to you when you don't want to know No, but you did have a chance to fool around with radios, send radios broadcast out and catch other coming out. Very little. There was not much going on tech in Antarctica. 

Somebody told me that over at where the whistle was, where the power plant was, there was Oh, yes, I remember the whistle. The power plant had a little radio thing going in there that the guys would go over and... I don't remember that. did you ever remember the rumble brothers does that ring a bell with you no alfred rumble he he was there the same time you were there but you were a freshman he was a senior oh and he had was trying to get a radio club started because he was always had been a ham radio operator so he was interested in all of that i just thought you might remember that so by and large when you look back on those days they were pretty fun times yes i remember the initiation into this I think it was Cabin Blade. 

What was the initiation? 

Well, there was, I've forgotten how many of us, but anyway, they loaded us in cars and took us out into a surrounding area of Atlanta, and we were supposed to find our way back to the headquarters at Tech without asking anybody anything. 

And they took me out to someplace and dropped me off, And I remember the car going over railroad tracks or car tracks just before they let me out. 

So I walked back to the car tracks and I waited a while and pretty soon a trolley came out and up there. 

But I didn't know if it was going back to Atlanta or coming from Atlanta. 

But anyway, it went by and the people kept getting off so I figured it must be coming out. 

So then I started walking back down the track, and I couldn't see a thing. It was black as pitch at night then, huh? 

Well, I think it was a little bit moonlight. You could see enough to move around. Anyway, I kept walking down the track. Finally, I walked past like a hill like, and I saw a light on a building, and I was sure it was WSB. And I walked a little farther and a little farther, and I followed that light right back to Tech. It was WSB then. Yeah, it was on the Biltmore. Yeah, those big lights on top. There's the two towers like that were on the top that had the letters on it. 

So you did pretty good. Do you know where you were to start with? 

I have any idea. No? 

In fact, I don't know yet where. You don't know what direction you came from, huh? 

I was the second one back. 

It wouldn't be something safe to do today, but in those days it was probably pretty safe to do something like that did you the Biltmore hadn't we had just been built about that time they started construction on that I think in what 1922 or 23 so it opened yes it was a relatively new 24 25 and 26 was all the big events that were going on and then so they that was nice of them to build that for you find your way home and then not too long after well let's see you left let's talk about your um the rest of your school years there by and large now how did you choose electrical engineering what made you go that way i was always interested in like the reason i wanted to work for general electric company they built wilson dam on the tennessee river and they dammed up the river and they also built a large powerhouse there. And the field engineer from GE came down to supervise the installation of the turbines and all. And he came to the shop to get stuff. And I met him and he invited me out to see the installation and all of the powerhouse. Oh, so that really prompted you to think electronics. And I spent all one afternoon with him going by and pointing out and told me what it was all about. that was lucky yeah and I wanted to work for GE so you had that on your mind the whole time you were at school probably well anyway my senior year I was interviewed by five companies for jobs I never even considered the other four really I got acceptance by the above all five but I never even thought about the other four. Just because you knew you wanted to stay with GE? 

Yeah. 

Do you remember George Griffin being around at that time at all? 

Was he there? 

He was there, but did you know him? 

No, I didn't know him personally. Oh, you didn't know him personally? 

No. 

When they came to interview you for jobs, was Ajax, Dean Ajax, in charge of the career placement? 

Is that who scheduled your interviews or was it someone else i don't remember i'm trying to remember who were the administrators and which who were the deans i know i know dean fields was there oh yes he was there and skiles probably oh yes dean skiles yeah if you were if you were a good boy you didn't have to run into him too often right it would have been bad news if you did so but we had the all the uncles there and who was president when you were there? 

Britton. Dr. Britton. He was just starting at that time probably. Yeah, he was a younger man. 

Did you ever have an occasion to meet him? 

I think I met him, I forgot what the occasion was though. It had something to do with D. M. Smith and I can't remember. D. M. Smith was a rich character. Yes, he was. everything we hear about him he was a funny man a dry sense of humor yes he always coached the football players oh yes that was his they needed a lot of coaching yeah they did need a lot of coaching it was a happy time there were no troubles then we didn't have a depression the depression came after you graduated oh yes and so but they were building the Fox Theatre at that time because it took them a few years to do that do you remember that ever going up to see the theater going up no I don't remember that no well there was a lot of building going on in Atlanta at that time there were a lot of things going up then that are now considered treasures that we have them yeah so but you were a little ahead of all that stuff yes so GE is you had made up your mind that's where you were going so you didn't have to even go on the other interviews you just immediately signed up with GE well I went to the interviews and I got acceptance from the other companies but I never even considered the office you thought the right thing to do was go with GE yeah Mr. 

