Ask Rocco, "How are you?"; sometimes he'd reply: "Healty as hell."
"Th" wasn't his strong suit. But he was a stout, burly bear of a man. He was in his early 40's in that half-decade that I knew him while I still lived with my parents.
He used to jog, and there were plausible rumors he used to face into the cage at the baseball field and smash hardballs through the wire cage mesh. I never saw him do so.
Rocco ran a TV repair shop in a small, blue collar town.
It was an unassuming store-front. In the picture window he displayed a gorgeous antique radio that may have been as big as a wide screen TV.
I was an impressionable teen when I first met him.
When I watched him work (he would often do the repairs while you waited) I got the impression I could be such a repairman, because he made his work look so easy.
In addition to his repair shop, Rocco also got a job with Pan Am.
They had lots of electronic stuff that needed fixing, and lots of technicians to work on it.
But some of the stuff was so complex, the other techs. had simply been purchasing full replacement units. It seems that was not only costing Pan Am a fortune, but was also sustaining the electronics industry that supplied the replacements.
Rocco began fixing what the other guys had been replacing.
A cascade of consequences resulted.
For one, it didn't make him very popular with the other techs.
They might otherwise have tried to rough him up. But Rocco looked like he could take on any 10 of them at once.
So he repaired those very expensive units, and Pan Am's replacement orders dried up.
The suppliers began to call: when are you going to place your next order?
I don't doubt lay-offs may have resulted for some of those electronics suppliers.
Rocco seemed able to fix anything; radios, tape recorders, record players, car radios, TVs.
He was an incandescently brilliant diagnostician, and a skilled repairman.
But he also enjoyed a little mischief now and then.
One day I took a little DC electric motor to his shop.
We began to tinker with it.
He had it hooked up to a variable DC power supply.
He began to increase the voltage input.
I think he said he increased it to over 50 volts before the motor started smoking.
It may well have been Rocco that so stimulated my interest in electronics that I had a career in semi-conductor manufacture & development.
While single-handedly altering the East Coast U.S. commercial airliner avionics supply industry is no small accomplishment for a repairman (the word "repairman" is clearly inadequate), it may not have been his most remarkable demonstration.
The most stupendous achievement of his that I ever witnessed happened on the day the Apollo 11 astronauts were to take their first walk on the moon: "One small step for man ... a giant leap for mankind." (Or whatever he said.
www.snopes.com/quotes/onesmall.asp )
It was probably less than 100 minutes before the unprecedented, historic event was to be broadcast. Walter Kronkite was poised, ready to go.
Our Zenith B&W TV was acting up, the picture jittered and distorted.
An historic event perhaps more exciting than Columbus "discovering" America was imminent. Such remarkable history may not be made as often as once in one thousand years. There would only be one such "first" in all history, and it was about to take place in our TV room in about an hour; and our TV wasn't working properly. If he couldn't fix it fast enough, we would miss it.
No pressure, Rocco.
Before Rocco ever open up a TV he'd first turn it on and watch the picture. It seems it only took him a second or two of that to diagnose the problem.
On July 21, 1969, this great bear of a man set down his huge steel tool box (probably weighed 50 lbs., crammed with a befuddling variety of tools) on the TV room floor. He looked at the TV picture.
Then he began to open its cabinet.
At the very back of a TV picture tube (CRT) is the electron gun.
Between that and the screen was a roughly funnel-shaped, complicated winding of thin single strand wire. It's called "the deflection yoke". It's the electro-magnet that steers the electrons spewing out of the gun from the back of the tube, onto the screen at the front. The deflection yoke makes the pattern; the pictures we see when we watch the TV.
Somehow, in that brief glance at the TV picture Rocco figured out that there was a problem with that yoke of wire.
He slid the yoke off the back of the picture tube. He examined the windings. He spread the wires apart, looking for a source of trouble. He may have probed it with a stylus. Soon he had found the problem. Though the complex copper windings might have looked un-insulated, the copper strand actually had a thin transparent coating on it.
Rocco found a tiny spot of green, probably corrosion, which meant the invisible coating of insulation had failed at that one spot.
He reached into his tool box, withdrew a tube of black rubbery goo, and dabbed it over the trouble spot on the one strand of wire.
We checked the picture.
Problem solved.
He got the TV back together, and then we waited around for the hour to arrive, plenty of time to spare. Rocco was gracious enough to stay with us to watch the historic event.
Absolutely, utterly amazing!
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.
Surely the moon landing got my attention. But to this day I remain impressed with that repair. Who else on Earth could have fixed it as quickly? Neil Armstrong had help. Rocco was on his own; no script to follow.
That was one amazing day.
Rocco seemed to support the Vietnam War; he was a Korean War vet.
I didn't share Rocco's views on Vietnam. But I thought I might impress or please him if I joined and served in the military for a few years.
I opted to go to Germany instead of Vietnam. But I served, w/ him as inspiration.
And one of my primary reasons for this was to return home, and tell him what I had done; and that it was he more than anyone else that had inspired me. Rocco was generous and egalitarian by nature, and had always treated me as a peer even though I wasn't. But I thought my military service could serve as a rite of passage. It could serve as the threshold over which I could step, to interact w/ Rocco as a real, adult peer.
And I thought it would be fitting, perhaps dramatic emphasis for just how profoundly he had influenced me, and how much I thought of him if the news I delivered to him was a surprise. And because I thought it might have more profound affect if it was a surprise, I didn't mention a word of it to him before I left for training, & overseas. If I had said goodbye, it would have spoiled the surprise.
3+ years went by.
I returned home to visit my Mom (hadn't seen her in ~3 years).
That first evening home, I asked her about Rocco.
