MOSFET's Marvelous Weekend Adventure

Jory made friends easily.  His friends, from the moment they met, were friends for life.  Each was just as unique as Jory was, but varying in age, gender, and interests.  To Jory, his friends were like gems, each with its own brilliance and radiance, to be respected, cherished, and supported when called upon.  Of course, he complained when friends asked him to fix their computers—a task he detested—but he did it because they were friends and needed assistance.  When asked to help with something fun, adventurous, or romantic, he jumped in with gusto and a grin from ear to ear.

While Jory was hospitalized, and after he passed away, his friends sent us letters and posted on the Internet wonderful memories and “Jory Stories” of their experiences together.  Those stories were the winds beneath our wings that allowed us to carry on each day.  As we faced the ultimate and dreaded future that parents never imagine becoming reality, those untold stories from people we didn’t know, gave us the strength and encouragement to put one foot in front of the other.  We were not alone and our son was universally loved because he made a difference in the lives of others.

One of those special friendships began the day we took Jory out of high school for a college visitation day at CalArts.  He had applied as a potential Music Composition major and was introduced to Scott Looney, a graduate student with the same major.  The two of them hit it off immediately, despite their difference in ages and experience levels.  They were both composers, loved absurd British comedies, and were self-taught Mac geeks, who became technical experts that shared a love of diving into computers to investigate the software and firmware that made them tick.  

“We didn't see each other in classes as I was a grad in Music Composition and he was an undergrad, mainly in the Film school,” explained Scott.  “He was just immensely fun to talk to and be around.”  Scott regularly visited Jory on campus when he just wanted to hang out.

Scott and Jory hanging out in the Bay Area

“When I moved to the Bay Area, I was there only a short while when I got the news that Jory was coming up north to live in the Bay Area and had gotten a job at LucasArts. It was awesome news,” explained Scott.  “I had recently moved from NYC where I was very lonely and picked the Bay Area as the next place to live.  Having Jory there made me even happier.  We hung out occasionally and shared a lot of fun times.  He was a constant presence in my life.“

“One really quintessential, generous Jory moment, in 2001, was when I had a crush on a girl and I wanted to impress her.  I came up with this plan to steal one of her teaching props, a hand puppet, and then take pictures of if everywhere in Fairfax, sort of like the adventures of garden gnomes.  Jory was so wonderful in setting up the various shots, even convincing the Fire Department to let us set up some pictures on their truck, and of course, on his crazy tricycle as well.   She was really touched by the gesture and often referred to it in later years,” explained Scott.  

There is no one who can tell this story better than Scott, so I am grateful to him that I can share his “Jory Story” with you. 

 MOSFET's Marvelous Weekend Adventure

Winding the clock back to 2001-2 for this one, I was working part-time as a lab Instructor for Ex'pression Center (now Ex'pression SAE College) In Emeryville, just above Oakland.  I taught Sound Department students the basics of MIDI and DAW production as a supplement to the lectures they had in class.  I enjoyed hanging around other Instructors and students In an Intense and creative environment and found myself useful as I was one of the few who understood the tech side of Macs and DAWs, so I was often getting called In to help advise or assist setups here and there.

I had gotten into Ex'pression through the advice of the course director of the Studio Maintenance program in 2000, and as I started working in the same work and musical environment with her, I found myself smitten.  She was incredibly smart, down to earth, funny, and a great musician and improviser, as well as being an excellent live recording engineer.  Eventually I got it In my head that I wanted to do a romantic prank to her that I had seen done in the movie Amelie.  In that movie, someone “borrows” a yard gnome statue from someone's yard and then goes off on adventures with it and takes pictures of the gnome in various settings.  Eventually the gnome is returned and has a pouch around its neck contaInIng the pIctures of the gnome's “vacation.”  