Edwards before we go into General Electric in your career let's go back again tell me did you ever go to the YMCA? 

Only a couple of times. 

But the building was there, brand new? 

The building was there, yes. What would you have gone there for? 

Play pool maybe? 

Billiards? 

Sometimes clubs met over there. I was going to say it was meetings, I think, yes. The best we can tell, there were a lot of the publications were done there in the downstairs. Yes, I think the technique was done there. yeah and there was a barber shop there i never used it in fact i don't remember where i got my haircut no you remember something like that well the barber was frank roman oh i remember him yes you remember him oh yes he was the band director yes but mostly he was a barber but i knew him as a band director not as a barber yeah so we don't know where you got your haircut then huh maybe i didn't get any cut i don't know did you ever go to any of the plays that they had the marionettes? 

No, never went to one. 

They had those going at that time too and I'm told they were as popular as football games in a lot of ways. 

Did you ever go to baseball or basketball? 

You mentioned you had the tickets but did you go? 

I never went to basketball but I went to baseball. Where did they play baseball? 

In the stadium. They did? 

Yes. And they called it Grant Stadium at that time? 

Yes. Yeah. It was not nearly as much stadium as it is now, of course. No, they just completed the stands on, let's see, the east side, I guess. Yeah. Up to that time, it had been just a collection of wooden ramps and benches and such. 

Well, the stands, it backed up to Knoll's Dormitory on that side. That's the west side. Yes. They were good. Yes, they were there, and they had been built, I don't know when, but... You never went to Knowles Dormitory? 

No. No, because you were living off the campus, but you knew where it was. Oh, yes. 

And were most of your classes then where, and what buildings would you have taken your classes in? 

The tower building itself, probably for English. 

The ad building, and of course the chemistry was in chemistry building, and then the shops were over, and the shops- The old shops was gone. Oh, they're all gone? 

Yeah, that's all gone. The Kuhn building is still there, the mechanical engineering building. Oh, yes. 

Well, I had classes in that. Yeah, the French building is there, and Swan. Swan, yes. And Bunger is still there. 

So there's a few of those old buildings still left. They've graced the campus, as they say. The physics building is still there. It was a new building when I got there. That was new? 

Now it's very old. I think it was only a couple of years old when I went to school. 

And I think in those days that the third floor of the physics building was where the architects would go. I don't know. They had the only real auditorium on the campus. It was in the physics building? 

Yes. Yeah. 

So that's where you did your demonstration. Yes. Yeah, yeah. 

Well anyways, graduation came and in those days you would invite your family to come to a graduation. Did your parents come? 

Yes. as I remember I told you we built this old car yeah we used it to go back and forth to school and of course there were no signs and no paved roads in those days and we finally made the trip I think it took us two or three days just to go from Florence to Atlanta the first time yeah we probably made got lost a dozen times sure because you wouldn't you have to just go by instinct to where you were going huh somewhat when it was cloudy you didn't know whether you were going northeast south or west and i'm told that alabama had mud roads oh yes not not real roads plenty of mud roads yeah well you know the only paved road was maybe two or three blocks in the uh the main street in the town or the where you were going right really so the rest of the time you were just country lanes more or less and a lot of them they used this chert to cover the road it's kind of a sand sandy mix of some sort yes and but it soon broke up and then there was potholes and everything else and if it rained it was a mud hole then oh it could be yeah in other words it was an adventure to go anywhere in your car the first time but then each time we got better and better and and things probably. Yes, we got another way. I think the last time we made it in one day. Really? 

Did you go get your parents to bring them? 

Oh, yes. I got off the track. On my senior year, I drove back with Ellick with our luggage and all on the back. And by that time, my father had bought a Nash. Oh, so he had a better car. 

Yeah, but he never learned to drive, and my mother never learned to drive so he had the car well who drove it then well my two sisters and my brother drove but the parents never they never learned to drive oh that was newfangled so i took i drove back to atlanta and the nash and took my mother and father over the day before of graduation and And then we went to the graduation that morning. 

