Making Progress

Husband spent a hot and sweaty chunk of this afternoon installing a ceiling fan in Daughter #1's old bedroom....after I put away some more stuff in there. It still is messy, but I'll clean up after the fan is in and running.

Gee, it was hot. Again.

I put on a sleeve (on a quilt! a quilt!) for a friend, worked on the two bedrooms, and washed clothes. Loads and loads -- over and over.

The freezer beckons...my pig is at the butcher's, and I need to chip out the freezer so it's suitably empty.

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Watched an incredible movie tonight: Flash of Genius, starring Greg Kinnear, about Dr. Bob Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper. Kearns, a college professor, showed his invention to Ford, thought he'd reached an agreement with them, only to be shoved aside as Ford released its newest model cars -- oops, with a brand-new innovation: intermittent wipers!

It took Kearns decades to finally sue Ford and win a little more than $10 million for his invention. (He also sued Chrysler, and eventually got more than $18 million from them --I wondered, what about GM?) In the process, though, he had a nervous breakdown. He spent millions on legal counsel. And he divorced and was estranged from his family for much of that period.

If the movie is right, Ford offered to settle several times with Kearns -- but they just wouldn't acknowledge that he was the inventor. Husband, who also watched the movie (and is an engineer by trade and temperament, like Kearns), differed with me. I said, "What if Kearns had taken one of those earlier settlements? He might still have had his wife and family with him."

Husband looked at me in surprise. "But it wouldn't have been justice. Kearns wanted that more than the money. His wife left him." (Implying, of course, that she should have hung in there. Even though, if Kearns was portrayed accurately by Kinnear, his life was controlled by little else than the wiper issue. Which would have made life hell for his family.)

"He got the money,instead -- lost his family, and more than a decade of productive life. Was it worth it?"

And yet as I said that, I thought how I would feel if someone had put their name on the books I've worked so hard on. How gaining rightful recognition as the author would mean more to me than $10 million, or $18 million...or whatever.

I still don't know what would have been best. But I do know that others, including Elias Howe (the inventor of much of the parts of a sewing machine), Philo Farnsworth (the inventor of television), Edwin Armstrong (the regenerative circuit and FM radio) and others have also had to fight to win recognition for their inventions. Sometimes, in the case of Farnsworth and Armstrong, they get that honor posthumously.

The movie struck a personal note, too. Sometime before 1976, my dad, who was working for a Case farm equipment dealer at the time, figured out an addition that would not only make Case tractors work more efficiently, but was not difficult to implement. News of his innovation somehow got to corporate headquarters in Racine, WI, and the Case people sent out men to talk with Dad and check out his idea. He showed them everything.

Lo and behold, the next year, the newest Case models showed an interesting new detail! You guessed it...my dad's invention.

He never got any recognition for it -- and not a cent.