[TUHS] Fred Grampp

[M Douglas McIlroy]

A few days later, GR's receipt for paint arrived on my desk for approval.
That was certainly above my pay grade, so upon weighing personalities,
I decided to pass it two levels up the chain of command to Vic Vyssotsky,
who famously returned it with a formal note that he was not authorized to
approve plant improvements. The fact that Ken was in my department
and GR wasn't (nor was Fred) stoked certain suspicions about the makeup
of the water-tower team.

Doug


On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 3:30 PM Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't believe the water tower was a one-person job.
>
> Fortunately I have a perfect alibi, being on the other side of the country
> that day.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 6:51 AM Ken Thompson <kenbob at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> fred dumpster dove on the way to the labs.
>> his prize, beside the cheese awfuls, was
>> the bowling pins for the 6th floor bowling
>> alley.
>>
>> fred was after a german ww2 enigma. he
>> left requests at two european shops that
>> were known to occasionally have one.
>> when one came to light, fred and i split
>> the price. after years of dwindling hope
>> for another one showing up, fred an i
>> flipped a coin to see who owned it. fred
>> won. before his death he gave  it to me.
>>
>> and lastly, and secret until now, fred
>> painted the peter face on the water tower.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 8:14 AM M Douglas McIlroy <
>> m.douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Ah, yes. Fred would pick things up at the Keebler Baking factory outlet
>>> on his way to work.
>>> We called it the "used cookie store".
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 10:31 AM Andrew Hume <andrew at humeweb.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> fred was certainly a character.
>>>>
>>>> perhaps ken or rob might confirm this, but i recall at least one of the
>>>> canoe trips demonstrated
>>>> the effects of dropping flour sacks onto canoes from a small airplane.
>>>> (i was not present on any
>>>> of these trips, but heard this from grampp.)
>>>>
>>>> he was also responsible for occasionally buying bulk bags of barely
>>>> digestible cheese crackers
>>>> (we called them cheese awfuls) and leaving them in the Unix Room to be
>>>> eaten.
>>>>
>>>> > On Mar 11, 2021, at 7:06 AM, M Douglas McIlroy <
>>>> m.douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > In all that's been written about the Research Unix players,
>>>> > Fred Grampp has gotten far less coverage than he deserves.
>>>> > I hope to rectify that with this post, most of which was
>>>> > written soon after his death.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
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