In this case, the course director used a furry hand puppet of a rodent, a marmot to be precise, named MOSFET, as an entertaining teaching aid for the students in her classes.  (For those not acquainted with electronic components, a MOSFET is a type of transistor.)  Everyone recognized it and she occasionally even did small funny shows for the benefit of her co-workers.  Anyway, she would leave it on her desk when she left for home, as she considered it more of a work prop than anything else.  So, I began to hatch a plot in my head that I would borrow Mosfet and take him on an adventure and return him with some pictures.  Needing a partner in pseudo-romantic crime, right away I contacted Jory and told him of my plans.  He was only too willing to help and started thinking about various settings where to photograph the puppet.  Eventually Friday night came around and after the teachers left, I went to the faculty area and spirited MOSFET away in my backpack, hoping no security cams would notice.

Jory on his tricked out trike

When I got to Jory's place on Saturday with MOSFET and a disposable camera in my hand, the game was well and truly afoot.  Jory enjoyed every minute of it. This was prior to the existence of Studio Jory.  He was living in a downstairs apartment in a house and had his standup composer shack set up a few feet away.  Oddly enough, I hardly remember the living place itself in that area (maybe he didn't live there but had his shack there? not sure) but I remember the shack very well.  This was also the time period that he had the incredibly tricked out trike bike, complete with streamers, bulb horns and bell, and the attached wagon of course.  So, we started with the area around his shack and we put MOSFET on the trike, of course, complete with sunglasses and all.  It was a lovely day.  For the next picture, Jory thought we should have a photo of a picnic with MOSFET and a friend, so Jory brought along a picnic basket, sunglasses, a checkered gingham blanket, and a stuffed Tigger to keep MOSFET company.  We searched for a place and found an area nearby with a sign on a fence that, among other things, said “Picnics Are Fun.”  He liked the sentiment and thought that would be a good place for a picture, so we set up the various elements and recorded it for posterity.

 After this, we walked over to the fire station and because Jory knew absolutely everyone in town, we were able to put MOSFET on and in a fire truck.  Getting Into the spirit of the thing, the fireman scrounged up a child's plastic fireman's hat that MOSFET could wear for the pictures.  It was still pretty big on him, though, but definitely a highlight of the photo session, for sure!  After this, we journeyed into Golden Gate Park and finished the session with lots of shots of MOSFET next to many flowers and in the Hagiwara Japanese Tea Garden. 

MOSFET's Marvelous Weekend Adventure Photos

I drove Jory back to Fairfax and then came home, mission accomplished.  After developing the prints from the camera (2 copies so I could have one of my own), I put one copy in a little envelope around MOSFET's neck and returned him back to his proper place in the faculty area.  My crush was, of course, very touched by the whole thing and talked about MOSFET's weekend about town with many folks.  Ultimately, nothing came of my overtures.  In the end, I will always remember that Jory made this prank even more extra special with his unique sense of fun and excitement, as he often did with everything he experienced.

Thank you so much, Scott Looney.  Your story truly captures Jory’s playfulness, creativity, and sensitivities.  We are extremely grateful.

Leslye, Scott, and Sam at CalArts

COMMENTS:  

Click on Jorysmother@gmail.com to send comments.

Jory Prum   2008
I am a born romantic.  I enjoy doing things for a girl I'm interested in just because it'll make her feel special and loved.  I want her to have stories she can be excited to tell her friends.

Jory Prum   2008
I enjoy doing things for others.

Scott Looney  

Thanks so much for publishing this. I've been reading the blog occasionally and enjoying the humor and creativity in them, and I hope one day to find them in the book you mentioned wanting to write. Your words eloquently illustrate what a special and unique being he was.

Elaine Socol

I just took the time to read your last 3 blogs of your Jory Story. Each blog makes me smile, but there is a more emotional response to Jory as well. What a joy to read and what a joy to realize how you and Sam equipped him to be such a mentor and role model for others. I’m sorry I never met Jory in person, but your wonderful way of writing about him brings Jory to life.....and makes it easy to envision the ups and downs you experienced with him.....and the patience you exhibited when you took the time to understand and listen to your little guy. 

Elaine Asa
Unfortunately, I don’t have any Jory stories but I live vicariously through the wonderful stories of Jory’s adventures and life experiences. He certainly was 1 of a kind and though he is not here physically he certainly is here through these wonderful stories which give reality to his spirit. May the sharing of these stories continue to bring blessings to Jory’s legacy and may this bring comfort  to you and the family and all those who knew and loved him.