Now, in those days, did you get your commission the same time you got your diploma? 

Yes. 

Okay, so you did double duty that day. Yes. And you said already, you told us, that you decided to accept General Electric. Yes. 

Now, what did they want to do with you? 

Where were they going to send you? 

Well, I asked for either radio work because I was interested in electronics at that time. They didn't call it Rexonics then. 

But when I got to Schenectady, they put me in the radio department. And I tested radios for three weeks. And then they put me into one of the development labs. And I worked my first six to eight months on developing new pickups. 

In those days, I don't remember, of course you don't remember it, but the pickups was very stiff and it wore records very fast and of course the records in those days were not very good. 

What's the pickups? 

Is it the arm that goes? 

It's the thing you put the needle in that goes into the record. That's what I was guessing from the way you were describing it, okay. And so we developed a new pickup, a flexible, low -impedance pickup. 

Which made a big difference in the quality of the sound? 

The quality of the sound, the wearing qualities and all. Yeah, longevity and everything. 

And then after the end of that, I was assigned to develop loudspeakers because they had learned about my work on loudspeakers and tech. And I worked on that for, well, I helped develop the first RCA Photophone speakers. Did you really? 

Wow. 

Now, how did you take to Schenectady for the weather and everything? 

You were a southern boy. Yeah. 

Well, I had to go by train. Of course, that was the only way to go in those days. And I borrowed $250. To fund yourself to go up? 

Yeah, to buy the tickets and live until I got my first pay. I bet you paid it back. No problem. You'd have to buy yourself warmer clothes, too. Yes, I don't remember that, but this was in July, so I got by all right. 

I took the, I was just trying to think of the name of the train, the NC, heck, I used to know that very well. Norfolk Southern? 

No. No, it was the one that went to Cincinnati from... I don't know. They had names. They all had names. 

Well, I went to Cincinnati and then got on the New York Central to Schenectady. All I can think is that for a Southern boy, when the winter came, you must have been surprised. How cold can it get, huh? 

Although we did have some snow in northern Alabama one time. One time? 

Nothing like what they have in Schenectady, though. I know that for sure. That is cold country. 

So you settled in, you rented an apartment and started working and you told me that General Electric gave you lots of chances to change jobs and learn lots of things, right? 

Yes. 

I met a boy on the New York Central, Bill Nichols from Iowa, and when we got disconnected, they had a bulletin board in the station and people used to put notices up there, rooms for rent or any other notice. so we rented a place down on Union Street corner Union and Ferry and we to get our trunk down he had one and I had one and we talked to the landlady and her boy had a little red wagon so he loaned us the little red wagon to haul your foot lockers we brought one down and then had to go back and get the other Oh my. 

So no car transportation up there. 

So once you got there you just had to walk wherever you were going to go. Pretty much. 

But you were interested in the work. You liked what General Electric was doing. Oh yes. Of course the Schenectady plant was a pretty good sized plant even in those days. And you said you worked on the prototypes or the beginning of the RCA speaker systems. Yes. and we're talking about for phonograph for records for well for the speaker system in those days they didn't have talking movies they were all silent movies they were coming though well they came in a few years later 29 just just after you got out of school yeah well in fact once you left school all kinds of things were happening they went to the rose bowl now i have to ask you did you listen to the rose bowl game on your crystal set you were up in new york by then oh Oh, we had tube sets. Oh, you had a tube set by then. Oh, yes, 201As. Did you listen? 

Oh, yes. 

So you do have a memory of that Rose Bowl game. Yeah. 

That's how I heard the story about the muddy roads in Alabama was from the people that drove out to the Rose Bowl and said they did fine until they got to Alabama, and then it was all mud the rest of the way. The travel was something we take for granted now. It was very challenging in those days. Oh, yes. Very challenging. There were no signs. No traffic lights, no anything. 

The only way you got to places, we stopped and asked somebody wherever we knew the next town we wanted to go to. Which way would you go? 

Yeah, and sometimes they said, oh, you go this way. We got down there, we were going in the wrong direction. 

So everybody didn't know what they were talking about. More than likely, they never left their front yard. That's right. 

Because a lot of people just stayed home, lived on farms and stayed home all the time, which I think is hard for kids to understand today. 

Well, you know, speaking of that, when I was working in Schenectady, I took one of the little Radiala 16s, that's the one we were testing at that time, and mounted in the... 

