Memoirs of a double visionary -

 

Shocking to me

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Cold orange juice poured onto my chest, and I gulped it down as fast as I could.  My hand shook, and more juice spilled. I grabbed the plastic cup with both trembling hands and pulled it tight to my mouth. I swallowed and swallowed.  The quivering slowed.  The panic eased.  I wiped my chin and drank the rest of the extra-sweet OJ slowly.  The Doctor and nurse looked at me with professional smiles.  “You OK now?”  “Yes, I think so,” I said, but my heart was still racing. “Take your time, you can go back to your room whenever you want.”  “Thanks,” I said and sat up.

 

“Why the hell did I have that flashback?” I wondered, then I shook my head and stared blankly at the teleconferencing monitors that were stacked on a makeshift fold-up table in the microwave radio tower switch room.  There was nothing left for me to do but sit there and wait for the Kaiser Permanente Board of Directors and the other executives to take their places at the other two remote demo rooms. I barely had time to get those rooms set up and connected before I had to rush up to the Milpitas ridge top microwave telecom room and get ready for my part of the big presentation. I fidgeted and took another sip from the nearly empty cup of OJ, then moved the sweet liquid arms-length from the high-tech-cluttered table. “No drinks on the table!” I said under my breath. “Saying sorry, after a spill, doesn’t make the equipment work again, you know.” I’ve been saying that ever since I ran the editing facility at Bay Area Video Coalition and seen first hand what liquids can do when they meet electronics.  I couldn’t afford any spills or mess-ups.  This demo was big.

 

The tabletop was decked out with controllers for expensive state of the art teleconferencing equipment. There was a video codec, an audio-graphic bit pad tablet, echo-canceling duplex microphones, camera remote controls, and a beta Mac II that Apple gave me to use after they made me a developer. The Mac II worked, most of the time.  I grabbed my thigh and wiped the sweat off my hands, and smiled at the camera just in case someone off camera at one of the other sites might be watching me. I got smiles back from my on-site tech crew, all out of camera range.  I knew they were rooting for me, but I never liked people watching me.  I’ve always felt like that.  It was like I’d done something wrong or was about to.

 

I remember one day, way back when I was a 2nd grader, a Fireman came to my Catholic grammar school class.  He was there to lecture us on how wrong it was to pull the fire alarm.  Apparently, there was a rash of false alarms from our school. As the Fireman talked to the class, he looked over at me, the antsy redhead sitting in the first row. I fidgeted more and more, and soon he was staring right at me as though he had found the culprit.  I never pulled a fire alarm in my life! Yet, I felt so nervous I was ready to confess. I was a guilty kid, even when proven innocent.  It was, and is, a problem.

 

I looked at myself in the teleconferencing preview monitor and adjusted my tie. I always liked the way my ties looked.  I gave it a little pinch to add some pucker. Just then, some Board members entered one of the demo rooms. I pulled my hand away from my neck and glanced down nervously.  I noticed that Steve, a very talented video engineer friend of mine, who would later ask to be called April, was tucked under the monitor table, frantically fanning an open WYSE computer. WYSE was the low bidder on the Kaiser personal computer contract purchase. I could smell the hot electronics. It gave me a queasy feeling. The new “Telestrator”” software I needed to use in my demo had crapped out earlier when the low-bid computer overheated.  I shook my head without making a move, then crossed my fingers under the table to appease the demo gods and goddesses and give in to my superstition. “Pleeease,” I hoped.  I smiled a fake, wide smile into the camera as the board members trickled into the remote demo rooms. This particular demo would decide whether a highly visible multi-million dollar teleconferencing project would be approved, or not. Kaiser was one of the first companies to “build” their own phone system, thanks to Judge Green and the breakup of the Bell monopoly.  I was told by upper-management, in no uncertain terms, that I had to sell the expensive and new videoconferencing part of it.  As the Kaiser Board entered the remote rooms, they looked around and nodded or pointed, seemingly impressed at the array of equipment around them.  Little did they know that most of it was just barely working.  