Gail Hara
What a wonderful and unique guy. Keep his stories alive.

Molly Presser

Thanks for another true free spirit, kind, creative and loving Jory adventure.

Thanks for letting us go together with you on this journey.

James Bolner
Your latest Jory story is wonderful!  Thank you. 

© Leslye J. Prum   All rights reserved.   2017

On The Cutting Edge

Jory with his crazy train hard hat

Train Timetable

When Jory asked questions about how things worked, Sam was great at explaining them to him in great detail.  When Dad was away on travel for work, we looked things up in books.  It became a habit to find just the right books to answer his many questions.  He was interested in everything and needed to know what made them work.  He loved trains and had a book of timetables.  He could tell anyone who asked, when the Amtrak train was going from San Diego to Los Angeles through Fullerton.  If someone wanted to go to Albuquerque, he could plan the best route for him or her via rail.  When he decided to teach himself to play guitar, I handed him a book of chords and he figured them out.  When I wanted to learn Photoshop, he installed it on my computer and handed me a book, saying I could call him when I ran into problems.

Much of Jory's knowledge base was self-taught.  Curiosity sparked his diving into books, followed by processing what he had read with critical thinking.  Thoughts of how this new information could be applied in different ways preceded trial and error experimentation.  He always wanted to be on the cutting edge with new ideas and ways of doing things.  He loved the challenge.

Putting up the wallboard in the dead room

Jory’s biggest dream was to have his own recording studio, so he decided to build one with help from his friends and Fairfax neighbors.  Of course, it couldn’t be just a regular recording studio, it had to have perfect acoustics to satisfy Jory’s gift of acute hearing and perfect pitch.  Its largest space was a “dead room” with neutral sound, meaning it could have no reverberations or extra sounds like echos, buzzes from the air conditioner, or outside noises from the adjacent baseball field.  It was built as a floating room within a larger room, with 3-foot-wide sound buffering space between the walls.   

Jory in the dead room

He enlisted his friend Tony Grimani, an expert in acoustics, co-developer of THX, and a colleague from Lucas (SkyWalker Sound) days, to design and tune the room. They selected wooden floors, strong attenuation sound panels to absorb high frequencies, and acoustic diffusers to treat distortions.  Studio.jory.org earned the reputation of being the best sounding independent recording space in the San Francisco Bay Area, producing outstanding spatial rendition, smooth bass, and excellent dialog clarity.

Jory’s personal domain was really in the adjacent control room where he recorded music, dialogue, and sound effects, followed by masterfully mixing them into the final product.  He equipped his room with a 128 channel recording and mixing capability.  Speakers surrounded the recording engineer with the same surround sound technology used in movie theaters.  About that time, video games were emerging as a major player in the entertainment industry.  

Jory in the control room

In general, Jory was frustrated by the poor sound quality of video games.  He decided that adding more realistic sound effects to video games, enhanced by surround sound, would greatly increase the users’ enjoyment, and lead to more game sales.  He faced several obstacles, starting with the devices on which the games were played, for they were not equipped with multi-level sound output.  He became the solo sound guy on several professional committees of acoustic engineers developing the new standards for sound in computer driven electronics.  He confidently went to Apple and Microsoft to gain their support.  

Jory with award for best dialogue for
The Walking Dead Video Game

Game developers were converting the stories originally written for movies and TV into video games.  While he championed the use of improved sound in video games, Jory also pleaded with the game developers to hire professional voice actors.   He had began directing and recording dialogue for Telltale Games, a new company started by former Lucas Arts employees, like himself.  He had a talent for knowing what the character should sound like and finding just the right actor to represent it.  He was enthusiastic, proactive, and tenacious, becoming the change agent for realistic, authentic sound and dialogue in video games.  One concrete result was that Jory and his dialogue production team were nominated nine times for "Best Voice Acting" Aggie Awards and won three times.  In addition, he also won multiple awards from the Game Audio Network Guild and the Norwegian Game Awards.  The bonus for the game developers was that his games sold well.

