---
title: Mad Tony
abstract: NASA scientist, polka artist.
categories:
- personal
content-tags:
- geek
- family
- death
- memory
external: https://tinyletter.com/gerwitz/letters/mad-tony
---

My godfather [died on Saturday](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/stltoday/obituary.aspx?pid=174669662).

My family called him Mad Tony, in the "mad scientist" sense—picture Steve Wozniak. Very much like [Paul Ford's Tom](https://medium.com/message/networks-without-networks-7644933a3100), Mad was a pivotal character in my life. He and my aunt had 7 children, so their house was a natural place for my parents to occasionally kennel me.

Mad was an electrical engineer for a defense contractor. One of my favorite family stories involved him and coworkers repurposing a radar antenna to disable the speed detector used by a police officer[^cop] to target their morning commute. He was also a source of of the many amazing magnets so important to a young wannabe scientist, and responsible for my family's early adoption of technology such as VCRs and camcorders.

[^cop]: Said officer was from one of the little municipalities of North St. Louis County now infamous for their fines-based business models.

After I [attended a summer camp](/logs/events/1984-summer-camp/) that exposed me to BASIC programming, he let me visit his secret geek room, which was a large closet that he'd whimsically (and quite effectively) hidden behind a bookshelf. I don't believe I spent a large amount of time there, but my memories of being 11 years old are dominated by sessions left alone in an autodidactic trance with his Apple II+ and BYTE magazines, learning how to PEEK and POKE my way into assembly programming on its [6502](http://www.visual6502.org/JSSim/expert.html). I was difficult to extract from that room, except for meals of Italian-American comfort food, which eventually helped convince my parents to invest in a top-of-the-line Apple IIe.

I believe it was for my 12th birthday that he gave me the most world-changing gift of my childhood: an Applied Engineering DataLink modem for that Apple IIe. It was capable of connecting to local BBSes at 1200 baud, faster than I could read!

Mad Tony was not someone I spent a lot of time talking to, and we barely kept in touch. Until I left town, I did occasionally attend his TubaChristmas concerts and the [theatre company](http://www.hawthorneplayers.com/) that he spent decades helping off-, on-, and back-stage. But my memories of Mad are an important part of my identity, and I hope my character benefits from a fraction of his curiosity and humility.
