Thread by @DavidLNorris

I suspect some may wonder why I simultaneously comment on a wide array of things and also state I don't generally comment on things I know that I don't understand well. These two can both be true. Many people's experiences seem to be narrow in scope and that's truly fine.

I've been reflecting on #MothersDay this weekend. My mother and father both had significant traumas which left them unable to allocate adequate resources to me. My mother kinda checked out. My father drank. The lack of attention nearly killed me at 2. Grandma's family took me in.

I had the fortune of being taught to be curious by a grandma from age 2 until I graduated HighSchool. My father mostly stayed away but was a brilliant dad in spurts. He made sure I had college level reading comprehension by kindergarten. I taught myself calculus and cryptography.

Grandma had sacrificed much of her pension when she retired early from the Jewelry business. Her brother had quietly been funding this from his monthly pension checks. He passed away when I was 7 and left her a substantial sum of money which she placed into high yield accounts.

That money matured at regular intervals and she used it to fund the next wave of learning. My bedroom was transformed into a floor to ceiling library along 2 walls. 3rd wall was covered in butcher paper to keep notes, draw art, and do the work required to understand the books.

My father didn't understand electronics but he wanted to learn. He felt he could never learn it well enough to do the things he wanted. He bought me a digital electronic learning lab from Radio Shack when I was 7. He figured if I was interested I would quickly master it. I did.

My father asked me what I wanted for my 10th birthday and I told him I wanted a Commodore 64. He said, "I can't afford that but I will buy it if you promise to learn to use it." I did. And he dug into his food budget that month so I could have a Commodore 64.

Mom didn't believe I was smart enough to use a computer and bought me an Atari 2600 the year before. It was fine and I enjoyed it but it wasn't what I needed. When I was 11 my mother saw I could use it and got all the C64 gizmos. The school put me in charge of the 🍎computer lab.

Money is only the excuse not the problem. When I was 11 I began collecting, fixing discarded electronics. I had the coolest toys. When I was 13-14 I started repairing two way radios for trucking companies to make cash. They also gave me the radios I couldn't get parts to repair.

I learned a dozen languages. In Middle School I learned print press operation, carpentry, casting and molding of plastics, machining, welding, etc. All poorly but that's OK. The confidence is the key not the mastery. You can master anything if you are confident in the basics.

Srsly, money is an excuse. Bartering and working for cash allowed me to get anything I needed. When I was 16 I started HighSchool and took a vocational path. I learned drafting, electricity, photography, silkscreening, etc the first year and the last 3 years analog electronics.

My mother was friends with some of the most famous IndyCar/CART mechanics and drivers. One summer I agreed to help Jim McElreath build a museum to Clint Brawner around his old home in Speedway. Larry fed us his chili. All the OldTimers knew me and taught me everything they knew.

One summer I was given access to the Indy Motor Speedway museum archives and allowed to take photos of everything and ride in historic cars with the curator. Recount tales of the times when the cars were in use. In the early 90s I gophered when they restored the 1965 Brawner-Hawk

I was there when the OldTimers met to mourn the end of CART Indy car racing in 1995. I sat on the couch with one of Champion's heirs. This fantastical little Frenchman hunched over a cane some 97 years old with his man servant of 80-some years to drive the now ancient Bentley.

A few weeks out of highschool I got a job part time repairing equipment for a Hitachi service center. Anything from a toaster to a 1000ton crane. Tire factories. Home theaters. Everything. But I saw the repair industry dying and learned computer programming.

Through highschool I had gotten an Amateur Extra license which was very hard to obtain. I got a grant for college. I majored in microwave communications and minored in digital electronics. I learned embedded programming and hardware design. I learned how radio worked.

I was on AMPRNet (2400baud wireless internet) in 1993. Though my usual haunts were dialup BBSes, you know the ones, and the old Soviet RadioSputnik satellites which included various brilliantly clever technology strapped to military spy sats.

I started my own consulting business. I gained a reputation for doing the impossible. I began to specialize in the insurance fraud industry working directly with detectives, lawyers and judges on forensics computer analysis. By 21 I was making $100/hr working a few hours/month.

I spent 100% of the time I didn't have to waste getting a throw-away job at Village Pantry; where my mother insisted I should get a job because I wasn't working enough hours. (This was her trauma talking.) If you want to make sandwiches DO SO, & DO IT WELL; don't force your kids.

I got the name Augur working for detectives. They called me in one day to listen to an interview tape. Halfway through the suspect turns white as a sheet and stops them to say "There is no way you could have known that." I got very good at predicting behaviors to find evidence.

After I was getting more ill I needed to settle down and got a job with one of the largest franchises in the world architecting their data centers to run the insurance claims system I programmed. I left as a director and went back to consulting as my health declined further.

This doesn't scratch the surface of what I have done, really. These are highlights to make a final point.
I don't say this to impress anyone. I have no need. I don't say this for the general public. I say this for the kids I've taught over this lifespan as they now become parents

Never tell your child "you can't" unless it is immediately life threatening. Make sure they can tell you anything in case they need an intervention. Foster curiosity with a full toolbox: Teach 7 liberal arts/sciences starting at age 2. Treat them as equals not subordinates.

You aren't a bad parent even if you do bad things. Some of my superpowers come from my parent's failure to protect me from unimaginable harm. That harm allowed me to recognize and protect others from similar harm. It's wrong to assume all harm can be wiped out by you, the parent.

@ThreadReaderApp would you kindly unroll this for posterity?

My father left mainly memories. He documented everything we did on Polaroid and cassette. This is a clip from the only audio he left me. I had a bad head injury the year before and it was near where your brain constructs speech. He and Grandma made sure to exercise those areas.

One of my mentors, Russ Dowden in the white shirt on the left and of course the Old Man in his Hat to the right.
deansgarage.com/2011/mario-and…

Clint heard my father was racing without wearing a fire suit. That was pretty normal in the 60s. He walks over to his rack and grabs last year's fire suit and hands it to my father and says, "I don't want to hear about you burning to death. Take this."

The gathering was of a few dozen USAC OldTimers Club members at Brawner's old home on 25th St, now a IMS parking lot, in 1995 the night before the race. The decision had been passed on from Tony to the CART folks that the last race would be in 1996. They vowed never to return.