Bardeen, Shockley, & Brittain, co-inventors of the transistor,
which is often considered Bell Labs' greatest innovation. 1948

One of Jory's video game clients had a game that required the sound of a doorbell.  Most likely, any doorbell sound would have been passable, but Jory always strived for perfection and authenticity.  Since his teenage years, he had been fascinated with telephony and again began to wonder about why doorbells and phones had their particular rings.  He began extensive research on the subject, leading him to the archives at the University of California Berkeley, where copies of all the research papers from Bell Labs are stored.  For hours and weeks, he hibernated in the Berkeley library reading the complex, intricate, documentation and learning all about the science and engineering behind telephony.    

“Dad,” he called home with excitement, “you can't imagine how interesting this is.  The Bell Labs research starting from the 1920's and '30's is amazing and I'm learning so much.  People just aren't aware of how innovative and far reaching Bell Labs’ work has been.  I've been invited to speak to a couple of groups at Berkeley and I'm going to apply to do a TED Talk on the Bell Labs papers.”  Jory’s enthusiasm was contagious.

Rabbi Joseph Smith sharing a pun with Jory at his Bar Mitzvah

Written by James Joyce
 and published in 1939

In his spare time, Jory took on James Joyce by reading Finnegan’s Wake.  Joyce is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century, so Jory decided that he had much to learn from him.  His first challenge was the vocabulary.  It is written in a peculiar and obscure English, further complicated by its use of complex multi-level puns.  Jory had come to love puns when he was studying for his Bar Mitzvah with Rabbi Joseph Smith, whom Jory referred to as “The Pun Master.”  As he read Finnegan’s Wake, he added a new element to his internet website:  Word Of The Day.  Every day Jory posted a new word and it's definition, from what he had learned from reading Joyce.  His ulterior motive was to increase his vocabulary to apply to his daily subscription of the New York Times Crossword Puzzles or word games like Scrabble.

Jory first went to Norway as a tourist.  He fell in love with the fresh air and blue skies, mountains resplendent with waterfalls, and efficient public transportation.  He bonded with the Norwegian video game developers and found that he could help them grow to a world-class industry, as well as bring in new clients to studio.jory.org.  He began spending more and more time in Norway:  working, making friends, and exploring the country. 

Norway’s public transportation system attracted him like a magnet.  It's convenient, cost efficient, and reliable, all very important to Jory.  Best of all, was that he could access all the train, bus, and ferry schedules and buy his tickets on the internet.  For fun, he would plan trips all over the country using online train timetables.  He also found that information on museums and their contents were online.  It was a tourist’s goldmine that needed to be shared.

Highlights of Norway for Tourists

Jory, always a techie at heart, decided to develop an avant-garde tourist guide of Norway.  He included everything that a tourist needed to know to be his own educated and efficient tour guide.  He compiled maps of cities and the countryside; menus of museums, which included locations, hours of operation, transportation options, and virtual online tours where tourists could see the museum offerings, learn ahead of time the history and backgrounds of what they would see, and even purchase online admission tickets.  He had a section for online train, bus, waterways, and air schedules to get tourists where they wanted to go, including the online purchase of tickets for travel and entrance to most venues.  He was also planning to include a section for locating good places to eat.  All of this would be totally accessible on a mobile phone and/or tablet that tourists would bring with them.  He was just about to publish his online tourist guide when his life was cut short, but he did write "Thawing Streams of Consciousness," printed below, describing the magnificent train ride from Bodø to Trondheim.

When Fairfax resident, Michael Leifer, came to Jory with a fantastic idea to write ecology textbooks for middle school students in California, Jory jumped right in.  Michael had dropped into Jory's studio to tell him about the project he shared with a group of ecology-minded dads who had kids in middle school.  Jory was a bright student in school, but often complained that textbooks were dull and boring.  Seeing this opportunity to improve education for others, as well as be on the cutting edge of something new and exciting, Jory became equally excited about Michael’s idea to create iBooks for iPads.  He volunteered to be on the team.