 

I suppose I liked working with equipment.  When I was a kid, I’d spend time in the basement making light circuits or walkie-talkies.  Once, I strung wires between my bedroom and Alan and Matt Gradstein’s bedroom. I rigged up a little electric bell to ring when we wanted to talk. I worked great. Now there I was, jerry rigging one of the most sophisticated videoconferencing systems for Kaiser’s board.  I still can’t believe I did it.  But I did. 

 

All I could do was wait patiently for my part of the presentation, the “live teleconferencing technology demo. Since I was not a patient person, I had to do something, anything, so I nonchalantly moved the mouse for the beta Mac II to see if my custom control software was still running. During earlier demos, the Alpha/Beta Mac II would just crap out. When it did all I could do was reboot the Mac. I knew that would raise eyebrows with this group.  Especially because of what the Apple folks put in when this Mac II started up. The startup sequence included a beautifully colorful crystal sphere that was rendered on Apple’s Cray computer. The exquisite graphic was accompanied by the opening music from Star Trek, with Capt. Kirk saying “Captain's log, star date 2045…” Back then, no one had ever heard a computer “speak” and hear Capt. Kirk’s voice came out of a computer that always required an explanation, but unfortunately, the explanation was never meant to be part of my demos, since the computer was supposed to be on and hopefully stay on.  I wiggled the mouse again.   The cursor moved. I blinked nervously and thanked the demo deities that Captain Kirk might not be making a guest appearance, yet. I still didn’t know if the “Telestrator” application would work.  It was in the demo gods’ hands as Steve furiously fanned the hot WYSE. 

 

Over the years, the gods may have looked out for me, but they have never made my life easy, and at times, I think they even enjoyed having fun with me.  When I was born, early one snowy morning, two days after the Christmas of 1950, which happens to be National Fruitcake Day, I came out kind of jaundice yellow and was incubator-bound. As my fruitcake luck would have it, I was not healthy enough to be circumcised at the hospital, so that “civilized” ceremonial carving of the newborn was performed at a later date when my parents brought me to the doctor’s office. My Mom and Dad swear the doctor was drunk that day. He managed to botch my first foreskin snipping job. Great! And that’s the way my life started.  It was episodes like that that later helped me to develop the confidence of a piñata.  But over the years, I seemed to learn to take the whacks and hold my candy in.

 

The Doctor and nurse left the room.  I sat there for a minute, wondering about something or other. I can’t recall, but I vividly remember my body was tingling and not a good tingling.  I hopped off the procedure table, grabbed my balance, and slowly walked out into the hallway, leaving the empty OJ container on the sweat and juice-stained table.  The hallway had that hospital odor, but breakfast was being served, so the chemically spiked air mixed with the smell of eggs, bacon, oatmeal, and toast. I was hungry and had a bad headache.  Gulping down OJ laced with sugar to pull me out of an insulin-induced coma was not my idea of a good way to start the day.  But that’s the way I would be starting my days for the next few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1969.  That daily routine was interrupted once a week by an even more barbaric and shocking assault on my system – electroshock “therapy”.  Those types of shocking “treatments” would later go out of vogue in the early 70ies, but how lucky for me, I was never a follower of fashion, and it was 1969. 

 

My head began to throb. The brand new digital microwave radio room was getting hot in the mountain-top bunker.  It was state-of-the-digital art in 1986, but it was not designed to support a half a dozen people and some very hot equipment running within its concrete walls.  In fact, one of the “selling points” of the cross-connect switches was it were “convection cooled”.  This lame technical advantage gave the manufacturer the bid.  They were not my choice, but hey, it was not my microwave system.  It was not my last time that I was forced to use and spec gear that I didn’t like or want to use.  I lost a job at Google that way, but that is for later.  Bottom line, we had exceeded its convention index for sure.  

