| In second grade Eric brought in a circuit board he scored at Red Johnson's surplus. It was open house day and he had a battery connected to the board. In the other hand he was holding a transistor radio which had a whistling tone coming from it. As he moved the radio, the pitch changed. It was like a Theremin. I was already stripping chassis by that age. But I just thought the stuff looked neat. He was getting it going. |
| Eric's house smelled like cedar. He always had hamsters, guniea pigs, etc. His family added a den which had a wet bar. Eric got that for a chem lab. He whipped out a steam engine one time and stoked it up. He had this bottle with little lava-lamp like droplets circulating in suspension, constantly rising (or falling). He had tiny resistive pressure transducers in bulk. He called them pixie-transducers. His sandbox was an action-packed test site. We were always tampering in pursuit of energetic effects. It was all just household stuff: a neon transformer, butane, matches, his chemistry set, flares, blackpowder, petroleum distilates, etc. |
| Eric wire-wrapped a 68000 microprocessor system together all by himself, back when they were new. But he ended up cursing the self-stripping system he'd used. That it worked at all is testimony to the fact he's nuts! |
| Our curiculum covered proper posture in the fourth grade. We stacked erasers on our heads and had to walk around awhile like that. We all slumped with a sigh of relief when it was over. Eric adopted the material wholeheartedly. He can walk just like a robot, it's a kick. Mr. Lines taught that workshop. |
| Eric Wilner |
| When we were quite young, we dabbled in spinning fairy-tales with one another. We were both quite scientific by nature. But we were able to shed the formalities and envision marvelous imaginary things and places together. I think we both may have felt a twinge of guilt for telling what were essentially lies, to each other. But we felt safe with each other. So we spread our wings and flew. It was an exciting time in my life. |
| In fourth grade I don't know what came over me. I got teased a lot. So why I'd ever tease anyone escapes me. But there I was teasing Eric. He held the line for as long as anyone could. But when he snapped, he was ferocious! He didn't hurt me. But he was clearly dominant. |