This probably isn't a great place for this, but I just wanted to talk about my father, Ronald Sutherland for a moment.
Dad graduated from LSU's engineering department and was always tinkering with things. Long before remote controls for television, he wired the "TV room" (which was also Mom and his bedroom) television with sound that came from better speakers near the nightstand. On top of the speaker cabinets and within reach of the bed was a big red button. This turned the sound off. Because he disliked commercials. So, our family dynamic when watching TV together, which was frequent in the evenings with shows like "Dick Van Dyke Show" or "Mannix" or "The Wonderful World of Disney" we'd all be silently engrossed in the program, and the minute the first commercial hit, someone would smack the red button, the sound would go off, and we'd become a lively room of conversation about the show or our day or anything at all. We'd even wrestle and play until the minute someone would call "It's on!" they'd smack the big red button and the sound and show would be going again. We became mute again.
Dad also liked falling asleep to the television, but hated waking up to turn it off, so at a time when you had to walk up to the television to turn it off or change channels, he created a little hexagonal box that sat atop the TV that had a red light (am i seeing a pattern of red?). This light would blink every half hour or so and required someone to turn the sound off and back on again to stop it from blinking. If it blinked for 7 minutes (dad was specific about the time - he optimized for human psychology before the word ergonomic was in vogue) and no one turned hit the mute button in that time, it would shut the TV off. So like the Pavlovian children that we were if the blinking came on (which you noticed peripherally) someone would handily snap the big red button off-and-on again to stop it. This way Dad could fall asleep to the TV, and in sleep fail to respond to the 7-minute blinking and the TV would shut off. Sleep uninterrupted!
We were a game-playing family, even inviting neighborhood kids over for word and strategy games. Boggle, Probe, Monopoly, card games, chess, Diplomacy and a plethora of strategy games including Oh-wah-ree and Avalon-Hill war games. But we never used dice because dad built a box that you could set to the number of dice and and you'd tap a button and the number would come up on pixie tubes. Like the old numbers that gas pumps used to have. While neighbor kids were amazed and sometimes confused, it was just how we grew up.
Dad was the "Mister Cunningham" of the neighborhood and would sit out on the front steps while a whole cul-de-sac of kids would play and yell for his attention. They even called him "Mister C" for a time. He'd sit out there either reading or just smoking his More cigarettes - which looked like long twigs to us - and comment and commensurate and play referee, never much physically involved, but always ready to listen to a kid's concerns or joys with positive words and thoughts.
I could say so much - so much more - about him, but that's what i've been thinking lately.
Dad died early of a rare Amyloidosis disease, but not before Terry, the youngest, was well out of the house. He taught me many things, not the least of which was courteousness and curiosity, philosophy and critical thinking. I just wanted to honor him today by spending some alone time with his spirit in me and just to write a little thank-you note saying how proud i am to be his son and hope that out there in the aether, he can be proud of me, because i'm a good person with his and Mom's sweet guidance.