 

I was sweating under my jacket and tie, and fidgeted around in the pressure-cooker, mission-critical multipoint demo room, hoping nothing and no one would sabotage this demo.   I had done lots of smaller demos to Kaiser management to get to this Board of Directors approval level. Several of the earlier ones were deliberately sabotaged for reasons I have yet to understand or reconcile.  But I always managed to fix the systems in time and never lost one to the saboteurs.  

 

 

Most of the early demos were at the teleconferencing lab in the AV department I had to build out. It was built quickly, too.  I transformed a messy equipment repair shop into a mock-up of a boardroom in less than three weeks, including getting a 220 circuit for the air conditioning it needed and acoustically treating the wall to absorb the unacceptable echoes in the room.  The equipment ran hot and was finicky, much like me.  

 

Before I was put in charge of the teleconferencing project, I ran the Kaiser video department and was responsible for over 300 productions a year. I got a chance to produce the highest-end ones and work with state-of-the-art video gear.  The other productions I just oversaw on an executive approval level.  I was busy and a demanding boss, they tell me.  The video department was winning awards. Everyone wanted to work there, and a big part of my job was culling out those who were good, which included the internal staff that was not all good, but some of them were there to stay, no matter what I did. 

 

 

The pressure I put on the staff and myself, had some unwanted side effects, and the sabotages were probably part of that.  In fact, I was called into my boss's office, and he asked me, “Do you know what used to happen to the English efficiency experts in India?”  

“Why, no Bob, what happened to them.  

“They found them on meat hooks!”  

“Hmm, you are trying to tell me something, aren’t you?”  

“Yes. You are working some folk too hard, and if you don’t watch out, you’ll be on a meat hook!”

Then he told me that some of my staff just wanted to find out how late they could show up on Monday and how early they could leave on Friday.  

“They’ll outlast you,” he said and added, “I just hope they don’t outlast me.”  Bob died not too many years later, after surviving lots of political battles but not chronic health problems.  When he was gone, the meat hooks came out. 

 

I was doing more and more work on the teleconferencing project and trying to manage the video productions, too.  I knew I couldn’t do it all.   I was working all the time just to stay ahead.   I even remember needing to stop at the AV department to drop off a key as I drove my pregnant wife, Robin (her real name), to the hospital to have our first of two incredible kids, Jessica (her real name).  I was driven and frantic.  I was also putting on an addition onto our house in the hills at the time.

 

Soon, Bob made me Director of Special Projects and put me in charge of the Teleconferencing project.  I thought it was a punishing reaction to the “meat hook” story, but as it turned out, it was a promotion even though I felt like I’d be out of the action when I gave my 300-production workload to Bonnie White (not her real name). She was great and stayed with Kaiser for the remainder of her career.  

 

Funny, when I look back at the whopping success of the teleconferencing network system I designed was. It was one of the most sophisticated teleconferencing systems in the world for its day.  I still wonder if I should have left that steady good paying but highly visible job to start my own company, Edison West.  I started a software company, and I couldn’t even write code.  In fact, I failed the only computer programming class I ever took when I got caught playing computer golf with a VAX connected to Dartmouth via an acoustic coupler.  I unfortunately learned what a recursive loop was, and what it could do.  In this case, print the number 2 and advance the paper, then print 2 and advance, well, it kept doing that. But I did not need to learn how to get out of the loop on that crisp autumn Saturday.  My professor looked at the pile of folded computer printer paper on the floor and saw the last shot of golf I programmed and failed me on the spot.  One good thing was that it did free up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings of my 1st semester freshman year at New England College.   It didn’t really matter, though, because three days into my second semester and a week into my 18th year, I was framed for dealing drugs and kicked out of College.  It’s true. I did sell drugs first semester, but by the time they set me up, I had stopped dealing and even stopped doing all drugs, mostly because I had a really bad trip, man!  It was Orange Sunshine.   I knew I should have taken the Owsley.