I bought a car in 1930, and I put it up in the back with the batteries and all, and we used to drive around on Sunday afternoon and listen to the radio. and we went up above glens falls which is north of schenectady and we used to take side roads just to see the country and we took this one road up on the mountainside and we got up about 10 to 15 miles and we came to the end of the road and there was a family living there and we stopped and talked to them they had never heard a radio oh they must have thought it was magic that you had in your car the radio for them and they had a bunch of kids and they everybody was gaga huh the fellow had a t-model ford he came to town once or twice a year to buy a surprise and that's the only contact they had with the outside world oh my goodness and that was right there in this country in new york yeah that's amazing isn't it well how you you ended up your entire career at general electric yes but it wasn't an ordinary career you changed from one task to another task and tell me how did you get to be someone who knew about radars how did that come about well uh after i was working for ge for about a year and a half or two years uh the government said that they were running a cartel with Westinghouse and Victor and RCA and they had to break it up so I used to go on coordination work to Westinghouse and Sharon Pennsylvania just outside of Pittsburgh and also at Camden and when they decided that they would take the operations and combine them all into one operation in Camden New Jersey. I didn't like Camden. It was right next door to the soup company, Campbell's Soup. Oh, really? 

Yeah. You didn't like that? 

No. How come? 

All you could smell around there was tomato soup. Oh. 

Who would have thought that? 

Well, anyway, I didn't want to go back, so they told me that they would look another job for me. 

Well, at that time, it so happened that needed an assistant, head of the radio and development in the transmitter operation, which was entirely separate from the radio receiver operation. And so I got that job. 

And then Wallace, who was head of that job, got an offer from Camden to go to Camden after I was there for a year and a half or so. 

So I got promoted to head of that operation. 

And what was that primary responsibility? 

Well, I had about 50 people working for me, test engineers and all. 

And the thing grew because the radio grew, and then the government getting into radio for aircraft and for tanks and for others. Is that why radars were developed? 

No, that was way before radar. Oh, this is way before. Okay. 

So we're still in the 30s. This is still in the 30s then? 

Yes. Okay. This was in the early 30s. Okay. 

And the radio job, the transmitters for the government and for ships and for everything else, it just became a larger job. 

And finally, they gave me operation of WGY, 2XAF, 2XAD, and we also incorporated the voltage regulator operation into the test area. 

And the whole operation kept on growing, and I had about 100 and, I don't remember, 25 people maybe working for me. 

Most of them some way are technical, because we had to, the product engineer would develop the radio transmitter, but when it came to test, chances are it wouldn't anywhere near meet the contract, and we had to work around with it. 

We've had some of them in test for a year before we got them up to meet the contract for the government. 

And during that period of time, they bought a large number of aircraft transmitters and receivers, and it so happened in the contract, they specified that they had to be tested under operating conditions, which meant low pressure and high temperature, or cold temperatures. 

So we had to build a cold room and a temperature room. 

And somehow or another it got out that we were testing equipment at those conditions under low freezing and also at high altitude. 

And AP, Associated Press, sent a team up and the first I knew about it, Someone called me up from the front gate that works and says, we've got two fellows from the Associated Press. They want to talk to you about this testing of sets on your conditions. And I said, okay, put them on the bus. It was about a mile down. And tell them to get off at Building 89 and to walk through until they came to my office. And they sent them down, and it turned out there were three of them. 

Well, anyway, they spent a couple of three hours. In the meantime, we had a government inspector there who had two or three people working for him. 

And, of course, the product engineer for the sets and the commercial department and the works manager. 

So I called them all in a hurry and told them AP was coming because otherwise there would be a lot of publicity and they knew nothing about it. 

So they all assembled there about the time shortly after the AP people did. And some of them didn't even know we were doing it within the plant, the connected plant. It was very confidential then, very quiet operation. Yes. 

And in fact, we spent a lot of money, which the works manager got very upset about because he came down to visit or to see what was going on. and he got there and he realized we'd built all this stuff and he hadn't signed an appropriation. 

And he got me over one corner and he said, where did you get all the money to bail it? 

I said, this was in the contract with the government and it so happened that we went through the commercial department to get the money to do that and he didn't know anything about it. And he kind of was upset. I think so, yeah. 

So how did you resolve that? 

