With the passing of a tough year it gives me comfort to recall the great memories of Uncle Wink.

College football was a tough sport back in the 1950's. Dad prided himself at having developed a quick forearm hit to the side of the head that had a devastating effect on both offensive lineman and backs. It was a tough style of play that characterized American football in the 50's, 60's and 70's. 
Play of that nature would draw penalties today, and with the advent of slow motion replay, would be played over and over, for all to see.
But as life would have it, "what goes around, comes around", so here is another excerpt from his memoirs:

"The fall football season of 1952 turned out to be better than expected. The first team defensive end broke his shoulder in the second game and I moved up to the first team the rest of the year. It must have been noticed by the Oklahoma fullback (Buck McPhail) that I was working him over pretty good with my forearm hit, because in one of the pile-ups, an Oklahoma guard paid me back with a similar hit and broke my nose and the top of two molars."

I don't think Dad ever weighed much more than 190-195 pounds when he was playing college football - small by today's standards, but boy, was he ever game!

When I graduated in 1955, with a degree in mechanical engineering, the job market was terrific. My grades had been good and you could get as many job offers as you wanted. I went on a half dozen interview trips, including U.S. Steel in Gary, IN, and visited several other companies in the area.
I actually made a few dollars on these interviews, since I was able to charge all or them my transportation expenses from Ames.
I finally had decided to accept a job in St. Louis, with a utility company at $450 a month, but the ISU football coach called me in one day and said he had an alumni who was interested in hiring me. That's how I met the owner of Eagle Iron Works.
I went to Des Moines for an interview where I was given a personal plant tour the by the owner who said there was a good future for this little company because of the new interstate highway program. He offered me $500 a month and I jumped at it.
I had already received my draft notice and they gave me 3 months to get started on a job before I had to report, so we moved to Des Moines and rented an upstairs apartment, with no a/c, for the three months.
Two years later, when we returned to Des Moines from El Paso, Blake was was a year old and Marti was pregnant with Bradley. 
We rented a house on 51st St., in Des Moines, and I went back to work in the EIW engineering department.
I really wasn't very good at it, but they were patient with me and I progressed. I got pretty bored sitting at the drafting table, and after a few years, one of the 4 regional salesman had died, whose territory was everything west of the Mississippi River and western Canada. They asked me if I wanted the job,and I jumped at it.
My training consisted of reading file correspondences, of the other 3 salesman, and writing follow-up letters concerning technical issues, equipment specifications, or quotation status.
It was very effective training.
They finally decided I was ready to "sink or swim." The assistant sales manager took me on two sales trip to show me the ropes, and after that, I was on my own. 
We sold through dealers, most of who knew more about the product than I did, but they also were patient with me, and it paid off for everyone. I turned out to be the highest producing salesman in the company.
I sold to every company, large or small, and got to be known as the guy to call if you had any problems with your construction sand. My phone rang constantly, when in the office, and I traveled 150-160 days a year-usually two weeks at a time.
My customers were my best friends, and I made or saved a lot of money for them.They treated me like royalty and would even buy me lunch when I came on a sales call. I was treated more like a consultant when I visited. One engineering firm told me,"If you don't know your diamonds, you better know your jeweler."
I sold equipment on a dozen or more small dams and a couple of very large dams, including Portage Mountain Dam in northern British Columbia and the Guri Dam in Venezuela.
Every large company on the west coast was a customer including Conrock, the largest producers in LA, and Kaiser Sand and Gravel in San Francisco. (Herb Harger, president of Conrock still sends me a Christmas card every year.) Back when $1 was a lot of money, I sold a million dollars worth of equipment for the Alaskan pipeline (highway) project.

                                                   International Sales
EIW had a very large distribution organization in Europe. The only one who sold anything though, was SYSCOM in Holland. In the early 1960's, Harry Van Alkemade brought a Swiss construction project to Des Moines and I sold them an auto-spin sand classifying system.
One of the conditions of the sale as that I would have to go overseas when the construction of a small dam near Brig, Switzerland began.
This was our first sale in Europe, of an auto-spin system,and as it worked perfectly, it eventually led us to a lot more business.
While there, my boss Clair Laird, who had flown with the French Escadrille in WW1, suggested I visit dealers in France and Spain. While in Paris, I had Marti fly over and we spent a week there and visited Normandy, where her brother (Robert Larson) was killed (1944). His body never recovered.
Through Brad's research, we learned that he was reported MIA, presumed dead,near Hill 55 in Normandy, about 30 days after the invasion. His mortar squad apparently taking a direct hit from advancing German artillery, as the Germans attempted to break the advance and push the Allies back off the beach.
I was always fortunate in my travels, to make friends, who were excellent tour guides, and would take time to show me many historical spots.
I loved the museums in Europe and visited many of the large ones such as Rijks museum in Amsterdam, the Louvre in Paris and the Prado in Madrid.
Harry Van Alkemade's son, Gerry, was my age, and we grew to be great friends. He merged his company with a German company headed by Manfred Brauer, and the three of us sold many large installations all over western Europe- including a large Irish cement plant in Drogheda, Ireland.I have pleasant memories of the good times we had together with the Irishman, including their visit to Des Moines and dinner out at our house on NW Beaver Drive.