 

 

I tried not to blink nervously. The Kaiser board and other HMO dignitaries were all in their places now. The meeting began with the CEO of Kaiser explaining the new microwave phone system that was in the process of being built out. In fact, this first multipoint teleconference was one of the first big tests of that private phone system.  I sat and smiled, then glanced down at my friend still frantically fanning the computer. He looked at me and shrugged.  I gestured, “Keep fanning.  The Kaiser CEO was spinning a good yarn, or was it my web?  I began to panic, but tried not to flinch.  “I must be crazy to think I can pull this off, I thought.  Was I crazy?  Well, I had had convulsive shock treatments. They don’t go and give them to normal, sane people.  Do they? So, I must be crazy then.  Or, was I cured now?  Did the costly medical barbarism do such a great job of shocking the hell out of me that I am now a fine upstanding member of society, ready to go to places heretofore unheard of for a “crazy” person?  After all, I did put all this expensive state-of-the-art teleconferencing stuff together.  I did design the whole system, and it was working, well, kind of, so far.  So I couldn’t be crazy then, right? Or, could I be?” The thoughts raced through my head as the CEO calmly prepped the board.  “God, I hope I can pull this off, who am I kidding, I must be crazy!”

 

That was not the first or last time I had wondered like that.  In fact, I still wonder.  I wonder why Dr Loftus had to subject me to those arcane procedures. Was he really concerned for me, or was he in it for the money? Did I really need them?  After all, even though I was a bit bummed out, I was getting by.  I wasn’t a danger to myself or others.  

I had a good-paying job in New York City as a Kinescope operator and filmed off-air TV commercials for a living. I watched TV all day and got paid. How great was that for an 18-year-old college dropout, well, kicked out. The Kinescope job was a pressure job.  I had to watch all the NYC TV stations, and whenever one went to a commercial, I had to film it.  I also had to know if the commercial was new and stop the kinescope camera if it wasn’t.  I get bonuses based on the number of 1st time commercials I filmed.  So I even tried to remember the commercials I’d seen at home. I did the night shift a lot and was staying in the city several nights a week without coming home to Teaneck. I think my parents had legitimate reasons to be concerned for me. But I was 18 and could legally drink in the city.  I saw no reason to go home to New Jersey just to watch TV and miss out on some incredible NYC nightlife.  I spent a lot of time in the Village, where I was a regular at Jacques, a Jazz bar with dartboards.  I went there before I was legal several times, and now that I was legal, it was all the better.  Also, one of the guys I worked with and his girlfriend were nudists at home.  I went over there a lot.   He was an older British guy, maybe late twenties, early thirties.  His girlfriend was maybe 25.  They loved to go to After-hours bars and took me.  

 

In the After-Hour clubs, anything was allowed or tolerated.  They were in secret locations like Speakeasies and only opened late after midnight and stayed hot till dawn. There were flashing lights and loud music like early discos, with people shooting up and having sex anywhere and with anyone.  I was legal and now exposed.   I found myself in some strange situations.  It was the hippy days, and this was the autumn just before the Summer of Love and Woodstock.  I had long hair then and wore pince-nez glasses, just for effect, but not at my job.  There it was all business.  I took a leave of absence to go in for some “treatment”.  I don’t remember what I told my boss, but I got the time off.  I was good at my job.

 

I ruminated about my sanity and looked out at the distinguished board.  These were captains, admirals, and generals of industry. It was Kaiser Permanente’s board of directors, for god’s sake!  I smiled widely and wondered if The Board members could tell I was nervous, or maybe even looked crazy! 

 

“Who is that at the other site, and where is he?” an outspoken board member asked.  My boss was in the room with them and answered.  “Oh, that is Gene Fredericks. He is heading up the teleconferencing project. Gene, why don’t you tell us where you are?” That was not part of the script!  I wasn’t supposed to be on yet.  What the hell was he doing?  Was he crazy!  “Gene?” he repeated.  “Yes, Bob, Hi.  Well, I am in one of our microwave radio stations up in the hills above Milpitas. 

