Development of the characteristics of my life for the first ten years was almost entirely family oriented. Of course there was some influence of school but not enough to reverse the influence of family.

As a young child, my parents, my little sister and I lived close to my maternal grandparents, and therefore I must include them, along with aunts and uncles in my family. Being the firstborn grandchild, I held a unique place in the family. No doubt I was spoiled from too much attention in spite of my cute little sister. I wasn’t too spoiled to learn right from wrong, mostly. I’m not sure I knew what they all meant but I knew the Ten Commandments. It seemed that I hadn’t learned to not tease my sister, but this lesson came later when she had control of the length of her finger nails.

I was in third grade in the fall of 1929 when Daddy lost his job and moved his family to Kentucky. They left me for my grandparents to look after until I finished third grade. The reduced size of my Kentucky family left more room for outside influence on me.

We were well into the Great Depression which was itself a great teacher of humility. Things that were once taken for granted could no longer be treated so. For most folks all things were harder to own. I learned something about frugality.

In school I learned to respect those in authority. I learned to pass my courses without much effort, except for science and mathematics. I liked those subjects. 

Just after my twelfth birthday, my mother gave birth to big baby boy (ten years too late to suit me). Now I had to give up my claim as uncontested number one kid because of a baby who grew into a cute blond curly haired little boy whose mother didn’t have the heart to cut his curls until he started to school.

I learned from my peers at school that at age twelve I could become a Boy Scout and they urged me to join their troop. I got permission and joined. The first thing I learned as a Tenderfoot was the Scout Oath. “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” These precepts were not new to me. I had learned them at home and in Sunday School, but there they were made easy to remember. I learned many things as a Scout that served me well as an adult.

Learning to swim probably saved my life a time or two. Rudiments of a well organized camp site enabled me to teach my children to appreciate nature and the outdoors.

I learned determination, teamwork and fair play from my high school football coach. His motto was, “A team that won’t be beat can’t be beat.” 

My first boss in my career as a junior engineer was a great believer in trying unconventional ways of doing things. Don’t do something a certain way just because that’s how it has always been done. He even wrote a book on creativity. He was a father-figure to me and some of his notions rubbed off on me. My real father may have contributed to that trait in me. Maybe that helped me decide to study engineering. 

While serving in the Army I developed what some folks described as a nasty, stinking habit. They told me that it would cause lung cancer, a threat that I never believed and still don’t. Right or wrong, credit the Army and free cigarettes for my stinky habit. I enjoyed my smokes but gave them up starting with three weeks in the hospital. I no longer stink like stale tobacco smoke, but one might notice me with another flavor of stink.

It’s hard to stretch memory back through years of hardly ever thinking of what may have caused me to have certain character traits, much less what was the origin. I’d wager that by far most had roots in my family.