Once upon a time, in late 1974, to be exact, there was a 22 year old computer programmer who was a CBC radio announcer in his spare time. He was in Yellowknife, in Canada's North, because a quadrupling of stumpage fees in British Columbia sent him far afield to find his first job after graduation from UBC.
Winter came early that far north, with snow everywhere by early September. The outdoor activities that the young man loved in the summer disappeared with the sunlit evenings. If he didn't get out of his windowless government office, that had once been a grocery store, during the lunch hour, he would only see the sun on the weekends.
Having finally found a job in Edmonton, and given his industry-standard one month's notice, he began focusing on his Christmas vacation, when he planned to spend some time in Vancouver. Two of his friends there really, in his mind, deserved special gifts. One had been his best friend in Grade 12 and University, and was putting him up during his stay, and the other had got him his first announcing job in radio. Both were doing OK financially, so a purchased gift did not seem enough. Besides, it could be hard to find a special gift in Yellowknife. There was always Inuit art -- carved stone -- but this situation cried out for a gift made at his own hand.
Now, the young fellow had never been very good at such things. Shop classes in junior high school saw him barely able to complete his assignments, typically with mistakes that always haunted him as he looked at them years later. His own construction projects, including many in the area of electronics, never seemed to work out. They left him feeling as uncoordinated as he felt in Gym class.
But, his friend Brian Hoyt had given him some confidence. Brian was always applying high school and first year university Physics to everyday problems and his many home projects.
So, he set out to create unique gifts for each friend: lamps made entirely of parts from computers and radio stations, respectively. Except, of course, for the lamp socket, light bulb and lamp cord, which he bought from the local hardware store. And the frame for the lamp shades, which he made out of coat hangers, sold three for a quarter at Hudson Bay Company.
He had hoped to get a disk pack for the base of the computer lamp, but no one was willing to part with one. Besides, it would have been too heavy. Instead, he used a 10.5 inch reel of computer tape. Punch cards were taped together to form the lamp shade. The holes punched in them created a pleasing effect as the light shone through them.
The radio lamp used old 45 rpm records (singles) stacked together for the base. The lamp shade was actually 11 x 15 inch computer paper, but stickers covered it over completely. The stickers were of various bright colours and had been used in a failed attempt to categorize records in the CBC Radio record library.
I wish I could tell you more detail about their construction, but nearly 30 years has faded memory of the actual components used. Very low wattage bulbs were used to ensure that heat buildup did not occur and pose any fire hazard with the lamp shades. After all, a gift is supposed to be an act of kindness and, in my case, appreciation, not something that burns up the receipant's apartment.
But, what I really got out of it was confidence. I don't pretend to even be able to build a bookshelf, but, within the next two years, I installed a 220 volt electrical outlet for a stove in an old house and replaced the fuel pump in a 1970 Chevelle Malibu. Since then, I've even replaced a motherboard on a computer and made it work even when the motherboard was 1/32" larger than would fit.
So, I don't really mind if the two lamps have long since "gone the way of all things", despite the amount of time I spent creating them. The confidence I gained was worth ten times the effort.
written March 24, 2000
The beginnings of a more complete autobiography can be found by clicking here.
Jon Pearkins