 

 “Can you point to it on the map?” Bob asked,”. OK, now I’m dead! I thought. Pointing was a job for the overheated Telestrator. Bob had no idea we were experiencing “technical difficulties.  I looked down.  My friend was still fanatically fanning.  “This was crazy!” I thought. I prayed for a nanosecond and brought the hot piece of overlay drawing equipment up.  In its day, it was a hot tool.  John Madden didn’t even have one yet. We were one of the first few.   Audio-graphic conferencing was one of the “technologies” was prepared to explain during my presentation.  I had my script down pat. But now I was completely out of sync. I clutched the stylus. I could see the X over the map. I pressed down and circled where I was and where they were on the map.  It worked! I looked down and got a smile from my fan below the table. He winked, or had an eye twitch. Drawing on things remotely is not a big deal today, but back then it was.  There was a noticeable sense of glee from the board at the other sites.  They didn’t applaud, but definitely a show of approval.   So far so good, I thought, but could I trust the rest of the gear?  Bob thanked me, and the meeting focused back on the jerry-rigged teleconferencing demo rooms as the Executive Management team explained the overall plan to the Board. I sat quietly, smiling, and waited for my real cue. My stomach gurgled. I pushed the mute button. 

 

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After my first breakfast, which was not half bad for a hospital, I went to the refrigerator and grabbed an OJ. The orange juice came in small and large plastic cups with aluminum foil pull tops.  That was the first time I had seen that kind of container. After I got the hang of opening them without spilling, I grew to like them, just the right size.  I had a lot of orange juice between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Most was to pull me out of that insulin coma before it pulled me in.  Insulin shock, what a sophisticated approach to modern mental health medicine it was.   I made my way down to the end of the hall and to my room. I had the room all to myself.  It was more like a dorm room than a hospital room and reminded me of the college dorm room I shared with a very innocent kid from Maine. I remember how totally confused we both were when I was falsely busted. I was innocent, but less so than my roommate Dan. He had never done drugs.  When we all returned to school for the second semester, a rumor spread that there was going to be a bust.  Those “holding” all scrambled to hide their “stash”.  It was kind of amusing to watch them all run around scared. I didn’t have anything to hide.  I was clean.  The bust rumor was true. That night, we were all called down to the common room. The Proctors and Housemother called Dan’s and my name and led us to our room.    The Proctors looked all over.  They even unscrewed the light switch plate.  “What are you looking for, hash?” I said glibly as they searched on.  Then they opened my drawer and lifted my jeans, which I had just put in the day before, and found two bags of marijuana.  What! I screamed in panic. “I didn’t put that there!  That’s not mine!” I swore to Dan I was framed.  He knew it.  We were told to stay in our room.  The next morning, the Dean of Students summoned me from my proctor-guarded dorm cell to his office.  I sat outside his office waiting for him to call me in.  

 

This was not the first time I had been sent to an academic authority figure's office.  My first time was in Catholic school when I was sent to the Principal’s office for rushing out of the classroom without permission because I was about to pee in my pants. The plump nun, who could wield a rubber-tipped pointer like no one I have ever met, wouldn’t let me go to the boy’s room.  In fact, she made me go into the cloak closet so she didn’t have to watch me fidget.  I had a small bladder, and on cold, damp days, I felt like I didn’t even have one.  As I ran out of the classroom, the nun yelled, “Eugene, go right to the principal's office.  

 

After a mandatory boys’ room stop, I went to the principal's office.  My feet dangled off the solid Oak chair as she rebuked me, as only a messenger of God could.  She told me that if I weren’t good, she would put me on the fear-inducing and legendary spanking machine.  I had this scary image of an Inquisition-like device with big hands.  After all, Catholics take and give out their punishment very seriously.  They have paintings of some of the most brutal!  Since I always felt guilty, I thought I might as well just get it over with and face the music, or in this case, the syncopated beat of the spanking machine.  I said, “OK, put me on the Spanking machine.  The small but stern Principal did a double take and, fumbled for words and said she’d spare me this time.  But, I knew at that moment there was no spanking machine because a minute earlier she would have gladly strapped me on and let'er rip.   I gained a bit of rascal-ish courage that day.  I would need it.

