Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

Recently I was going through some of the family history before submitting it to the Smithsonian for preservation. Many of you know that my uncle Armin Geddon Petain was an assistant to the Thomas Edison. In that capacity, he eventually invented the processes by which vinyl record albums were both made and the recordings imprinted on them. At the time, he created a separate company known as La Petain Inc., in homage to our French heritage. Well, it soon became popular to simply refer to such record albums as "LP's." It was only later that some uneducated disc jockey incorrectly started referring to them as "Long Playing." Anyway, although LP's are no longer produced, our family received $1.27 royalty for each and every LP sold over the past 97 years. Of course, the vast majority of that income was donated to charities.

In addition to holding the patent to the "LP" each party who got a license to my uncle’s patents had to agree to require any artist whose songs were put on the record a mandatory visit with our family. Over the years this has resulted in many interesting meetings. When Elvis came to our home, he was a very polite, but self-conscious young man. I remember trying to get him to loosen up a bit and soon he was imitating the way I moved my legs and hips while dancing. I used to get a smile out of him by saying "hey, you ol' hound dog, lighten up." I know you all remember the time the Beatles came to my house in Angels Camp; it was quite the media event. Having those four stay in our house was one hectic time. They too were very polite, but their hygiene left a lot to be desired. You have no idea what it’s like to sit down to dinner next to a sweaty Ringo after a spirited cricket match. John was very fidgety, always trying to take things apart to see how they worked. It was as if the British had never seen toasters or vacuum cleaners. Once disassembled, John would look in wonder over the internal mechanism and mumble "Imagine that." Paul was constantly humming which drove us all crazy even when he'd stumble upon a catchy tune. I wish I had a dollar for every time my wife Arminta politely told Paul "please, let it be." I never quite trusted George; he was a nice kid, but seemed to want to give Arminta a hug every time he'd enter or leave the room. Each time he'd sigh, "my sweet lord" even though I understand he was some sort of pagan.

Anyway, now that CD's and internet piracy are the norm in the music industry we no longer get the pleasure of such visits. Of course, it’s probably all for the best given the songs nowadays. The remaining Board members of La Petain Inc., eventually decided to shut down the company. Since this left our charities in a bind, I pledged the royalties from my gas chromatography mass spectrometry patent, but that is another story for another time. HOKE ROBERTSON