Michael wrote the texts, and Jory breathed technology into them by infusing interactive opportunities for readers.  For example, to enable the students to learn first hand about the movement of tides, Jory provided a button on the iPad that accessed the camera on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Instantly, by clicking on the button, students could see the tides flowing below the bridge in real time.  Throughout the books, technology piqued their interest and made learning a more interactive and exciting experience.  Jory is listed as co-author on all four books that he and Michael created.  Energy and Material Resources and Made From Earth, are currently available for download with iBooks on Apple iTunes.

“Amazing books!” extolled Michael.  “Teachers and students have been loving them.”

COMMENTS:  

Click on Jorysmother@gmail.com to send comments.

Jory Prum   February 1, 2009

In my immediate vicinity right now are: a MacBook Pro, 2 Mac Minis, 2 Apple TVs, and a slew and hard drives, keyboards, mice, networking equipment, and other techy things. And I'm at HOME. The studio has at least twice as much geekery going on!

Jory Prum  May 13, 2009  "Thawing Streams of Consciousness"

More great views from the train. There really are no words to describe the view during the train ride from Bodø to Trondheim. Just like the weather in Norway, if you don't like the view (an impossibility at best), just wait 3 minutes and it'll change completely. The problem is that this journey is every bit an emotional experience as it is a visual one. I could take ten thousand photographs with the best camera and I still couldn't convey what I'm seeing pass by. Posting twelve hours of video shot from both my window and the right-hand side of the train wouldn't provide you with anything as remotely meaningful as making this trip yourself.

At the moment (two hours into the 10-and-a-half-hour trip), we're just south of Lønsdal, high in the mountains, with unmarred snow fields extending up the mountain- and hill-sides until they seemlessly meet the sky. Portions of the lakes and streams are still frozen, although the enormous waterfalls we've already encountered (sometimes from just twenty feet away) remind us that the Spring thaw is well under way.

Not everything is snow-covered, though. There are patches of brown grasses, sometimes in large swaths, which help show the contours of the gently-rolling hills that have come to overtake the view in the past three minutes.

Without warning, the hilly sections are gone and the landscape to the left of the train extends gently upward, still joining with the sky at some undiscernable horizon. It's like sitting at the very top of the world, where there can be nothing higher than us; as if the clouds, in their completely untextured mass, are within hands' reach and might be solid, much like the ceiling of my hobbit hole or sitting in the very top seats of the bleachers at a basketball arena.

Suddenly there's a small building. Who comes up here? It doesn't look like anyone is ever in this part of the world, apart from those of us watching the unreal display through the carriage windows.

Another building, this one bigger and more like a visitor's center. And a bridge with no visible road on either side, completely blanketed by snow.

Lacking fanfare, a moment later we pass a small obelisk made of stones the size of footballs and supporting a wire-frame globe at its acme. It looks like a small rendition a much larger marker that was visible at 7:06am from the Hurtigruten yesterday morning. I check the atlas I purchased from a used book shop in Trondheim and sure enough, we've just descended below the Arctic Circle. I feel a moment of sadness that the Arctic portion of my adventures has ended already, a mere 40 hours later.

No time to dwell, though. In the time it took me to grab the atlas (a total of 30-45 seconds), the landscape has changed yet again. There are now scores of deciduous trees along the snowy, mountainous hillside we're gliding along. The clouds have become shapely once more and the snow, while still patchy, has a different texture to it.

The landscape continues to morph. Just ahead is an enormous mountain, its peak obscured by clouds in the way my imagination tells me the Alps probably look. The leaf-less trees are becoming denser, competing with the brown patches to make the hillside look less snowy. But they lose out where the treeline limits them and only the most vertical slopes remain anything but white.

Yet again the surroundings have evolved. Beginning with a high, unseeable peak, pure white gives way to trees, which in turn gives way to earth and dark brown grasses. The bottom of the valley we are following is completely free of snow.

We enter a tunnel. That act in itself often means that what was visible just moments ago is likely only a fresh memory, soon to be replaced by a new, equally awe-inspiring view.

This time, however, we come back to the same scene, continuing down the valley, with tall, skinny trees being replaced by evergreens.

Which morphs again into a mountain community near the tracks, where houses of burnt umber and deep reds, built with exquisite craftmanship and detail, are the norm.

And so it goes.

