Oh, What a Tangled World-wide Web We Weave
January 11, 1998, article three

Grab your board and go internet surfin' with me.

Years ago when the Beach Boys were recurringly atop the pop charts, they were doubtless unaware that someday the "surfing" in their California surfing sound would be transformed as in "surfing the net" in the computerized world of the internet and the world wide web.

I don't know if WFOB General Manager Greg Peiffer has ever been on a surfboard in his life, but I know he's surfed the net because he once stopped by the Focus and dropped off a fistful of items he "downloaded" whilst no doubt careening in excess of the speed limit on the information superhighway.

Greg used "Fostoria" as a search term and snatched an absorbing assortment of documents assortment of documents out of cyberspace. He thought our readership might be interested in some of them.

The first item comes from the Charles Babbage Institute Center for the History of Information Processing. The center not long ago came into possession of the collected papers of a fellow named Robert M. Kalb.

Mr. Kalb was born in Fostoria in 1904. He studied electrical engineering at Ohio State and Columbia. He worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, Kellog Switchboard and Supply, Automatic Instrument Co. and Sperry Rand.

Mr. Kalb passed away in 1976. In his professional life, he was instrumental in the development of vacuum tubes, submarine cables, telephone relays, automatic airline reservation systems, air traffic control systems and digital computer equipment.

It seems Mr. Kalb was on the cutting edge of science and technology for about a third of the 20th century. And that's not the end of it. He also did work in physical metallurgy, guided missile range instrumentation and much more. A remarkable man.

He also was engrossed in the study of the theory of trigonometric integrals. This is a subject that takes up a lot of time around the Focus. Manage Siobhan Gatrell says, "Alright, you guys, everybody clean up the trigonometric integrals. Right now!"

Everyone else runs and hides except me because I'm good at catching the cagey little varmints without being shredded by their razor sharp fangs. I just say, "Okie-dokie." I tried once to enlist the help of fellow writer John Montgomery, but he just spends most of his time staring at maps trying to figure out how he got here from Iowa. Oh, well.

Chris Llewellyn is a Fostoria-born poet and author of "Steam Dummy," her lyrical childhood recollections of Porter's Dry Cleaning, her family's business on Perry Street. The Internet information about her took the form of a National Public Radio interview and poetry reading.

"Sss. . . I am steam dummy. My heart is a bellows. Brain, a boiler. I have clanging lever and pedal feet. Sightless, my apertures are legion. They whistle and weep. Hiss and can sing."

A steam dummy was the iron form on which Ms. Llewellyn's father pressed clothes and it was a bit of a frightening sight to a young girl.

Historical information on the Internet tells us that having been booted out of England due to questionable marriage practices, the Israelite House of David lit out for Australia, Canada and the U.S. A man named Ben Purnell attempted to establish the sect in Fostoria, claiming he was Jesus Christ's younger brother. Very much younger, indeed.

Purnell was essentially run out of town in 1903. Moving to Benton Harbor, Mich., he became a wealthy man, involved in real estate, manufacturing, an amusement park and the House of David baseball team.

You can look at photos on the Internet and Greg retrieved on of what looks like an old boxcar, but is actually a World War 11 troop sleeper. This particular troop sleeper is number B&O 911603 and passed through Fostoria on July 20, 1996 on its way to the B&O Museum.

According to the Internet, there's a home construction company in Palm Desert, Cal. that has a variety of designs and floor plans. One is called The Fostoria. It features a five foot wall with a wrought iron gate, covered rear patio, concrete tile roof and a four foot wide entry walkway, among other things. The Internet/website/homepage/whatever you call this stuff even comes with a picture.

Now I'd like to know how they picked the name, The Fostoria, for that particular design. In fact, I intend to devote myself to finding that out to the exclusion of all else, just as soon as I snare that last trigonometric integral that's hiding behind the copier.

Oh, and by the way. Thanks, Greg. One of these days I may just wax my computer keyboard, hang ten and do a little surfing myself. www.com.computers confuse Leonard dot dot dot dot