Jim Dow

I was watching a program on PBS last night. There was a man being interviewed who reminded me of Jim. This morning I was thinking about Jim but I could not remember his last name so I kept saying Jim, Jim, Jim and then the last name came to me.

Jim Dow was the president of the Litton division in Springfield when I started working there many years ago. I started doing failure analysis work and that led to being in his office at times to report on my findings and when something really went bad he would be at my work station asking me what I had found before I had found anything at all.

I always had great respect for Jim and still do today. Back in the early nineties Jim was and still is a very common American name and Dow was the name of a leading chemical company. Now more than 20 years later the Chinese have had a profound effect in America.  This morning as I repeated his first name Jim and finally came up with the last name Dow it sounded like two Chinese words, (gym dao.)

I pondered for another moment and considered what those two words might mean if indeed they were used in the Chinese language. Here is what I thought, great leader? Maybe, number 27 on menu? Perhaps, a Chinese beer or a health club? Or it could be a reference from Tao Te Ching (pronounced Dao De Jing) a Chinese book of wisdom from centuries ago.

Jim, if you see this post (and I think surely you will) I mean no disrespect; it is just me tripping along fueled by 5 cups of coffee this morning.