| Peak period of influence: 1945 - 1958 - ongoing. Tom Richards was my Grandfather. He had a profound influence on me - so great, that I did not realize the extent of it until in the last few years. This has dawned on me slowly... As I look in the mirror, today, I see my Grandfather emerging. I am about the age, now, that he was when I met him in 1945. Grandfather and Grandmother came to stay with us awhile, in Orlando, after he retired at the end of WW II. I had met my Grandmother, before, and stayed with her at for periods when my parents were relocating. My Grandfather was always away, on assignment, until his retirement. When I did finally meet my Grandfather, I adored him. He seemed to me to be everything a man should and could be. In his early 60s he was still physically vigorous and magnetic. A powerful man with an Irish temper and a keen intellect. He made things. He solved problems. You could hand Grandfather a basket full of parts and he would lay them out on a table and stare at them as he puffed his pipe - then, he would assemble them into working form in a matter of minutes. If there were missing or broken parts he would improvise and make new ones. Whatever, it always worked. Myth followed Tom Richards like a mantel - I grew up within this myth before I ever met the man. When I did, I found that he exceeded his reputation. He stepped into my like larger than life - the typical crusty, always resourceful master sergeant made popular in so many war movies. Here was John Wayne in the flesh: opinionated, direct, charismatic, immensely strong, with total disdain for hierarchy and organization, compelled to action and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. No one, including generals, messed with this man. It was whispered that he killed a man with one blow, before the war, who had accosted a woman in a public place. The Judge recommended and the Army transferred him to another base. They did. There were many stories about Grandfather and will recount just two. The form the essence of his myth and my “imprinting.” (insert stories) Whenever my Grandfather got together, in the years that followed, we made things - much to the annoyance of the rest of the family. We were always putting something together. Grandfather ran a golf driving range as one of his many retirement jobs. There were thousands of golf balls to pick up, clean and paint strips of various colors on. After a few months we had an amazing amount of this process automated. This is where I first learned the virtue of systematic and constant improvement. Grandfather brought the same focus and intensity to this project that he did to keeping airplanes flying during WWII. Grandfather “instructed” me in one other way - a sad way. From this experience I made a decision that plays large in my life to this day. The instruction is in how he died. To understand, you have to know why he retired. He had entered service under age, with no education. He literally grew up with the Air Force. Before the War he was asked to take a commission but turned it down. In those days pay was heavily based on years of service and this would have meant a reduction. Additionally, he was a very senior NCO - to become an Officer would be to start over in another chain of command. After the War he was asked again, and having no family to raise, he accepted. Also, by this time the pay process had greatly changed. In the required physical exam it was discovered that he had a heart condition. Instead of promotion he was retired. He was told that he was going to die. The Air Force was right - he died nearly 20 years later to the day. Retirement was not happy for my Grandfather. He did odd jobs, mostly running places, sometimes as an inspector in aircraft factories but nothing that had the focus and importance of the lifetime of work he had invested in the Air Force. He died a very slow death. I have often wondered what the Air Force lost with that decision - I know what Grandfather lost. I decided, before I ever went to work, that this would never happen to me. Grandfather was not an intellectual. My mother was and from her I inherited those traits. From Grandfather, I got my grounding in physical reality. My desire to build, my intensity to act. From him I got my physical nature and a fair measure of my zest for adventure and disdain for those things that stand in the way of getting things done. He sparked my sense of life. | 
