by Jon Lewallen
Somehow I got coerced into conducting another interview. This time it�s with one of the judges at this month�s Rt. 237 Science Fair-Thee-Well, Richard Augustus Innoverica. Read on, I guess.
Young Person�s Perspective: Innoverica�s an interesting name. What�s its etymology?
Richard Innoverica: I�m glad you asked. It�s an old family name passed down from my father.
YPP: Who got it from his father, presumably.
RI: You�d think so, but not actually. My father was actually born Augustus Bramble III, an aphid farmer from southeastern Connecticut.
YPP: I didn�t realize aphids were so plentiful in the northeastern U.S.
RI: They�re not, actually, which was part of the problem. Still, when our great nation entered World War II, my father wanted to help in some way. However, our nation�s �repeat offender� laws prevented him from enlisting in the army, and he disdained militias of any sort. So instead, he decided to help the war effort by changing his name to Jamestown Plymouth Innoverica.
YPP: I�m not sure I follow.
RI: Well, my father had the idea that if he took on a patriotic name, others might follow his shining example, thus bolstering our boys overseas.
YPP: Did it work?
RI: Well, records from that era are incomplete at best, but the best data we have suggests that no, it didn�t.
YPP: I see. And why Innoverica?
RI: Well, he wanted his new name to embody the spirit of America and the glory of innovation, so for him, innovation plus American equals �Innoverica.�
YPP: How do you feel about all this? Have you ever considered changing your name back to Bramble?
RI: I�ve grown accustomed to it. It�s distinctive, you know? It gives me a story to tell on first dates other than the one about the time I went to the zoo and one of the sea lions had drowned.
YPP: Yes, I can see how that�s a plus. So after your father changed his name, he also changed professions. How did that come about?
RI: Well as I say, my father was a very patriotic man, and wanted to further help the war effort by reducing the American population�s overreliance on scrap metal.
YPP: A noble goal.
RI: Indeed. He puttered around a bit at first, enjoying various degrees of failure and non-success, but his big breakthrough came with the wooden toaster.
YPP: Yes, I want to ask you about that. A wooden toaster certainly achieves the goal of saving on bits of metal �
RI: Yes, and it also was meant to prevent electrocutions for those mornings you want to have a nice bath with your toast and marmalade.
YPP: - but it also doesn�t seem to be very safe, given the warming nature of toasters. Did they every catch fire?
RI: Oh yes, very much so. When I say the wooden toaster was my father�s big break, I mean it in the sense that it gave him notoriety as someone willing to work outside the normal conventions of what society considered �science� and what the corporations are willing to invest in, horrible scarring house fires be damned.
YPP: That seems like a somewhat inauspicious beginning to your family business. How did you decide to become an inventor yourself? I would think that with a track record like that, you would want to become an accountant or a deep sea diver or something.
RI: Well, I flirted with becoming a folk musician at one point, but I knew that my heart was always in inventing. Certainly it�s something my father passed down to me. I think even if he had remained an aphid farmer, he still would have passed along that natural curiosity and love of charred bread.
YPP: Well Richard Innoverica, thanks for taking the time to chat with me.
RI: It�s been a pleasure.
Richard Augustus Innoverica is a judge at the Rt. 237 Science Fair-Thee-Well, March 16 at the Rt. 237 Cafeteria, 6 p.m. � 7:30 p.m.
Fighting Spirit...p. 3
Neighborhood Watch...p. 3
Message from the President...FRONT
Pine Oaks Book Club...p. 2
Welcome Wagon...FRONT
This Month in Pine Oaks...FRONT
Young Person's Perspective...p. 4