Computers and Science

My dad was an engineer and scientist inventor plus several other occupations to difficult to spell or understand. He was a brilliant, warm person that every body loved. He always remembered the small details that make such a difference. He started working on designing bio-medical programs for computers, when a computer took up an entire room and you had to program punch cards for this monster to read. One of my father’s inventions was the intensive care monitoring unit which took the place of about ten nurses having to check in on open heart surgery patients. They could observe their patients twenty-four hours a day, and it was all recorded, from monitors around the hospital. Everything started in this huge room with a computer that filled it. To know exactly how his invention would work he had to participate in a lot of open heart surgeries and heart lung by-passes. I am sure that if there had just been an exam to become a heart surgeon my father would have passed with flying colors. He loved his job. He also invented things after noting those things that the nurses would complain about, that they didn’t have or didn’t work properly and dad would just come home to his little workshop and whip one up. They all ended up being successful and went on to be sold to companies like Johnson and Johnson, but because my father worked for IBM he never got any of the patents or the money because he, and what he did, belonged to the company, but he did it just to cheer up a nurse or make a big difference in how things worked in the hospital. Like I said, he loved his work. On my thirteenth birthday I took three friends to the hospital to show them a computer and to see what my dad did. Besides being impressed with the computer, he had made punch cards with all of our names on it so the computer could read it and then put it up on the monitor, and also a spread of pastries and a birthday cake. That is what I meant by little details. It was really quite exciting for the time. Next was a tour of the hospital where we were merrily greeted by everyone. I felt so proud to be his daughter. The first stop was to watch chest tubes being removed from a lady, not quite what a thirteen year old expects but it was fascinating. Every room we went into in the hospital, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARBARA would pop up on the monitor. We were all so impressed. How did the computer know we were there? Who was pushing the buttons back in the big room with the computer in it? We had a wonderful and educational birthday followed by a trip to the old fun house in San Francisco. We were living there at that time. The only thing my father liked as much as work was a good fun park. He finally did invent the Intensive Care Monitoring Unit and it was installed in San Francisco and then New York, then on to Russia and finally to Spain which is how I ended up here. Madrid was building a state of the art new hospital called Ramon y Cajal and my father had to come to oversee the installation, but after five years here the hospital was still never completed, too many saints’ days I guess. The best part was that the invention was a huge success. In my parent’s spare time they started to tour Spain and fell in love with the country and knew they would one day retire here. Then they discovered Mojácar and my mother sent my father straight back to Madrid to pack up the house while she found something here. I think they probably found the best property and house in the area and we are still here except my father who sadly passed away about nine years ago. My father learned perfect Spanish but no one could understand him because his vocabulary was way beyond the local farmers and to make sure his grammar was correct he used to speak slowly to make sure he got it right, but they didn’t know the grammar either, as a matter of fact this is where they speak the worst Spanish in Spain. He found that a bit frustrating because in Madrid he did fairly well with all the doctors and IBMers. We were great friends and spent time together almost every day and I would help him with what he called the ooffy chores that my mother would set out for him for the day. He did all the shopping because he used to love to talk to all the people and stop and get an ice cream. They used to only sell ice cream from July to September but he finally talked one ice cream parlour into keeping it all year long. Now everyone has ice cream all year long. I miss my father very much; he had such a quick wit and fantastic sense of humor.