Post by gskonstracker on Aug 26, 2022 4:03:23 GMT
GOLETA CONNECTION
"In the Spring of 1957, with a little politicking, Chuck got Curtiss-Wright to transfer him to a better job, sort of an office expediter-errand boy, with his own desk, at one of its companies, the Aerophysics Development Company in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara."
www.paulmorantz.com/the_synanon_story/the-birth-of-charles-dederich-and-synanon-foundation-inc/
But changing direction was his nature. It would always be that way. When he found employment 21 blocks from the AA house on 26th Street and Broadway in Santa Monica, which made half-hour lunching at AA feasible he took it. It also made easy early evening arrival at AA after work ended at 4 p.m. He could sit at AA for awhile then go home, heat up a can of chili, take a bath and return to AA. For the second time he took a job with his hands, this time as a pattern-maker, and for the second time with an aero-physics company, Curtiss-Wright.
*……………………………………………………*……………………………………….*
It was Chuck’s third exposure to a corporate conglomerate. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was founded in 1929 by the merger of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, begun in 1909, and the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company, started in 1911. The former evolved from inventor brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright first successful powered flight — Kitty Hawk– in North Carolina on Dec. 17, 1903, which gave birth to the aviation industry. Glenn Hammond Curtiss, like the Wright brothers, was self taught and of little formal education. A motorcycle racer who built his own engines, his work caught the eye of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell at the New York City Auto Show in 1906. Dr. Bell, then 60 years of age, had switched interest from telephones to airplanes. Curtiss joined Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association in October of 1907 winning instant fame flying in aviation competition. When he started his own company, he and the Wright brothers became bitter rivals facing each other in court battles where the Wright brothers claimed Curtiss stole their patents. They resolved the case by merging.
The Mellons, Douglas, Wright Brothers, and Curtiss were all individuals who had made their dreams come true. They were heroes Chuck envied. The Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of their time. Working at their companies had taught Chuck a lot, particularly how to advance through use of internal politics. Chuck would even later claim if he hadn’t worked at Gulf Oil he would never have succeeded in the building of his empire. And when he did many of those corporate families he had envied would both revere and support him.
As expected from anyone who had difficulty opening his trailer, Dederich had not been the greatest model or tool maker, although two decades later he would decree all must whittle–hobby lobby–with their hands as he and done and was doing. In the Spring of 1957, with a little politicking, Chuck got Curtiss-Wright to transfer him to a better job, sort of an office expediter-errand boy, with his own desk, at one of its companies, the Aerophysics Development Company in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. Curtiss-Wright was building a big plant there and was currently operating out of anything it could get a hold of, old houses, warehouses, store fronts, a style Chuck would learn from. He drove out there in a 12-year old Oldsmobile he had picked up for $60.00. He was relieved when he found the local AA and spent his spare time on AA activities, attending meetings, dining with fellow alcoholics and dropping in at the house during company errand runs between business locations.
Then as summer approached, panic set in.
*………………………………………….*…………………………………………………….*
Chuck was sweating and he didn’t understand why. He was terrified and he didn’t know of what. He had been that way since he woke up. He couldn’t leave his motel room, suddenly phobic of the streets, a feeling of impending trepidation. He stayed curled up in bed like a frightened child, playing hooky from work without choice. He felt claustrophobic as he sometimes had experienced as a child. When he finally dressed and went out it was to go directly to what he felt was the safe house, the nearby Santa Barbara AA parlor. He sat on its steps until it opened at 9 a.m. For the entire week he didn’t report to work, going instead to the center and staying until it closed at eleven p.m. To eat, he asked other AA members to go out and get bread and baloney for sandwiches and canned foods that he heated up on the center stove.
Chuck slept at night at a nearby motel. He was extremely anxious, filled with dread. He was afraid to unpack his suitcases or boxes, placing whatever he used back inside instead of putting clothing or items in dressers, closets or the bathroom. Except to go to the AA Center he would not leave his room. Early childhoods fears of confinement resurfaced. One night, sleepless, seeking refuge from the week-long apprehension, searching for just anything to do, he went through his belongings to take account of what he had. Or as he thought, how little he had. What he found amongst his clutter was something that had long been there but also long forgotten. It would change the course of his life and become a building block; something to him as significant as Jung and James had been to Bill Wilson. Ironically, it had belonged to Archie Gardner, a gift his step-father had received when he graduated MIT in 1902.
