Coprolite Newsletter, February 2006

On February 14th, a lot of guys like me are likely to find ourselves in trouble. It won’t be that we didn’t intend to get some flowers or candy for our beloved; we’ll just put it off a little bit too long.

Well, there’s a perfectly good explanation that should help our sweethearts understand. You see, February 14th is not only the feast day of St. Valentine. It’s also the day when we procrastinators honor our own special patron saint, Elisha Gray.

Back during the years when I toiled in a corporate cubicle, I had Elisha Gray’s name written on a 3 x 5 card tacked above my desk. Strangely, nobody ever asked me who he was.

Although he lived a bit before my time, Elisha Gray was important to me. He was sort of my role model, unfortunately.

Elisha was born in 1835 in Barnesville, Ohio. He was a smart, hard-working guy. Forced to leave school early when his father died, he later put himself through prep school and two years at Oberlin College while supporting himself as a carpenter. At college, he got interested in electricity, and soon patented an improved telegraph relay. He went on to patent around 70 other inventions, and founded the company that became Western Electric. But that’s not why I kept his name in front of me every day.

Elisha Gray is an icon for two groups I belong to — procrastinators and people who habitually “missed it by that much,” as Maxwell Smart used to say.

On February 14, 1876, Elisha Gray went to the Patent Office to register his new invention, the telephone. The only trouble was that an hour or two earlier, a guy named Alexander Graham Bell had also filed for a patent on the telephone.

It turned out that Gray’s version was better. It would have worked just fine in the form he described in his filing. Bell’s telephone, as detailed in his patent application, wouldn’t have worked. It had to be revised later. Nevertheless, after years of court battles, Bell won out as the owner of the patent on the telephone. That’s why we never had a giant Gray Telephone Company which later was broken down into a bunch of “Baby Grays.”

You have to wonder how Elisha Gray spent the hour or two that made all the difference.

Maybe he enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, relishing the day that he thought would be his crowning achievement. Maybe he shopped for a new suit that would reflect his impending financial success. Since it was Valentine’s Day, he may have stopped to buy some gifts for his wife or sweetheart. Since it was America’s centennial year, he may have taken some time to plan how to work his new invention into the celebrations coming up in July. Or he may have devoted a couple of hours to making last-minute improvements on his invention — perhaps the very changes that resulted in it being superior to Bell’s (not that it mattered).

I kept Elisha’s name above my desk to remind me that I shouldn’t get sidetracked by all of the pressing little tasks that take my concentration away from the really important jobs. It never worked.

For example, a couple of decades ago I decided to read a lot more magazines in order to help my chances of winning the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. This was so time-consuming that I never quite got around to developing my great idea for a series of books about a boy attending wizard school. Too late now, I guess.

All of us procrastinators should take some time on February 14th to meditate on the lesson of Elisha Gray. When we put up those red ribbons and hearts to decorate for our Valentine’s party, we should also put up something gray to symbolize the other guy whose day we should commemorate. In fact, if I get around to it I’m going to put his name up above my desk again. Oh, and if there’s time after that I’ve got to remember to pick up some flowers and candy.

Happy Gray Day!

––Wayne Adams
wayne@coprolites.com
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