Well, I said, I'll send you a copy of the letter and a copy of the order telling me to go ahead, which I did the next day. Yeah, I bet you did. Of all the jobs that you had there, what was the most interesting job? 

I don't know. It may have been when we built the new studios for WSB. Oh, so you come back to Atlanta to do that? 

No, I was still working. and that became part of my overall job in the radio and test. When you were at General Electric? 

Oh, yes. You worked in Atlanta? 

Oh, no, no. I thought you only worked in... I said WSB. You did? 

I mean WGY. Oh, okay. You were throwing me for a loop there. I was thinking, how would you be there and not be there? 

This is WGY's connected. You had talked to me earlier about radars, though, that you were working with early radars. 

What was that all about? 

Well, we, of course, built all kinds of radar equipment, and at the beginning of the war in Europe, the government started building or getting interested in more types of radio equipment, and, of course, the armed services were getting more equipment. 

And since I was head of the test and all, they gave me the job of going to Washington to negotiate the Defense Plant Corporation contracts for GE in which we would build buildings owned by the government and a lot of the equipment in the buildings was owned by the government but operated by GE. And this was war work? 

This was war work actually, pre-war. 

When we got to where it was a pre-war time, time, you had a commission in the Army that you had never used. Yes. Were they considering drafting you or pulling you into the war? 

They did draft you. Yes, I was in the Army. 

Well, I had my reporting orders about five or six times. In fact, one time the deferment was late getting through and I actually got inducted. Where was General Electric when you needed them, huh? 

It saved you finally. 

Well, usually there was enough time involved that they were able to have it canceled before I had to report. 

And we need to say that the reason that you were more valuable to the country working at General Electric than being a soldier somewhere because the work you were doing was critical to defense. That's right. 

And it's because you were knowledgeable about the radars that you had an unusual opportunity one day when you were in Washington. Tell me about how you met Eisenhower. Oh, I was down there on another defense plant corporation job in the Signacore office. 

And the general in charge of Signacore came into the meeting and said, Edward, I've talked to Swope, who was president of GE, and he says that you know about radar. And I said, I know a little bit about it. 

And he said, well, how would you like to have lunch with Eisenhower? he would like to learn something about it and I said fine so he and I went over to the officers club in Washington and Eisenhower and one of his aides met us there and we had lunch and we spent a couple hours talking about the radar and the possibilities of radar and what it could do the potential for it and this was happening so fast that the development in fact when I went back to Schenectady then they gave me the job of setting up the radar building plants in Syracuse and we went to Syracuse and bought a railway old plant there and set it up to build the SCR 527 which was one of the early radar in fact it was the one that was in Hawaii that was the end of the Hawaiian island and the fellow reported a number of flights coming in but nobody paid any attention oh that was before Pearl Harbor you mean yes in fact it was the day of Pearl Harbor it was so new that they didn't even know how to interpret well it was a Sunday morning and anybody that might have known something about it didn't get the word isn't that amazing first test and the radar passed the test but the watchers didn't that's right well anyway we we went to Syracuse and built we we bought the Wolf Street plant and then we built two large buildings at Thompson Road in Syracuse and we bought a couple of buildings on Clinton Street and we would hire anybody that their teacher was just a short part of the operation. 

Oh, it was made on an assembly line then? 

Well, some of the stuff was on, most of it was on an assembly line. 

So do you build radar? 

Is that something you build? 

Oh, yeah. We built it. We designed it and built it. 

What is it? 

What does it stand for? 

R -A-D-A-R is an acronym for radar, I mean for what it really is. What is that? 

Radioactive? 

Let's see. It's radio in direction. You know, I can't remember. I can't put my mind on what it is, that it's something, not just a term. 

Well, radar, actually you project out a beam. That hits the target and is reflected back. To tell you the distance and what's that? 

The distance and the direction and all. 

But is it a whole bunch of different ones then? 

Well, yes. Each radar for different. We built the SCR -584, which is the aircraft gun direction radar. 

And to tell you a funny story about that, we had been building them for about a year when the Bill Aircraft developed the P -59. that was the first jet aircraft and the head inspector in Buffalo where Bill Aircraft was called me up one day and said will your radar track our new P-59s and I said I don't know send one down and they sent a few days later he called me up and says we're sending one down so I went over to the test area, and we had one fellow in the test area who was very good at it. And they brought the plane down, flew it around over Syracuse, and went back. 