 

It was coming to my part of the teleconferencing presentation. I was supposed to show off all this new-fangled and very expensive videoconferencing equipment and explain how it could make the practice of medicine and corporate communication more efficient and even more profitable. Even though two of the three Kaiser Permanente entities were not-for-profit enterprises, Kaiser was a very cost-conscious and bottom-line-conscious company. So much so that early employees were told to use their pencils till there was only a stub.  Kaiser was so proud of this frugality that they even created the “pencil stub club, which gave out cash awards for the best cost-saving ideas, and the winner got a little pencil stub pin. It was a good incentive.  I never got one, but I wanted to get one.

 

The teleconferencing network was budgeted at two million dollars. I knew that was not enough to get the job done, but I was told to keep that information to myself.  “After all, I was told, 'If we spend the two million, they’ll have to give us more”  So, my job was just to show the compelling scope and dynamic capabilities of the system and paint a pretty picture. They would frame it and do the rest.  I knew there was a lesson I should learn there.  One that I still abhor, I am not good at lying to get what I want, then asking for more.  I suppose that is a key personality flaw I have, since I am still trying to raise money for my latest project, Big Green Boxes. I should have learned the lesson after spending much of my life pitching for money for my projects. I’ve had lots of good ideas over the years, but most went unfunded or underfunded. Some lessons are hard to learn.

 

The Dean called my name.  “Mr. Fredericks”. I stopped giggling about how the Nuns spanking-machine story backfired. I went into the Dean's tidy office.  On his desk were the two bags of marijuana.  He told me to sit down and got right to the point. I had two choices, he said.  Either I withdraw from school immediately, or he will call in the New Hampshire State Police.  That was really only one choice, the way I saw it.  I explained to him that although I had dealt with drugs during the first semester, I had stopped and given up drugs completely.  I told him I was even telling people that drugs, especially acid, were dangerous.  I told him that I was framed, even though the two ounces of dope they found in my drawer were marked in my unique style of marking my goods.  There was a black X on the bag that was wrapped with electrical tape.  I told him I had just put my clean clothes from home into the new dorm room drawer just two days before, and there was no dope in there then, that was for sure. Someone must have put it there, I said.  He looked at me coldly and said, “Mr. Fredericks, I don’t care who put it there. I just want you out of this school.”  Then he gave me those two choices again.  I withdrew.

 

 

I looked around the hospital room and the situation I was in. I was still wondering why someone would be willing to frame me and force me to leave school even after I had changed my ways.  I sat feeling shaky and still getting over the insulin treatment.  I stared out over the gray autumn landscape around Paterson, New Jersey.  That totally trumped-up drug charge, especially after I had gone straight, was probably the beginning of my lack of trust in people, although, as a fidgety catholic kid with a weak bladder, I had seen the less-than-saintly side of nuns and priests. But now I wondered about the “lay people”, as the catholic clan staff would call them.

 

I was confused and crushed by the unfair and insensitive treatment.  I believe the frame-up bust was the main reason why I was depressed and in a hospital for shock treatments. After all, I was a troubled, victimized youth in the Vietnam era searching for truth, answers, and some relief. I meant well and wanted to help not only myself, but also others. Dr Loftus must have made a convincing case for his hospital-affiliated private practice barbarism. I guess I didn’t put up much of a fight when my parents agreed to send me to St Joseph’s Hospital for that “therapeutic” treatment and shocking help.  Help huh! 

 

“Now let’s turn it over to Gene, who will show us how this amazing equipment works.” Well, I was on.  Crazy or not, I was the center of attention.  I had prepped for this, and it was not the first time I had to do a convincing demo.

 

 

Well, in spite of my academic transgressions, those depressed later teen years, and my general lack of faith in the kindness of others, I left a good, steady job and started a software company.  Like Henry Kaiser would say: “Find a need and fill it. I found a need, scheduling.