What he relocated was a beautifully calf-bound copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, illuminated in large ornate print, on Self-Reliance. Emerson, born May 25 1803 in Boston and attended Harvard Divinity School, kept a journal most of his life and published Self-Reliance in 1841. The essay message was avoid conformity. Each of us has a piece of God inside and we should therefore rely on our own thinking and instincts. Be true to your own inborn religion; “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” The essay would lead to a phrase that would rule pop culture over a century later: “Do your own thing.”
Chuck had read the essay twice before. Once as a kid in school and the other when he joined AA. He had always been impressed with it but thought more than anything it was just Emerson showing off his genius with words, hardly anything practical. After a few days, when he had nothing to do, he took it out and read it. Now it appeared different…a real truth… “profundities that drip out of every page,” he would say, its prose-poetry thundering like a personal letter from Emerson to himself, to one Charles Edwin Dederich, III. A manual on repairing human beings as a mechanic might have for a car.
After Dederich read the passages he read them again. He read them sometimes as often as ten times a day. Suddenly, for reasons as unknown to Chuck as its arrival, the dread and panic disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. He took the pamphlet with him when he finally returned to his office and stuck it in his desk. When he left he carried it with him. His first clean birthday– Alcoholics Anonymous annually celebrates the day each member stopped drinking– came but he didn’t tell anyone, remaining silent as if he had a big secret. And once more he decided he no longer needed a job to survive. The enjoyment of work had vanished the day he was no longer a salesman or merchandiser. That type of work had been, he thought, the Dederich family tradition. He gave Curtiss-Wright two weeks notice. His employers had no hard feelings and wished him well.
Excited over what laid ahead, Chuck upgraded to a newer Oldsmobile, this one only four years old. He put $1,000.00 down on it and in June of l957 headed back to Santa Monica and his AA comrades. He had with him the handbook on life. He would teach Emerson to drunks.
After buying the car he had $200.00 left. He used $110.00 of it to rent an apartment in Santa Monica north of Wiltshire, the more elite portion of Santa Monica.
www.cityofgoleta.org/home/showpublisheddocument/15627/636455849873700000
"In the Spring of 1957, with a little politicking, Chuck got Curtiss-Wright to transfer him to a better job, sort of an office expediter-errand boy, with his own desk, at one of its companies, the Aerophysics Development Company in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara."
www.paulmorantz.com/the_synanon_story/the-birth-of-charles-dederich-and-synanon-foundation-inc/
But changing direction was his nature. It would always be that way. When he found employment 21 blocks from the AA house on 26th Street and Broadway in Santa Monica, which made half-hour lunching at AA feasible he took it. It also made easy early evening arrival at AA after work ended at 4 p.m. He could sit at AA for awhile then go home, heat up a can of chili, take a bath and return to AA. For the second time he took a job with his hands, this time as a pattern-maker, and for the second time with an aero-physics company, Curtiss-Wright.
*……………………………………………………*……………………………………….*
It was Chuck’s third exposure to a corporate conglomerate. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was founded in 1929 by the merger of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, begun in 1909, and the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company, started in 1911. The former evolved from inventor brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright first successful powered flight — Kitty Hawk– in North Carolina on Dec. 17, 1903, which gave birth to the aviation industry. Glenn Hammond Curtiss, like the Wright brothers, was self taught and of little formal education. A motorcycle racer who built his own engines, his work caught the eye of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell at the New York City Auto Show in 1906. Dr. Bell, then 60 years of age, had switched interest from telephones to airplanes. Curtiss joined Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association in October of 1907 winning instant fame flying in aviation competition. When he started his own company, he and the Wright brothers became bitter rivals facing each other in court battles where the Wright brothers claimed Curtiss stole their patents. They resolved the case by merging.
The Mellons, Douglas, Wright Brothers, and Curtiss were all individuals who had made their dreams come true. They were heroes Chuck envied. The Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of their time. Working at their companies had taught Chuck a lot, particularly how to advance through use of internal politics. Chuck would even later claim if he hadn’t worked at Gulf Oil he would never have succeeded in the building of his empire. And when he did many of those corporate families he had envied would both revere and support him.
