Copyright © 2001 by W. E. Lopez
By
W. E. Lopez
The
intercom on the secretary’s desk buzzed and the pretty brunette pushed a
button. After a few mumbled words she
looked at Lyman and said, “Mr. Kinkaid will see you now, Mr. Mynor. Go right in.”
Lyman
Mynor collected his spiral notebook and entered the tastefully decorated office
of Roger Kinkaid. This would be a real
coup if Lyman could get a one-on-one interview with Mr. Kinkaid, currently CEO
of Universal Electronics and scheduled to be the guest speaker at Lyman’s high
school graduation in three more months.
Kinkaid stood and walked around his walnut desk to shake hands with
Lyman.
“So,
you’re Jeff’s son,” he said to Lyman.
“A fine man, your father,” Kinkaid said. “Of course, he couldn’t catch a football to save his life. We would have had a perfect season that year
if you’re dad had pulled that ball out of the air and held on to it. Now that he’s a big time lawyer, I guess
football is the farthest thing from his mind, eh, Lyman?”
“Pretty
much so, sir. But he still gets just as
excited around Thanksgiving and New Year’s when all the bowl games are
televised. He’s just not fanatic about
it these days.”
“And
what are you fanatic about, Lyman?”
“Writing,
sir. I’m editor of The Warrior,
that’s our school paper, and since you’ve accepted the invitation to be guest
speaker at graduation this year, I wanted to get a little background on you,
and your company, Universal Electronics.”
“Sit
down, Lyman, sit down.” As Lyman
settled into an immensely comfortable leather chair, Roger Kinkaid retreated
behind his desk and seated him self.
Lyman
pulled out his pen and steno pad and prepared to take notes. “One of the things I know everyone is
curious about, Mr. Kinkaid, is why an advanced electronics firm chose a cowboy
boot as your company logo?”
Kinkaid
gave a small smile and leaned back in his chair. “Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story in itself, Lyman, and it
starts back in April of 1919.”
“Excuse
me, sir, 1919?”
“Don’t
interrupt. There was a young fellow
born in Ames, Iowa, on July 4th, 1899.
He had an unremarkable childhood and was not especially gifted at
anything in particular. He grew up on a
family owned farm where corn, naturally, was the principle produce. His daddy taught him to love this country,
fear the IRS, and never stand for public office.”
“Am
I supposed to know this man,” Lyman asked.
Is he a national hero or anything?”
“I
don’t expect you’d know him,” Kinkaid said.
“He wasn’t any special kind of hero, just another hayseed who got
drafted into service during World War I.
He went to Europe and fought in one bloody battle after another, but the
only remarkable thing he did was survive when hundreds of thousands of others
did not.
“In
September of 1918 he had the misfortune to have his left leg separated at the
knee by a German artillery shell so he was in a hospital in Britain when the
Armistice was signed on November 11. By
the time he’d recuperated enough to return to the states, it was April of 1919
and his childhood sweetheart, whom he’d written to all through the Great War,
met him at the train depot in Ames. She
didn’t know, for he never told her, that he’d lost his leg.”
Lyman
kept putting down his notes, but he had no idea where this history lesson was
headed.
“Elizabeth
met him at the station wearing her wedding dress, for she had promised him
before he left, that she would marry him on the very day he returned. She carried with her a pair of cowboy boots
that he had bought just a week before he was drafted. Good boots were not cheap in those days, and he had paid $12.50
for this pair. When she saw him
standing there in his uniform, with his trouser leg pinned up to his belt, her
heart dropped for a moment. But she
realized this was the same quick-witted, hard working, and humorous man that
she had sent off to war nearly three years earlier.
“She
rushed to him and threw her arms around him while sobbing on his shoulder for
his sacrifice.”
“I’m
sorry, Mr. Kinkaid, I don’t want to seem impatient, but where are we going with
this?”
“Just
hold your horses, young man. We’re getting
there.”
Chastened,
Lyman Mynor sat back in his chair and continued to take notes.
“Elizabeth
and her young man left the station and headed downtown where they took separate
rooms at the Dabney House. That
afternoon the Justice of the Peace married them and as they were on the way to
the railroad station to begin their honeymoon, the new groom sent the bell hop
up to his room to fetch the cowboy boot he was not wearing, remarking to his
new bride, ‘I may need that boot to kick ass some day, just like we did across
the pond.’
“The
next few years were not easy for the young couple. The young man could not be expected to work on the family farm
with only one leg, but the family could afford to send him to college with a
small allowance. His wife could work
also, even though there were not many lucrative jobs for a woman in the
1920’s. She eventually succeeded as a
legal secretary, which was a great help to her husband who was studying law.
“The
years went by and our amputee earned his degree, specializing in patent
law. He went on to earn a second degree
in the new field of electricks.”
“Excuse
me, Mr. Kinkaid, you mean electronics, don’t you?”
“Not
in the twenties, dear boy. The entire
field of study was simply called electricks, covering everything from
the newest vacuum tubes to electric fans.
Electronics and solid state theory were still many years into the
future.”
“Our
young man was quite successful as a patent attorney, but he was more
imaginative in the field of electricks.
He was influential in the field of radio, which was a good thing for
America because World War II was not far off, and radio as well as sonar and
radar, would give this country a significant advantage and enable America to
win that war.
“The
founder and chief executive of Universal Electronics had been forced into
another walk of life by the events of the first world war, but he hadn’t let
those events defeat him, and his innovations really helped his company to ‘kick
ass’ during the second war.
“Then
there was the cold war, and the space race, and the debacle in Viet Nam,
followed by the Gulf War and the war on terrorism. Universal Electronics was by this time a world leader in digital
technology, and electronic devices manufactured by this company helped to put
men on the moon as well as defend the homes of Israeli civilians against the
attacks of Saddam Hussein’s SCUD missiles.
“Of
course, it wasn’t Universal Electronics at that time, the name didn’t change
until after the moon landings when the company founder took such great pride in
our achievements as a leading pioneer in the cybernetic revolution. It was in 1984, during an otherwise
insignificant earthquake in California that our founder and his wife died. Two years later, because of our wide
diversity in electronics, the board voted to change the name to Universal
Electronics, but we hung onto our cowboy boot logo, and we have been ‘kicking
ass’ in the world to this day.”
“Yes
sir,” Lyman said, “I’m glad you’ve filled me in with all this background, but
who was the founder of Universal Electronics?”
“Why,
he was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side, boy. Her name was Spivey, very handsome lass, from a New England
insurance family.
“His
name was Spivey?”
“No,
his bride’s family name was Spivey.
They had a daughter, Arabella, who married a young man named
Kinkaid. Our founder’s name was Mynor,
he was your great-great-grandfather.”
“Why
haven’t I heard all this before?” Lyman asked.
“I
guess you’ve just been too busy, Lyman.
But, while the history of your family may be interesting, it’s the
future of your family that is more important.
Just because a distant relative possessed greatness will not
automatically confer greatness upon you.
That would be like a lizard asserting his relationship to a
tyrannosaurus to make him self appear fear some.
“Some
time in these formative years of your life, you’re going to have to find your
own cowboy boot that will enable you to kick ass as you make your own
way in this world. When you accomplish
that, perhaps you may achieve greatness in your own right.”
Lyman
was content; he had the information he needed to write his interview for The
Warrior. Mr. Kinkaid would give his
address during the graduation ceremonies, but Lyman would write the story of a hayseed
from Iowa, who had married a local girl upon his return from The War to End All
War’s and who had gone on to achieve success and fortune while he kicked ass
with a boot he never wore.