 

 

While designing Kaiser Permanente’s teleconferencing system, I saw the need to handle global multipoint-teleconferencing scheduling and network control. At the time, there was no scheduling software, and trying to book several rooms for a multipoint conference via phone calls and messages (email didn’t exist yet) was a logistical nightmare. 

I even tried to use acetate sheets for each room’s calendar and a grease pencil to mark the bookings.  After about 20 sheets, you can’t see anything. I wasn’t sure what to do.   I had a consultant, Nick Eve (not his real name), working with me.  He became a very good friend and was always an amazing engineer.  Most modern Olympics have him to thank for the video systems. I am sure he had help, but I know it wouldn’t have been as good without him.  Matt said, you’re going to need a computer program.  So I started to develop a computer program.  There was a need, and I was going to fill it.  Henry Kaiser would be proud of me, I thought.

 

 

I remember being on the phone with British Petroleum, telling them I could deliver the convene program to them by the deadline, as my less-than-courageous partner, and our only programmer, told me he was quitting.  I think he quit mostly because we had to deliver and deliver quickly. Convene was not really a working application yet, and my x-programmer wasn’t sure it could be one.  I knew it could.  So after Capt Courageous’ less than cordial exit (we did have our differences and never spoke again), I was left without a programmer and needed to deliver a working program to BP soon, especially since I had agreed to their contract terms and accepted a down payment check.  I kept the BP account for over ten years and ran my software company, Edison West Inc., for over 15 years with clients like Getty, HP, Fidelity, Apple, Bear Stern, Price Waterhouse, Ernst and Young and of course Kaiser, who I unfortunately had to sue because one of their employees single handedly decided to stop paying for their use of convene.  I won the suit.  

 

I was far from perfect then and now.  I even have a line I used – “The value of my involvement must exceed the annoyance of my presence.

Most of the time it did.

 

I did want to help.  

 

Having no time commitments makes it easy for me to write an autobiography.  But having nothing particular to do makes me feel like the auto part of the biography can’t be worth writing about, ah, the dilemma. 

 

I suppose you will be the judge and juror on this case of mistaken identity. After all, I am the double visionary.  

 

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Cougar

 

 

 

By

 

Gene Fredericks

 

Part of Memoirs of a double visionary

 

 

 

Most memories from my time in Greenwich Village are not entirely clear, but some are vivid, like scenes.  My night with what we now call a “cougar” was one.

As a little background, I would go to NYC before I was of legal drinking age.  In New Jersey, that was 21, in NYC, 18.  I would go into the city when I was 17 and spend lots of time at a Jazz club in the Village called Jacques.  I don’t know what gave me the nerve to ask for a drink, but I did know I had to ask with a confidence that did not cause the bartender to question my right to have a drink.  I drank rum and Coke with a squeeze of lime.  After the first couple of times at Jacques, I knew I was safe.  They served me, and it was their issue now, but that never came up, and I was never carded.  Eventually, I turned 18, and I was legal.

I went to Jacques enough to become a regular and I got onto their dart team.  I’d drink my rum and coke, play darts and join conversations about all kinds of stuff.  Several of the people were actors and all, at a certain level, were philosophers, or at least people with opinions they were willing to defend. There was a very strong Objectivist contingent and without knowing what it was called I found out I was a Logical Relativist. That doesn’t really matter to the story but the fact that I was socially and intellectually connected to a Village bar scene does matter. 

There was a woman, whose name has escaped me long ago, who loved to debate philosophy.  She introduced me to Ann Rand and Stravinsky.   We’d drink and debate.  I’d stop from time to time to take my turn at the dartboard, then we’d get back into whatever it was we were debating about.  It was all very exhilarating.  She was an attractive woman, I guess she was in her 30’s.  There were always guys trying to talk with her, and she was very open to having them around. 

