May 1945—week 1
Monday[1]
John went squirrel hunting at lunch.[2] Came back to school late—blood splattered all over his good britches (the ones without knee patches) and smelling like squirrel guts! I heard that Pete Vance didn’t come back after lunch at all. Reckon he’s skinning a mess of squirrel. (I hope those
critters ain’t been eating pinecones. I hate the taste of pine-cone squirrel meat!)
Tuesday
John went squirrel hunting after school again. And last week, too. He’s burning that carbide lamp out in the field every night hoeing around in the corn.[3] Mom says he’s pert near done with
his chores every night. (Now, my chores are always done before I hit the sack.)
Wednesday
He told Mom he didn’t have homework. Teacher doesn’t give it to his class if they keep up. I don’t believe him. Maybe he’s getting somebody else to do it for him. (I got 3 A’s so far this year!)
Thursday
John crashed my bike!!! He can just get it down to Ernie’s and fix it instead of them old cars. I don’t think Ernie’s paying him nothing, but I heard that he was working on an old Model T. Something about a Chevy dishtrabater, or something like that. Pete said all the boys were talking about that ignashun change. (Why do boys always talk about engine stuff?) Pete done asked me if I’s as smart as John and wanted to walk me home today. I told him I just might run the whole eight miles home with John.[4] He was welcome to join us if he felt like running. (I’m sorry for lying. You know I can’t keep up with John. I just didn’t want old Pete thinking I was that easy.) (Did you know John runs home most days to have more time to fiddle with Mom’s Maytag? It’s a
wonder he gets it back in every Sunday night before Mom’s wash day. Bet he gets it in before you get home.)
Friday
I done heard John telling Pete that Mom’s Maytag is broke. He figured he got twenty miles a hour before hitting that ditch in his contraption. He fixed our bikes with Mom’s Maytag motor and put a prop on the darn thing! Now I know he can’t fix both bikes and the Maytag by his self. He told Mom he needed to get down to Langsville to get it welded. And—he told Mom that he wouldn’t be putting no more bikes together like that. He done broke the prop too. I told Mom if he could run home from school eight miles just so he could kill squirrels, then why’d he need that bike contraption to go so fast. He’s been out in the field late every night with that carbide lamp trying to keep the corn hoed. I do believe this time he will go to the woodshed when you get home!!! (Aren’t you glad you have a daughter that you don’t never have to take to the
woodshed?)
End Notes
[1] According to John Dyke, his sister kept a list of things he had done wrong while his dad was out of town working. Being a carpenter, his dad worked in cities all over southeast Ohio and West Virginia, often gone for days or weeks at a time. This list is fictionalized to coincide with John’s story of his Maytag-bicycle experiment. Because he attached Mary’s bike to his bike and the washing machine engine, his subsequent crash affected everyone in the family. They could not afford to buy replacements; fixing things was a fact of life. John’s first encounter with welding was in Langsville, where a man owned welding equipment, the only such equipment in the area (Dyke Personal Interview).
[2] In the 1940’s, students were allowed to bring their shotguns to school with them. Many of them hunted on the way to and from school, especially due to long walks, according to John Dyke. He relates that he sometimes went squirrel hunting or fishing during lunch time at school (Dyke Personal Interview). Even inventors need to act like little boys at times!
[3] Prior to electricity on the rural, southeastern Ohio Appalachian farms, carbide and kerosene lamps were used. According to John Dyke, he often worked late to make up for his hunting and experimenting time during the day (Dyke Personal Interview).
[4] John Dyke experimented with connecting two bicycles by a tractor seat, adding a crude propeller fashioned from a two-by-four, and his mother’s Maytag washing machine engine (Dyke Personal Interview). His creative, right-brain approach to experimenting allowed him to “adapt and adjust” to his situation: being poor in rural Appalachia, wanting to fly, and breaking his dream down into little steps to experiment with a left-brained approach to tackling details. Some experts believe that engineers are polarized into predominantly left-brain and right-brain orientation (Singh 76). However, I theorize from studying the life of John Dyke, as well as my exposure to other innovative people, that surprising innovation comes from individuals who utilize both approaches to problem solving, creatively breaking down large visions into smaller, testable and constructable pieces of the whole.
John also experimented with improving the ignition system of a Ford by rigging a Chevrolet distributor system to it. Ernest Davis, the nearby mechanic in Salem Center, Ohio, was so impressed with John’s mechanical ability that he provided a reference for John when he enlisted in the Navy (Dyke Personal Interview).
Living eight miles from his Rutland school, in Danville, Ohio, John is proud that he often ran the distance to allow more time for hunting and experimenting (Dyke Personal Interview). Common personality traits of engineers include a desire for “freedom to spend some time working on ideas of his own” and a tendency toward being “perfectionists” who “are not satisfied until their work achieves its maximum potential” (Gautschi 254). Left-brained oriented engineers also thrive on “productivity and efficiency” (Singh 68-69). Even the interview process with John Dyke required an efficient use of time—both mine and his.