Introduction
This is a memorial page for my departed friend, Wendell. I met him in April 2021, at our adjacent mailboxes. I had recently moved to the neighborhood on March 1, and I had yet to meet a single one of my nextdoor neighbors. I asked Wendell if he knew how to meet people in the community, and he replied, "Hell, I'd like to know that myself!"
We became fast friends. Wendell was a 91-year old electrical engineer, and I was a 28 year old software engineer. Surprisingly, our curmudgeonly attitudes about where the industry and the country are going were almost identical!
We talked about the hardware and software industries, programming (FORTAN and BASIC), comedy, jazz, video games (Wendell loved flight sims), the sanctity of all life, the beauty in everything, and the strangeness of human behavior. We traded stories and recipes, shared meals and laughs. His generosity and kindness were unparalleled.
He made me a better person, and changed my life forever. I miss him dearly, and look forward to meeting him again.
Early Life
Wendell spent his childhood in rural Vermont, where he attended camp and learned to shoot a rifle. Many boys his age used their rifles to hunt birds, but Wendell was a gentler soul and didn't want to hurt living things.
He developed an interest in electronics, and learned to repair radio sets like his father. By his late teens, he had discovered his mission: "To become a damn good technician."
Career
Wendell got his first job "on paper" at a TV set repair shop in the 1950s, where he worked six days a week. Wendell got the job by fixing a TV set which the owner had been trying to get fixed for six months. He was so successful in this capacity that the owner insisted he should work seven days a week, which Wendell politely declined, deciding instead to go into business on his own.
As a TV and radio repairman, Wendell would become an expert in solid state electronics. Before long, he got his second job, as a Technical Manager over a group of technicians at another company.
After this, Wendell's knowledge and skills allowed him to get a job at Progeny Systems, an engineering company. He started as a technician, where he would often finish his work early and spend his afternoons visiting other labs and departments to learn from the engineers there.
It was at this time that Wendell discovered a team building coil winding models very inefficiently, and he built a reusable model which could be configured as needed for the task at hand. This ingenuity earned him a promotion to Junior Engineer.
From this point, it was onwards and upwards for two straight decades, as Wendell became more proficient at his craft. He would go on to sit on the IEEE Magnetics committee, presenting at many conferences and publishing numerous whitepapers on high voltage transformer design, wire core loss, and other topics.
Despite his proficiency and illustrious career, Wendell did not earn a college degree. He learned everything through practice, experimentation, and determination, like so many great engineers and programmers have done. Throughout his career, Wendell encountered people skeptical of his expertise, and proved it unfounded time after time.
Wendell developed a method of proving circuit designs using an analog computer (when those were around), which he demonstrated at the IEEE Magnetics conference. He also developed a shorthand state-variable method of describing circuits so that they could be more easily simulated without the use of calculus, in BASIC.
Throughout Wendell's long career, he did independent consulting work, designing and building bespoke electronic dynamical systems for jewelers, musicians, and others.
Eventually, electrical engineering in the United States would enter a decline, as it began to spin up in other regions like Southeast Asia. Wendell would continue to provide expertise to American firms as a consultant even into his eighties, helping top-level companies keep an edge as government contracts dried up or were outsourced to China. It was during this consulting period that Wendell and Ginny left Southern California for the East coast, settling in Bristow, Virginia.
Personal Life
Wendell met his future wife, Ginny, through her aunt, his coworker. She set them up on a date because she thought they might be compatible. Ginny was significantly younger than Wendell, but she took a chance on him.
Wendell and Ginny would fall deeply in love, and remain so for the next 56 years they spent together. During this time, they even moved into apartments on the same block, and would visit each other daily. Ginny enjoyed leaving Wendell surprises at home, and playing practical jokes on him.
When Wendell got an engineering job in California, he asked Ginny to go with him, and she did. After five years of dating, Ginny left an ultimatum under Wendell's pillow while he was at work: If he still wanted to be with her after such a long time, they should really get married; she didn't want to wait forever!
Wendell found the note late that night when he came home from work, and immediately rushed across the street to Ginny's apartment. He knocked on the door, note in hand, and said "Do you want to get married? We can do it tomorrow!"
Wendell and Ginny were inseparable friends and partners, and would spend their time together sailing, clubbing, and leaving little notes and cards to one another professing love and adoration all over the place.
Over the decades, Wendell and Ginny usually kept at least one dog to dote on and spoil, and would write each other Mother's Day and Father's Day cards from the pets.
Even today, Wendell's bathroom has sticky notes all over one corner of the mirror from Ginny, professing her and Sparky's unending love and appreciation for him. After Ginny passed, Wendell turned her bedroom into a memorial, tacking up some of the many hundreds of cards and letters they had shared over the years.
In the 1970s, Wendell and Ginny had a single son, Guy, who would himself become a talented musician, artist, and potter, in addition to his career as a landscaper.
Jazz
Wendell learned to play seven instruments by the age of thirteen, and was a prodigious jazz player.
During his 25 years spent living in Southern California, Wendell sat with many bands at many jazz clubs, playing the trombone and trumpet alongside such great musicians as Miles Davis! Sadly, I have been unable to find any recordings of these jam sessions.
Today, the only direct evidence that remains of these fantastic exploits is a well-worn trombone mouthpiece on a bookshelf.
Sailing
Wendell and Ginny loved to go sailing and spent many days off the coast of Southern California. On one occasion, they met John Wayne on his yacht, and would have returned to his home for drinks, had his tired wife not jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
On one occasion, Wendell and Ginny saved a drowning man, for which they recieved a small plaque from the local Police department.
Flying
Wendell always wanted to get his pilot's license, and finally did at fifty-nine years of age!
Wendell also enjoyed flight simulators, logging hundreds of hours and writing numerous from-scratch BASIC programs to add additional terminals and other data into the sims he played.
After living for several years in Bristow Virginia, Wendell and Ginny decided to downsize, moving to the small Appalachian town of Wise. It is there that they rescued their dog, Sparky, from the side of a busy road. The three lived happily in Wise for two and a half years.
Obituary
Wendell passed away on the evening of August 22, 2021, surrounded by friends.
He was preceded by his wife of 56 years, Virginia "Ginny" Rose Boucher, who passed away in April of 2021. They were inseperable to the end, the best of friends and the happiest of couples. Wendell is survived by his only son, Ghee Bouché (né Guy Boucher), and one good boy, Sparky.
Thank you to all of Wendell's great friends and fans, to his wonderful niece Lisa, to Rachel and Grace, to my mother, and to the wonderful hospice nurses and other professionals who helped ease his way in his final week on Earth.
To Wendell's YouTube Fan Community
Thank you all for your love and appreciation of Wendell's teaching work. Throughout his long and illustrious career, Wendell produced many hundreds of programs, presentations, and whitepapers. I don't know which among them are protected by non-disclosure agreements, or which of them would be useful in the education of others, so I am uncomfortable posting his presentations and papers here at present.
However, I will attempt to reach out to some of Wendell's prior employers, such as Progeny Systems and the United States Navy, and ask if any of his work may be published as educational and reference materials here, if that would be valuable to you all.