One night we were having the next episode in our ongoing debate and there was enough distractions in the bar that she said, “Come on let get out of here and continue this with less distractions” I said “Sure!”  Not really thinking much of it except that I enjoyed her company.  We walked, I don’t know, several blocks, and got to a brownstone.  I think it was in SoHo, but SoHo wasn’t SoHo then.  It was just a run down tenement building somewhere south of Houston.  We went up to her apartment.  I think it was on the 3rd or 4th floor.  The dark stairwell is all I remember.

We got to her place and went in, still talking about something philosophical.  She flicked on the flight and there it was.  I wouldn’t say it was messy, but it was definitely dingy!  It looked like the set from the Honeymooners.  There was a bathtub in the room, which was also the kitchen.  A board covered the claw foot tub and made it into a table.  I sat down at the makeshift table and she asked if I wanted a drink.  “Sure” I said.  “I only have red wine is that OK?” “Sure” I said.  She handed me a tumbler of red wine and sat next to me.  Well the debate slowly changed and took on more of a foreplay twist.  I was young but not that naïve, although I was not expecting it.  I couldn’t see any reason to turn down her offer and our philosophizing turn to biology and we retired to the boudoir, which was a tiny room off the kitchen, bath and living room combo. 

What followed was also an exhilarating new experience, which eventually led to exhausted sleep.  I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I got out of bed and went into the combo room, which I surmised must be where the bathroom was.  I turned on the lights, and what seemed like a dozen cockroaches ran for cover.  I shook my head and looked at the scene.  I was kind of grossed out.  I went into the bathroom, which had those adult female touches with lots of makeup items, containers, and stockings hanging above the sink.  It wasn’t dirty, just in use!  I remember there was a rust stain in the pedestal sink, and the water dripped.  I looked in the mirror and shook my head.  “Well, this is interesting,” I thought.  I went back into the combo zone, and a few cockroaches were bold enough to be out.  I turned off the lights and went back to the tiny adult recreation room.  She rolled over and said, “Do you want to stay?”  I thought for a moment and said, “No, I'd better go.” She said, “OK,” and gave me a little kiss, which expressed an odd feeling of gratitude and the distinct acknowledgment of our age difference.  It was like she gave me a pat on the head. 

I smile and said, “OK well thank you!”  She smiled and I left to go back to where I crashed when I stayed in the city.  It was the apartment of some coworkers in the theater district near the Film Center building.  I worked as a Kinescope operator.  My friend were nudist, well at least in their apartment, but that’s for another story for another time.  I didn’t have a key to the apartment yet and I rang the bell. David opened the door naked and let me in.  I told him and his equally naked girlfriend of my age gap sex exploits and they seemed to enjoy it!   I did kiss and tell but no more than just about the kiss.    The story after all wasn’t really about the sex, well maybe a little. 

 

First jobs:

Shoveling snow

Paycheck:

1. Fredericks and Son – Janitor, painter, payroll assistant

2. TVC Video Record - Kinescope operator

3. Stop and Shop - Stock boy 

4. Unknown – Janitor

5. Jack-in-the-Box - Asst Manager/burger flipper

6. Southland Farms – Stable boy

7. Croston of Boston – Shipping clerk

8. Fernald School – Attendant

9. Metropolitan Hospital – Psychiatric attendant

10. 10.Tractor-trailer & heavy equipment school - Leaflet placer 

11. 11.Worcester College - Nude art model

12. 12.Kennedy Action corp. – Child-care worked

13. 13.Paxton – Adolescent care worker

14. 14.Sophie Gumble School – Retarded student Teacher 

15. 15.NOVAC/Vista – Video person 

16. 16.WGNO – Cameraman, Director, Producer

17. 17.Loyola – Media Center Manager

18. 18.WYES – Editor

19. 19.BAVC – Facility Manager

20. 20.Kaiser Permanente – Mgr Special Projects

21. 21.Edison West – President & janitor

22. 22.Entervu

23. 23.Sitimus

24. 24.Promeetium

25. 25.Rough House – video guru

26. 26.PRN – video consultant

27. 27.MediaZone – Dir Video Systems

28. 28.Google – Engineer in Charge

29. 29.Broadband Insights – System consultant