As expected from anyone who had difficulty opening his trailer, Dederich had not been the greatest model or tool maker, although two decades later he would decree all must whittle–hobby lobby–with their hands as he and done and was doing. In the Spring of 1957, with a little politicking, Chuck got Curtiss-Wright to transfer him to a better job, sort of an office expediter-errand boy, with his own desk, at one of its companies, the Aerophysics Development Company in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. Curtiss-Wright was building a big plant there and was currently operating out of anything it could get a hold of, old houses, warehouses, store fronts, a style Chuck would learn from. He drove out there in a 12-year old Oldsmobile he had picked up for $60.00. He was relieved when he found the local AA and spent his spare time on AA activities, attending meetings, dining with fellow alcoholics and dropping in at the house during company errand runs between business locations.
Then as summer approached, panic set in.
*………………………………………….*…………………………………………………….*
Chuck was sweating and he didn’t understand why. He was terrified and he didn’t know of what. He had been that way since he woke up. He couldn’t leave his motel room, suddenly phobic of the streets, a feeling of impending trepidation. He stayed curled up in bed like a frightened child, playing hooky from work without choice. He felt claustrophobic as he sometimes had experienced as a child. When he finally dressed and went out it was to go directly to what he felt was the safe house, the nearby Santa Barbara AA parlor. He sat on its steps until it opened at 9 a.m. For the entire week he didn’t report to work, going instead to the center and staying until it closed at eleven p.m. To eat, he asked other AA members to go out and get bread and baloney for sandwiches and canned foods that he heated up on the center stove.
Chuck slept at night at a nearby motel. He was extremely anxious, filled with dread. He was afraid to unpack his suitcases or boxes, placing whatever he used back inside instead of putting clothing or items in dressers, closets or the bathroom. Except to go to the AA Center he would not leave his room. Early childhoods fears of confinement resurfaced. One night, sleepless, seeking refuge from the week-long apprehension, searching for just anything to do, he went through his belongings to take account of what he had. Or as he thought, how little he had. What he found amongst his clutter was something that had long been there but also long forgotten. It would change the course of his life and become a building block; something to him as significant as Jung and James had been to Bill Wilson. Ironically, it had belonged to Archie Gardner, a gift his step-father had received when he graduated MIT in 1902.
What he relocated was a beautifully calf-bound copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, illuminated in large ornate print, on Self-Reliance. Emerson, born May 25 1803 in Boston and attended Harvard Divinity School, kept a journal most of his life and published Self-Reliance in 1841. The essay message was avoid conformity. Each of us has a piece of God inside and we should therefore rely on our own thinking and instincts. Be true to your own inborn religion; “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” The essay would lead to a phrase that would rule pop culture over a century later: “Do your own thing.”
Chuck had read the essay twice before. Once as a kid in school and the other when he joined AA. He had always been impressed with it but thought more than anything it was just Emerson showing off his genius with words, hardly anything practical. After a few days, when he had nothing to do, he took it out and read it. Now it appeared different…a real truth… “profundities that drip out of every page,” he would say, its prose-poetry thundering like a personal letter from Emerson to himself, to one Charles Edwin Dederich, III. A manual on repairing human beings as a mechanic might have for a car.
After Dederich read the passages he read them again. He read them sometimes as often as ten times a day. Suddenly, for reasons as unknown to Chuck as its arrival, the dread and panic disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. He took the pamphlet with him when he finally returned to his office and stuck it in his desk. When he left he carried it with him. His first clean birthday– Alcoholics Anonymous annually celebrates the day each member stopped drinking– came but he didn’t tell anyone, remaining silent as if he had a big secret. And once more he decided he no longer needed a job to survive. The enjoyment of work had vanished the day he was no longer a salesman or merchandiser. That type of work had been, he thought, the Dederich family tradition. He gave Curtiss-Wright two weeks notice. His employers had no hard feelings and wished him well.
Excited over what laid ahead, Chuck upgraded to a newer Oldsmobile, this one only four years old. He put $1,000.00 down on it and in June of l957 headed back to Santa Monica and his AA comrades. He had with him the handbook on life. He would teach Emerson to drunks.
After buying the car he had $200.00 left. He used $110.00 of it to rent an apartment in Santa Monica north of Wiltshire, the more elite portion of Santa Monica.
www.cityofgoleta.org/home/showpublisheddocument/15627/636455849873700000
