Let’s talk about QUAD EIGHT

call –
you used to work for QE?
yes, many years ago
I am working on a feature and was told that you may have pictures
and some stories you are willing to share"
I might
could we get together?
we could.

We did, and talked, shared stories, opinions (plenty of them around),
and some facts (more difficult to come by).

How did you get started in this industry?

In 1964 at the end of my year sabbatical in the
United States I endend my cross-country journey in Los Angeles.
True to form I had spent all of my allowance and needed to earn my flight home.
Grandfather had been an acquaintance of Walter Bach, of Bach-Auricon,
I met with the elegant Mr. Bach, who graciously offered me a job.
At Bach-Auricon I met people from Westrex.
Early 1969 back to LA and Westrex.
To Technical Products next door,
on to Quad Eight trough Bob Mobley and

a decade on the wilder shores of the imagination!

Here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crib/sets/72157605228742822/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_Photophone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Electric
http://www.silvertonemastering.com/electro/Electrodyne_page1.html
http://www.quadeightelectronics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=1

for architectural buffs here is a link to some Los Angeles sites,
Bach-Auricon included. We do practice the art of forgetting rather well in LA.
http://www.you-are-here.com/modern/auricon.html
http://www.you-are-here.com/modern/index.html


I had opened another door to the past.
This summer of 2008 has been full of unexpected surprises,
and some magic moments.

I have been up to...

...my eyebrows in simple thrills

up to my eyes in a bin of question marks

up to my ears in romance

up to my nose in love

up to my derrière in old dreams

up to my ankles in sagebrush

I’m up to the top of the canyon

and down again


not having learned a thing

...if you are wondering what I have been up to

drifting with the moon

I will take my itchy feet caravan
And go to the desert this week end
I’ll drift with the moon across the quiet landscape
Eyes open wide

At early daylight
I hike through the canyon
And watch the wings of the eagle
Paint shadows
Then I will remember
All there is of you
And the dream as well
I carry everywhere
Folded like a photograph
Soft and frayed and
Blossoming with fingerprints

brave new world

This summer I received an innocent request to organize a reunion.
Not an unusual thing to be asked at my age.

But this was not the usual reunion either.

But a reunion of a group of people who in 1980/81 came to live
together during many month of experimental treatment for
Multiple Sclerosis.
The group’s numbers have predictably dwindled.

So, here was the specter of REUNION-

I myself have not ever attended a reunion, although I am a member of the ‘class of ‘64’.
Or thought myself as ‘getting on a bit’ (nicely put in typical English understatement).
People whom I neither know well, nor care for are urging me to face up (to what?) and act my age (is this scripted someplace?). In spite of all this unwanted advice I have still managed to avoid conventional living and thinking.
But the request has started an avalanche of memories, both happy and sad.
It brought to my attention, that I am cantering (nice mental image), not creeping, into old age.
So, I set out to ‘Linkedin’, linkup, reunion.com (ouch, bad lot)((no reflection on the person that tried to contact me, please)), etc., etc., etc.
Many pleasant and some sad surprises have come to light in the past two-month.
But the positive upshot of all this folderol has been the request from my friends, and my desire, to share information, ideas, and experiences.
What better way to keep connected to a group that is scattered all over the globe.
So, here it is, you ask for it.
Doris