And the next day, the inspector called me up and said, did it track it? 

And I read off the dive, the flight, the climb, and everything. He said, my God, that's super secret information. Be sure and destroy it. I would be arrested and tried for treason. Really? 

Yeah. For goodness sake. And I said, don't worry, I've got super senior clearance, so... 

So it was okay for you to know that, but that means he didn't really believe you could do that, did he? 

That's right. They didn't think he would do that. Just like people didn't believe in the radio. There's always those who say it can't be, it can't be. It was pretty exciting work for you to be working on. Yes. You knew you were making a difference for everything. Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, they said the Angelo Beachhead in Italy was saved by the SCR 584. 

So that's wonderful to know. And I can tell you another interesting trip I made because of it. They called me up one day and said we had a setup on the eastern shore of England. And they said it wasn't functioning. And we said, well, they didn't know what was the matter with it or anything else. 

So we were going to send an engineer over there, but something happened. Either he got sick or something happened, and he couldn't go. And they called me and asked me if I'd go. 

And, of course, in Syracuse, they had the bomber base in which they trained pilots on the B-17 and the B-29 before they sent them overseas. And they used to send over groups of planes, maybe half a dozen or so, on a flight. And so they called me up and said, can you go tomorrow morning? 

And I said, well, I guess so. And they said, can your wife bring you to the airport? 

And I said, she doesn't drive. 

So Chance the Day, who lived across the street from me, he was president of the Chamber of Commerce in Syracuse. They called me and said, he'll pick you up at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. 

So they found you a ride to the airport. 

So they brought me over to the bomber base and put me on a... And I still, to this day, know whether it was a B-17 or a B-29 because it was early morning. They took us out to the plane, and we got on the plane, and they had fastened. There was five or six of us. They had put, like, lawn chairs, fastened them in over the bomb bay, and we... Rough ride. 

Well, it wasn't bad, but anyway, we went to Panama. Yeah. 

The first stop was Panama. and then we stopped on the east coast of Brazil and then over to I've forgotten where we stopped Casablanca someplace oh my and then we flew up to where did we find England I've forgotten now for sure you were going around the world there without planning it huh yeah and we flew into an airport near London, but it wasn't at Heathcourt, Heath, yeah. It wasn't Heathrow, it was a different one. Yeah, and so two of us, they put us off there and she said wait and somebody will pick you up. 

So a couple of hours later, two ladies in a car came and there was another fellow and I that got off there and so they drove us over to the east coast I said wait a minute no the west coast west coast of uh England and took me to a pub there and they said someone will take be contacting you they dropped me off the other guy went on with him I don't know where he went to these were all secret operations that were going on then well I mean it sounds pretty I didn't have anything to do with any of the scheduling or anything else. Everybody just told you what to do. 

Anyway I went in and they knew I was coming at the pub and so this was around noontime they said we'll ring a gong for dinner and in the meantime maybe you want to take a nap and I really did. Yeah after being in a plane going everywhere. Anyway, someone called me in the afternoon. It was the technician for the anti-aircraft group who was working with the SCR 584. 

So he picked me up the next morning, and we went over to the anti -aircraft battery set up, and it was well camouflaged. I didn't even know what it was until I got right there. Anyway, we got the SCR fired up and couldn't find anything wrong with it. And the guy said, I don't know why we aren't bringing down planes. 

Well, that night after about 11 o'clock, they picked me up again, took me back to the battery, and I found out right away what they were doing wrong because the flights were coming in from Germany, and as soon as they could hear them or see them, They started shooting, and the Germans dumped out this shredded material, which threw the fuses off and exploded them so that they weren't hitting the *******. 

And this retired lieutenant colonel who was in charge of the battery, I said, why do you waste all that ammunition? 

And he said, well, we hope to hit them. 

And I said, well, look, will you wait until they get directly overhead, fire four rounds that would be 16 shots because it was four guns and I said if you don't bring them down forget it you're just wasting ammunition well the the first night later that night they came over and I finally talked him into doing that and they brought down two out of the three planes right away and the The crew were jubilant. That was the first words they were bringing down. They're actually doing something wrong. 

Well, the next night we got, I've forgotten, three or four more in the same way. And there was nothing wrong with the SCR-584. It was just how they were paying attention to it. They just weren't using it properly. And finally I talked to them into using direct ammunition. 