                                                             Venezuela
Through a consulting engineering friend in the state of Washington, I sold some equipment in Venezuela. Chuck Ferris had the the plant contract for the Guri Dam (a large project in central Venezuela.)
Chuck was the one who always said "If you don't know your diamonds,you better know your jeweler."  Again, I had a commitment to visit after it was operating.
By happenstance, I met another friend/customer in Venezuela had sent response to an ad we ran in "Rock Products" (a trade publication of the industry).
EIW received an inquiry from a company in Venezuela that looked promising and Clair Laird thought I should go down and explore the market. The inquiry was from a Venezuelan who owned a sand and gravel operation, very close to the Columbia border.
I responded that I was going to be down in Caracas  to check on some equipment at the Guri dam and perhaps we could get together.
Phillips was about my age and he met me in Caracas and drove me over to his hacienda, west of Caracas, near the Columbian border. Phillips was the son of a general, now dead, who had helped put one of the dictators of Venezuela in power. He had inherited a very large ranch in the interim and started a sand & gravel & stone company.
It was an experience riding through the countryside. The road was first class like our interstate, but with toll booths. each toll booth was manned with soldiers armed with sub-machine guns.
The Hacienda was a walled enclosure about a block square.  The big steel main gate was guarded by 2 men with shotguns who let us in.  Phillips explained that hand guns were outlawed, so guards carried shotguns.  The wall served as a back wall for the servants and workers, and with 3 walls added to it, made individual houses.  The main house set in the center was "U" shaped with the balloon of the "U" partially open to a formal flower garden and the closed end was an open air dining area.  The weather was mild and the setting, just beautiful. I spent a couple of days with Phillips looking over his complete ranch.
I did help Phillips with some problems and sold him some equipment, and we became lifelong friends.He always came by at conventions to tell me "hello."

All in all, it was a very interesting life for an Iowa farm boy.  It far exceeded any dreams I had for my life.  I made great friends all over the world.
It had been a great experience for an old Iowa boy to travel and see the world, but the problems of customers were repetitious.

One day I received a call from an old ISU friend, Vern Schimper.  Vern was a supervisor up at CRI.  EIW and CRI had a lot of common distributors, so we we had stayed connected over the years.  Vern told me that Howard Slife, the current VP of Sales was retiring and they would like to talk to me and see if I was interested in being his replacement.
Bottom line, I went to Cedar Rapids and talked to Ron Dunmire (the president at that time) and others.  I was interested so they sent me to Boston to meet with Tom Phillips, who was head of Raytheon(RTN) at the time.  I guess I passed because I soon received a terrific job offer, a lot more money, and RTN stock!
So the rest was history.  We accepted and started by putting NW Beaver Dr. up for sale. I took an apartment in Cedar Rapids and drove over Sunday night and back on Friday night,
until it sold, which didn't take very long.  Marti had been in real estate, so it didn't take her long to find a place she liked and we moved to Cedar Rapids. I was 50 years old and ready for a change.
The construction industry was in a kind of a funk and was starting to slow- this was part of my decision and I new I would have to had to rebuild the sales staff. Fortunately, I was able to get many friends from the industry who had been laid off during the downturn.  We were able to grow our sales by 10% or more, every year, for 6 or 8 years before the next slowdown came.
By the mid 1990's, a combination of business conditions and parent company consolidation of facilities, resulted in my early retirement. I was 63 y/o and happy to accept the retirement and took my pension.
In my early years of retirement, I quickly realized that this was a normal outcome of "big business". I was thankful for the many good years I spent at Eagle Iron Works and Cedar Rapids Incorporated.
I received a retirement pension from both companies and with social security and income off money Marti and I saved, we could look forward to a very comfortable retirement on St. Simon's Island.