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"Let there be light." Thomas Alva Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory and Memorial Tower. Those of us on the Jersey Shore call it the "Big Ass" Lightbulb!
The Edison Tower, located on the site of the original laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, to which Thomas Alva Edison moved in 1876, was erected in 1937 as a monument to the great inventor. The Tower is the gift of William Slocum Barstow to The Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Incorporated, of which˙ he is President, in behalf of the Edison Pioneers. It was dedicated on February 11, 1838, the ninety-first anniversary of the inventor's birth.
Rising 131 ft. 4 in. above the ground, the Tower looms as the highest discernible object for many miles. Surmounting the 117 ft. 8 in. concrete-slab structure is a 13 ft. 8 in. replica of the original incandescent lamp which, illuminated nightly, can be seen for a distance of several miles, serving as an airplane beacon. The foundation of the Tower consists of a structure. The Tower is designed for pressure of wind at a velocity of 120 miles per hour. In its construction, which consumed slightly less than eight months, there were used approximately 1200 barrels of Edison Portland cement and 50 tons of reinforced steel.
The large bulb atop the Tower was cast by the Corning Glass Works, which fifty-nine years ago,, in 1879 furnished from a sketch the first commercial electric light bulb. The replica bulb contains 153 separate pieces of amber tinted Pyrex glass, 2 in. thick, set upon a steel frame. The bulb is 5 ft. in diameter at the neck and 9 ft. 2 in. in diameter at the greatest width and weighs, without the steel frame on which it is placed, in excess of three tons. Inside this Pyrex glass bulb are four 1000 watt bulbs, four 200 watt bulbs, and four 100 watt bulbs. A duplicate of each is so arranged as automatically to cut in should its companion bulb fail.
Postmarked February 4, 1920, at Tacoma, Wash.; addressed to Mr. A. J. Klem, 71 Paige St., Tioga Co., O-WE-GO [Owego], New York.
Hotel Elgin
150 Rooms
Eighth St. and Hennepin Ave.
RATES:
$1.00, $1.25, $1.50, and $2.00
Steam Heat, Electric Lights, Hot and Cold Running Water
Telephone Service in Every Room. No Court Rooms
Feb. 4th, '20
Dear Father, Mother and All,
Just a line to inform you that I rec’d Tilly's letter to-day and was glad to hear from you again.
My birthday [he turned 21 three days earlier] passed off without a “murmur.” Received a telegram from Will on Monday but no word from anyone else. Sort of expect a bunch of cards but didn't hear from anyone. Of course, I grasped your sentiments by the lovely bathrobe that you sent me. It was just what I needed and I wear it every day.
Why doesn't Lillian ever write? She evidently has a grievance against me.
The audience are terrible here. Minne-oh-polis — as these Swedes say around here. It's like you were in Sweden — so many of them. Not an act on the bill get as much as a hand from a crowded house. Jim is disgusted.
Some fellow was back looking for me last night, perhaps it was Harry Solberg, although Tilly says his mother is dead, perhaps Harry has returned to work.
Went out “cabareting” last night with a bunch of performers. Took in the “Slums” and everything. This town is a beautiful city, like N.Y. and Detroit.
Read Tilly's letter while my bowels were ready to shoot out — you see I took some more “Sal-Hep-atica”* this a.m. Keep your bowels open — avoid the “Flu.”
The weather has been so warm up through here that it is giving the “Flu” a start.
No. 20 letter in the Times about Owego was the one I sent in.
We have a “Lightning Calculator” on the bill with us “Valand Gamble” [vaudevilleamerica.org/performance/valand-gamble/]— factors any bunch of numbers very quick and tells you what day any date falls on. I asked him Feb. 1st, 1899 — and he said “Friday.” So I must have been born a “fish.”
Did you receive the $80? Always let me know — if you did.
When you say “Long Live Frederick the Great” in your [letter], why don't the orchestra play “Die Wacht am Rhine” or “Back Again To Dear Old Dixieland.”
Sunday evening up in the “Eat Garden” the Victrola was playing “I could learn to love you dearie, when I see you smile.” The one Papa always danced to. Smile! Smile! Smile! Remember! And then a dim haze passed over my eyes.
I wrote Jennie a week ago, but no answer as yet.
Why bring up memories of Dickens while “crapping” in the “A’bee?” To-day the light was out in the toilet in the theatre and I went up to the Stage Manager with the Times in my hand and asked him about the light. He asked me if I needed a light to find the hole and I said, I wanted to read — (a big laugh) — Hazel gave me a candle — and I proceeded to the A’bee.
I played for “Reynolds and White” [vaudevilleamerica.org/performance/reynolds-and-white/] 2 years ago.
Why do you always send packages gen’l delivery? The P. O. is about 4 miles from here and I hate to walk up there.
Am going in a party to St. Paul tonight with Jo-Jo and a bunch of actors. Ask Rieg if he remembers Jo-Jo — the fellow with the “seal voice.”
My itinerary reads Winnipeg Canada next week so write there. Get that Lillian to uncork that glass arm of hers and fluently write me — I'm sore to think she don't write.
Best love and kisses and thank you all again for past favors and your letters — you don't know how they help to keep me up — so write often.
Your loving son,
[signed] Fritz
* Per Google’s AI overview, “Sal Hepatica was a mineral salt laxative produced by Bristol-Myers from 1887 to 1958. It was marketed as a way to get rid of waste and combat acidity.”
Ryan Jenson
Invented precision drones for farms
Ryan Jenson invented a precision agriculture drone during a conversation about spraying wheat crops. Why spray everywhere, he questioned; why not just where it's needed?
"I figured you could do it with robots," Jenson says, and HoneyComb Corp. was born.
Jenson, 28, not only grew up on a 100-acre farm in Eagle Creek, Ore., he also started studying college-level engineering at 14 years old. He earned his bachelor's and later his master’s in mechanical engineering from Portland State.
At HoneyComb Jenson and two friends, who are now his business partners, merged aerospace systems and remote sensing to invent a drone that locates problem areas in agriculture or forested lands.
"There's not a system in place today that's tailored to agriculture like this," Jenson says. "We developed it on our own."
The company is Jenson's second; he partnered with PSU professor Mark Weislogel to form a business that deals with space systems.
"I always wanted to start my own company and do my own thing," Jenson says. "Everyone in my family has their own company—it's in my DNA."
Jenson finds validation in his companies' sure trajectory. His space systems work is entering another phase and the HoneyComb drone is already generating sales. By 2015, Jenson plans on global expansion.
"Once you start building and creating your own vision of things, you realize it's doable," he says. "We're bringing technology to a place where people didn't think it was possible and having an impact."
for Paul Wong.....
He's a musician I care much about. But I'm not sure if he feels so. He's cold, but he seems to be burning in the heart.
Sorry, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Feel it if you can.
I read these comics over and over as a child: slim A4 volumes of bandes désinées translated from the French. What strikes me now is how lovingly they seek to mimic the world, gestures, characters and interactions of the actual Hollywood Western - John Ford's especially, no doubt. All these corny sequences seem direct homages to scenes with John Wayne and Victor McLaglen (and here, why not, that random sweetheart Angie Dickinson) -- perhaps written and drawn by cavalry fans from almost the same generation as the Cahiers directors and critics whose quirky romance with Hollywood issued in so many of the most enduring themes and tones of the last fifty years.