Jory Prum March 2015  "beep"

I do surround in here (studio.jory.org) so I was able to play around with the 5.1 output in HTML5 audio, which is pretty cool.  There's just really cool things you can do with it.

When they (Game Developers) just let me have free reign, it's kind of fun because I can make things and just go, "Oh, I think it sounds like this," and more often than not, if they sit with it for, you know, for a week or so they can't imagine it sounding like anything else ever again, which is great. So it's fun.

Michael Leifer  April 24, 2016

Many of you knew the enthusiast smiling and witty Jory as an artist, humorist, producer, audio editor, musician, and much more, but you may not know that he was a driven environmentalist, obsessed with Education and wanted to make it much better by making it more experiential. He also believed that climate change was real based on all the NASA and NOAH data, and felt that future generations and teachers needed to have better ecological literacy options within their classrooms. Based on the success of our work on these initial iBooks, Jory was interested in creating and launching a company focused on digital textbooks to be called "Touchable Books"!   Anyway....thought you all should know about the amazing environmental ecological literacy work Jory Prum helped to inspire and create. I’m honored and really proud to have collaborated with him and really miss him, especially his laugh

Molly Presser 

Jory definitely inherited your talent for writing.  Thanks for sharing all of his wisdom in addition to his beautiful descriptions of Norway, the country he fell in love with.  Love reading all you write. Wish I could talk to him and tell him how wonderful he is.  Since I can't do that, I'm telling you and Sam about your wonderful son and how lucky he was to have inherited your genes and to have had your love and support in all he did.

Gail Kraushar
These stories are a wonderful tribute to your amazing son, but I was particularly struck by the one about Norway.  I set aside the blogs to binge-read when we returned from a recent trip to Europe, which included, of all things, a stop in Norway. I had no idea before we went that it was a favorite destination of Jory’s. 

The scenery was indeed breathtaking but the tons of photos I took cannot nearly do it justice as well as Jory’s vivid and moving descriptions.  He was a fine writer in addition to his many other talents.  Thanks for posting all the entries, and this one in particular.

©   Leslye J. Prum   2017   All Rights Reserved

Curiosity

Jory at 3 years old

Jory's radio

Jory was curious by nature.  He was acutely aware of his surroundings, both physical and auditory, and wanted to know everything about them.  His first word was radio, closely followed by battery.  As soon as he was strapped into his car seat, gleeful requests from the back seat squealed “Radio!  Radio!”  At home, he turned the knobs on an old portable radio, to hear the different sounds and volumes the magic box could produce.  When the radio stopped working, he ran to Daddy, with the radio in his hands, shouting “Batteries!  Batteries!”  For a number of years, he thought the whole world worked on batteries, so when a wind-up toy stopped working or the hot water tank leaked, his simple solution was for us to change the batteries.  

The insides of Jory's radio

There were always wooden jigsaw puzzles on the toy shelf and Jory delighted in taking them apart and putting them back together.  He was really adept at it and one day decided to investigate the radio in the same manner.  He was singing along to the radio broadcast, but soon the singing became Jory's loud humming, followed by concentrated, intermittent, soft humming.  I didn't hear the radio anymore and decided to investigate.  Three year old Jory was sitting on the floor surrounded by radio parts, his beloved batteries and radio casing scattered in a semi-circle with him at the center. 

Jory's radio put back together

“Oh, no!” I shouted.  “What did you do?”  I gathered all the pieces and placed them in a box.  “We’ll give these to Daddy when he comes home,” I said as I put the box on the kitchen counter.

“No,” replied Jory, “Radio on the toy shelf.”

“Ok, but Daddy will fix it after dinner,” I responded as I placed the box at the far end of the toy shelf.   

I distracted Jory with a different toy and went back to preparing dinner.  A little later, I heard the radio blaring as though someone was looking for a particular station and twisting the knob until it was found.  Jory was holding the radio with a huge grin and singing along to the music.  He had put all the components back together, installed the batteries correctly, and re-snapped the plastic case.  I was amazed!  Now, I could hardly wait for Sam to come home from work to hear about Jory's latest mischievous adventure.