They were using the proximity fuse before, and they were hitting the planes because the The SCR-5 would tell them within a few feet of their altitude. 

So you were really very active in the war, even though you weren't in the military. You were active for the military. 

Well anyway, I stayed two nights, or three nights. I can't remember for sure. All that information though, in that short time. Oh yeah. 

Well as long as it was working, it was working. 

So then I told them I was ready to go back. 

I called up and they said okay we'll get you on the first flight possible and so then they called me up and said we don't have a flight going back that you can get on for the next two or three days but there's a convoy leaving Liverpool tomorrow morning a convoy of ships yeah and do you want to go on that?" and I said, sure. 

So they picked me up and took me to a train. I got on the train and went to Liverpool and got off and got on the convoy. Was that your first big cruise? 

I guess it was. It's the beginning of the Edwards Cruising time, huh? 

Yes. Although I don't know that going in a convoy is exactly a cruise. 

Well, we had three or four destroyers. You were well protected. How long did it take to cross? 

It must have been about a while. Several days. Oh, yes. It was at least a week. What an adventure. We stopped at St. John's in Newfoundland and then on to Boston. And I got off at Boston and got a train to Syracuse. Tom's big adventure. Boy, oh boy. 

That was really something, wasn't it? so did your the rest of your time at general electric go pretty much the same way just about you never you had something different to do all the time and you were always surprised yeah because the end of the war came and then they put me in charge of working with the architect building electronics park in syracuse and i worked for a year or so on that and then that finished up and I transferred to Pittsfield. 

They were getting ready to build a new high voltage test for new type transformers and all and they needed somebody with experience in building that type of thing. 

So I went to Pittsfield and I was on that for a year or two and then I was made assistant to the assistant super to the superintendent of the plants and then I Oh, I was, shortly after that, a few years, I was made one of the first manufacturing engineers in General Electric. 

They selected four people out of the whole company to become a, the product engineer were very jealous of the word engineer and title. They didn't want anybody to have it. They didn't want any manufacturing engineers. Yes. 

So I got the job, one of the jobs, and I was head of special, designing special equipment at that time for tests and high voltage testing and all. You were a professional engineer registered in several states because of that kind of work. That's right. 

So you had a very good life with General Electric. Oh yes, very interesting. I never... Never was dull, huh? 

No, I enjoyed going to work every day. and you did that until 1967 I think it was when you retired quite a story of General Electric Mr. 

Edwards tell me how you met Burt well when I first went to General Electric Company she was working for the man that I went in to see my contact first contact with GE And then she later happened to move to the radio department and worked for Jack Farrell who was later to become the Vice President of General Electric at that time. And I met her of course there and we had a few dates and then got married. How long did it take you to talk her into that? 

I don't remember. How long was your courtship? 

You don't remember? 

No, I'm not. I don't really. 

But you got married in 1936, and your marriage lasted 52 and a half years, you told me. Yes. 

So it was a long run. Yes. It was a good mate for you. And you had one child. Yes. And his name is? 

William. William. Do you call him William or do you call him Bill? 

Call him Bill. Yes. And what did Bill do for a living? 

Well Bill… You raised him up north. He's not a southerner. He was raised up in New York. Yeah, we were living in Pittsfield. In Pittsfield at that time. 

And what did he do for a living? 

What does he do for a living? 

Well, he is also interested in radio and electronics, maybe because I was. And he, well, how far back do you want to go? 

Well, I just wonder what he did for a living. Oh, well, he, of course, was drafted into the Army. World War II. No, not World War II. He would have been a baby. Was it Korea or Vietnam? 

Vietnam. Vietnam. Yeah, it was Vietnam. 

And his knowledge of radio and all, he went into the service, and he went into school, a radio school with the government, and was assigned to Annapolis. And I actually operated some of the transmitters that I had built. Oh, isn't that amazing? 

Amazing. That's great. 

So, and what does he do today for a living? 

Well, for today he works for Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Massachusetts. And he's involved still in electronics? 

No. What? 

No, he's transportation. He's in transportation? 

Yeah. Okay. And he's married and has one child. Yes. whose name is Jonathan and Jonathan is graduating from college RPI on the 16th of May which is a pretty big deal you're pretty excited about that aren't you yeah that's great um when Bert passed away you married a second time yes and her name was Erna Erna Thompson and you lived and she lived for not too long no about four and a half years and you lost your second one yeah she had a ****** Oh, so you outlived two of your wives, and so you have now married for a third time. That's right. And her name is? 

