pending

Update from Xmas at the Freese Family Farm: My father has started pestering me to take the patent (#5, 273, 277) for his "ball-hitting device" (a.k.a. The Groove-a-Swing) and to try either to "sell the patent or find somebody who'll make 'em for me." He even brought the patent upstairs from wherever he kept it amidst all the junk in the basement. He got the patent ten years ago, and ever since he got it he's been saying "If I was ten years younger, I'd make them and go around and sell them myself." His basic business plan is thus to find someone who is eager to invest whatever would need to be invested to start making Groove-a-Swings, is eager to do all the work of finding baseball and softball coaches/parents out there who are willing to pay for Groove-a-Swings, and is willing to give my dad half of all profits because, after all, It Was His Idea. Either that, or he is willing to sell His Idea for many tens of thousands of dollars. He has had no takers for either option, and now, as he approaches seventy years old, he apparently wishes for me to take up this cause as my own.

As a surly coda, note, incidentally, that it really is not very surprising that I would be the sort to have an abiding intellectual interest in questions about genetics and the extent to which people can escape their pasts.