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Old 01-18-2014, 12:03 PM
ed.brown ed.brown is offline
Junior Rocketeer
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Daddyisabar
I have heard a lot of this from cranky old Denver area rocketeers. All the "he screwed me and didn't pay for this and that, or this or that blew up and had to skedaddle here or there, or this or that was stolen," and on and on and on. I just chalk it up to a bunch of sour grapes, hearsay and that maybe someone was a better businessman and Capitalist and got things done. I want my model rocket history to be Happy-Happy-Happy, draped in Glory and mystique. We need or Hero's, our October Sky movie creation myths. I need to look at the photo of Vern with his Klingon beard in the '74 catalog and release those happy, inner child memories. If some little people got trampled over and left in the dust bin of History by the strong then so be it, that's the way things are. Who cares if Thomas Edison might have out flanked Hiram Maxim on the incandescent light bulb, Hiram's later inventions made the world a better place.


I've known Vern and Gleda since March of 1966 When Vern hired me. He is my number one hero and always will be (although Carl and Sheryl McLawhorn as well as Leroy Piester and his family come close, but I didn't know them quite as well). While I've heard some of the same stories, I place a minimum of credence in them. They all went through very lean times in pioneering and developing this hobby for the rest of us. I know of many times when they all helped their workers, customers and total strangers with no publicity or fanfare. Vern was always willing to listen and consider our ideas and encouraged us all to develop personally by example and in many other ways. They were all human in the best sense of the word and being human I'm sure they made mistakes just like the rest of us. But they went out of their way to correct them also.

This is my sincere opinion,
Ed Brown
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