Evelyn. Evelyn. 

So you've been lucky to find all these wonderful women that are willing to marry you. 

Well, the two wives that I married, the second and third, lived in the park here. 

So you knew them from the area, from living here. Yeah, that's great. And now you're looking forward to tracking Jonathan's career. What is he interested in? 

In computer design. 

Oh, he's not doing electronics the same way you're doing electronics, but computer design is still pretty, pretty interesting. 

One of the things that's a claim to fame for you that's fascinating is you've traveled around the world three different times. Yes. 

When did that get to be a passion for you? 

Well, in 1962, Bill, our son, was in school, and when I retired, I always wanted to take one of the freighter trips, so we called up an American President line. 

In those days, you made contact direct with the line, and they said, well, it'll take a year for you to work to the reservation become active and this was in November I think in December they called up and said we've got a cancellation in January out of New York City going around the world do you want it and it was kind of fast but we took it. Bill went with you? 

No he was in school. He was in school you and your wife went? 

Yeah. 

Did you have to work or do anything or you were just a passenger no we were just passengers and you got to go around the whole world how long did it take to go around the world five months and three weeks oh my word and you found yourself a good traveler on the seas oh yes i loved it isn't that interesting and you went ahead and made that trip again other times oh yes not around and it continues but but like going to Australia and then back to the Middle East and then back through England and back. 

So you don't get tired of looking at the world? 

No. Not at all? 

No, there's a lot of interesting things in the world. 

I was amazed when I came to meet you today that you told me you're about to embark on yet another cruise. Yes. They're 88th and 89th of your career. Yes. 

And you're going to be where? 

Where are you going on this cruise? 

Well, we're going to be in Massachusetts, in Richmond, actually, just outside of Pittsfield. And the cruise leads from New York City on the 6th of June. 

And it goes up around Newfoundland, Iceland, the Arctic Circle, into Norway Fords, and then down the coast of Norway, down to Hamburg and over to Amsterdam. and how many days that's 17 days and then they spend 17 days coming back wow coming up by England and Ireland and the various islands and all and coming back to Newfoundland and well Iceland and Newfoundland and then back to both and we looked up on your itinerary to find that you're going to celebrate your 98th birthday on the arctic circle that's right that's quite a claim to fame that's quite a claim what do you attribute your long life to sir what makes you go i don't know you don't know did your parents have a long life no neither one of them lived too long really how about your brothers your brother and your sisters did they live my brother died in 1968 oh 69 he was still very young then yes and my two sisters, they died just in the last few years. 

So they were long-lived too? 

Oh yes. My one sister died just about a year ago. 

So you see, you must have good genes in the family somewhere to keep you going this long. 

To live to 98 isn't a huge accomplishment, but to live it so fully, to be so vibrant that you can go on cruises, that's amazing. We know an awful lot of people going cruises with wheelchairs and walkers? 

No. Do they really? 

Oh, sure. 

Well, you sure don't need a wheelchair or a walker. You do great. 

But the one cruise we were just on, there must have been at least, I would guess, 20 wheelchairs, and I don't know how many walkers. How do you do a wheelchair on a boat that's moving all the time? 

The new boats don't do that. Oh, they don't? 

Oh, I don't believe you. 

I've been on boats that the waves came over the bow 90 feet oh boy see that's a sea adventure then isn't it it used to be an adventure when you went but nowadays it isn't it's just like a hotel it's a floating hotel huh of all the places you've been what's your favorite place is there any Mexico oh Mexico you're partial to Mexico well Mexico has so many civilizations that have come and gone they have so many uh uh the village uh towns or whatever they called them in those days the mayans and the aztecs and all so you like to go back and look at the historical backgrounds of countries and yes so these cruises are not just for fun you're learning things all the time then maybe sounds to me like you are and and every once Once in a while you come home. 

That's not your favorite place though because you're ready to go somewhere else with a drop of a hat, huh? 

Yes. 

Well, thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy life to tell us your story. It's a wonderful story to take back to Georgia Tech. Thank you. 

And we're very proud of you that you're a rambling wreck and that you can carry the traditions from the past to the future. That's a wonderful thing. Thank you so much, Mr. Edwards. Thank you.