Mom told me; he died about a week ago.
"Th" wasn't his strong suit. But he was a stout, burly bear of a man. He was in his early 40's in that half-decade that I knew him while I still lived with my parents.
He used to jog, and there were plausible rumors he used to face into the cage at the baseball field and smash hardballs through the wire cage mesh. I never saw him do so.
Rocco ran a TV repair shop in a small, blue collar town.
It was an unassuming store-front. In the picture window he displayed a gorgeous antique radio that may have been as big as a wide screen TV.
I was an impressionable teen when I first met him.
When I watched him work (he would often do the repairs while you waited) I got the impression I could be such a repairman, because he made his work look so easy.
In addition to his repair shop, Rocco also got a job with Pan Am.
They had lots of electronic stuff that needed fixing, and lots of technicians to work on it.
But some of the stuff was so complex, the other techs. had simply been purchasing full replacement units. It seems that was not only costing Pan Am a fortune, but was also sustaining the electronics industry that supplied the replacements.
Rocco began fixing what the other guys had been replacing.
A cascade of consequences resulted.
For one, it didn't make him very popular with the other techs.
They might otherwise have tried to rough him up. But Rocco looked like he could take on any 10 of them at once.
So he repaired those very expensive units, and Pan Am's replacement orders dried up.
The suppliers began to call: when are you going to place your next order?
I don't doubt lay-offs may have resulted for some of those electronics suppliers.
Rocco seemed able to fix anything; radios, tape recorders, record players, car radios, TVs.
He was an incandescently brilliant diagnostician, and a skilled repairman.
But he also enjoyed a little mischief now and then.
One day I took a little DC electric motor to his shop.
We began to tinker with it.
He had it hooked up to a variable DC power supply.
He began to increase the voltage input.
I think he said he increased it to over 50 volts before the motor started smoking.
It may well have been Rocco that so stimulated my interest in electronics that I had a career in semi-conductor manufacture & development.
While single-handedly altering the East Coast U.S. commercial airliner avionics supply industry is no small accomplishment for a repairman (the word "repairman" is clearly inadequate), it may not have been his most remarkable demonstration.
The most stupendous achievement of his that I ever witnessed happened on the day the Apollo 11 astronauts were to take their first walk on the moon: "One small step for man ... a giant leap for mankind." (Or whatever he said.
www.snopes.com/quotes/onesmall.asp )
It was probably less than 100 minutes before the unprecedented, historic event was to be broadcast. Walter Kronkite was poised, ready to go.
Our Zenith B&W TV was acting up, the picture jittered and distorted.
An historic event perhaps more exciting than Columbus "discovering" America was imminent. Such remarkable history may not be made as often as once in one thousand years. There would only be one such "first" in all history, and it was about to take place in our TV room in about an hour; and our TV wasn't working properly. If he couldn't fix it fast enough, we would miss it.
No pressure, Rocco.
Before Rocco ever open up a TV he'd first turn it on and watch the picture. It seems it only took him a second or two of that to diagnose the problem.
On July 21, 1969, this great bear of a man set down his huge steel tool box (probably weighed 50 lbs., crammed with a befuddling variety of tools) on the TV room floor. He looked at the TV picture.
Then he began to open its cabinet.
At the very back of a TV picture tube (CRT) is the electron gun.
Between that and the screen was a roughly funnel-shaped, complicated winding of thin single strand wire. It's called "the deflection yoke". It's the electro-magnet that steers the electrons spewing out of the gun from the back of the tube, onto the screen at the front. The deflection yoke makes the pattern; the pictures we see when we watch the TV.
Somehow, in that brief glance at the TV picture Rocco figured out that there was a problem with that yoke of wire.
He slid the yoke off the back of the picture tube. He examined the windings. He spread the wires apart, looking for a source of trouble. He may have probed it with a stylus. Soon he had found the problem. Though the complex copper windings might have looked un-insulated, the copper strand actually had a thin transparent coating on it.
Rocco found a tiny spot of green, probably corrosion, which meant the invisible coating of insulation had failed at that one spot.
He reached into his tool box, withdrew a tube of black rubbery goo, and dabbed it over the trouble spot on the one strand of wire.
We checked the picture.
Problem solved.
He got the TV back together, and then we waited around for the hour to arrive, plenty of time to spare. Rocco was gracious enough to stay with us to watch the historic event.
Absolutely, utterly amazing!
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.
Surely the moon landing got my attention. But to this day I remain impressed with that repair. Who else on Earth could have fixed it as quickly? Neil Armstrong had help. Rocco was on his own; no script to follow.
That was one amazing day.
Rocco seemed to support the Vietnam War; he was a Korean War vet.
I didn't share Rocco's views on Vietnam. But I thought I might impress or please him if I joined and served in the military for a few years.
I opted to go to Germany instead of Vietnam. But I served, w/ him as inspiration.
And one of my primary reasons for this was to return home, and tell him what I had done; and that it was he more than anyone else that had inspired me. Rocco was generous and egalitarian by nature, and had always treated me as a peer even though I wasn't. But I thought my military service could serve as a rite of passage. It could serve as the threshold over which I could step, to interact w/ Rocco as a real, adult peer.
And I thought it would be fitting, perhaps dramatic emphasis for just how profoundly he had influenced me, and how much I thought of him if the news I delivered to him was a surprise. And because I thought it might have more profound affect if it was a surprise, I didn't mention a word of it to him before I left for training, & overseas. If I had said goodbye, it would have spoiled the surprise.
3+ years went by.
I returned home to visit my Mom (hadn't seen her in ~3 years).
That first evening home, I asked her about Rocco.
Mom told me; he died about a week ago.
