Adventurous Visitors

Just a few weeks ago I was searching for information on an unusual French slide rule (the “Supremathic"). I posted a question a Yahoo Group (ISRG), and a French slide rule collector named Marc Thomas responded with some very useful information. He and I exchanged several emails, and a couple of weeks ago he mentioned that he and his wife (Dominique) would be visiting the U.S. to see their daughter. It turns out that their daughter lives in Riverside, California, which is just 100 miles or so north of us. So Marc wondered if perhaps he could visit while he was over here.

Although meeting another collector (and showing off my collection!) sounded like an interesting experience, my first thoughts were to discourage him. Most Americans who try to find our home have trouble (we’re way, way out in the boondocks!), so what were the chances of a Frenchman, in unfamiliar territory, locating us? I wrote back to tell him I’d love to meet up, but that he should be concerned about the distance and remoteness. I figured that would be the end of that…

But yesterday morning, I got another email from Marc — he and his wife were in Riverside, and he wondered if it would be possible to visit with us that very afternoon! So I wrote up some very detailed directions for him, and sent them off by email. The plan was for him to arrive sometime after 4 PM, and he’d call if he couldn’t make it.

Well, 4 PM rolled around, and no call from Marc. And 15 minutes later, a little red car came rolling up our driveway, and out popped Marc and Dominique. They made it!

For the next couple of hours, we had a most enjoyable meeting with these folks. It turns out that Marc is a professor of mathematics, and Dominique a professor of history. Dominique and Debbie immediately got into a conversation about cats, and dogs — and Dominique was fascinated by our birds, especially the hummingbirds. Marc and I went through a couple dozen of my slide rules, and it was great fun to show him several that he had read about, seen photos of, but had never actually seen in person. Debbie got to show off her collection of ribbons from dog competitions, and it was a lot of fun to watch Dominique going through them — she particularly liked the multi-colored “title” ribbons.

Marc and Dominique wanted to drive back to Riverside in the daylight, so they had to leave quite early. We could hardly blame them for wanting to drive while it was light, but we would have greatly enjoyed a longer visit. It was quite an adventure for them to drive all the way down here, and they got to see some parts of California rarely seen by most Americans, let alone people from another country. And it was quite an adventure for us as well — meeting this very interesting couple with a vastly different life experience than ours, but still having many points of common interest. Marc is the first slide rule collector who has ever actually seen my collection — while I have parts of it on the web, and I correspond with dozens of collectors, not a single one has ever made it out here before!