A year later, Jory went shopping at the supermarket with Grandma Edna.  He was too big to sit in the cart, so he was free roaming down the aisles.  When they got to the toy section, he was excited.

“If you are a good boy,” explained Grandma, “you can choose a toy.”

Cowboy Toy Handcuffs

Jory was thrilled and picked out several possibilities until he found just the right one.  There on the shelf was a pair of metal cowboy handcuffs with a tiny, shiny key.  Grandma gave him a nod with a smile and he carried the toy through the market, guarding it with both hands.  While Grandma was picking out fruit and vegetables, Jory was opening the box to his toy.  He let it slip from the cardboard box, immediately retrieving the key from the floor.  Carefully, he inserted the tiny, shiny key to see if it worked.  It did, and he jumped up and down while giggling.

Supermarket check out rail

Grandma guided the cart and Jory to the checkout stand and, while she was placing groceries on the counter, Jory was busy trying out his handcuffs.  He took one and tightly closed it around his left wrist.  The shiny aluminum railing alongside the checkout aisle seemed to be a perfect place to attach the other cuff.  Holding the key and the handcuffs was a bit tricky, so Jory had placed the tiny key on the checkout stand behind the cash register.  Once he was securely tethered to the rail, he tried to reach the key, but his hand slipped and the tiny, shiny key slipped into the crack between the counter and the cash register. 

Meek and timid Grandma Edna was flustered and beside herself.  Her 4-year-old grandson was shackled to the market checkout railing and the key was lost behind the cash register.  After several unsuccessful attempts to dismantle the counter, the cashier called the store manager.  He ran to the toy aisle, where he futilely tried to find another handcuff toy.  While the store manager contemplated how to take apart the railing, the box boy was sent to search the storage area for more handcuff toys.  

Meanwhile, quite a crowd had gathered around the check stand and one helpful customer suggested that the paramedics be called.  Grandma Edna was entering the twilight zone, thinking this had to be an out-of-body experience.  How could she explain this to the parents?  Jory was all smiles and enjoying the circus around him when the box boy returned empty handed.  The store manager proceeded to disassemble the check stand until he could reach to the very back.  His fingers, full of dust, felt around until they found the key.  He  inserted the tiny, shiny, key into the handcuffs.  With a full turn, the handcuffs opened and Jory was free.

“Why did you do that, Jory?” asked Grandma Edna with relief. 

“I just wanted to know how they worked,” replied Jory.

Canadian Goose Egg

A year or so later, in Grandma Edna's backyard, Jory found an abandoned goose egg left from migrating Canadian geese. He came into the house smelling horrific. Grandpa Morris immediately ushered Jory outside. 

"What did you get into?" he asked. "You and the whole house smell like sulfur." 

"I found this egg under a bush and the mother wasn't there, so I sat on it for her," Jory replied.  "I feel terrible that I broke her egg," he added with tears in his eyes. 

"Let's hose you off out here and then you can take a bath in Grandma's tub. Meanwhile, I'll call your Mom to tell her to bring you clean clothes," answered Grandpa. 

When Jory was in third grade, our closest neighborhood kid began kindergarten. Since Jory walked to school each morning, Christo’s mom decided that he should walk with Jory. Even though I told her that he was easily distracted and had a history of dawdling along the way, she insisted that Christo should walk with Jory.

Broken beer bottles

One day, a few minutes after the morning bell rang, both Christo’s mom and I received phone calls from the Principal, Mr. Sullivan. It seemed that the boys found some empty glass beer bottles along the way to school. They carried them to the crossing guard’s corner and waited for him to help them cross the street. Then they walked up the hill to the driveway where school busses and parents were delivering children to school. Right at the entrance to the school, Jory and Christo took deep breaths and heaved the bottles with all their strength onto the pavement. Glass shattered everywhere, bringing the principal and bus duty teachers running. A huge crowd of children gathered around as Jory, grinning from ear to ear, explained to Mr. Sullivan that he always wondered how it would sound to hear bottles breaking on the pavement. Sometimes curiosity got Jory into trouble. Christo's mom, irate and fuming, called me immediately, stating that she still liked Jory, but from then on, he could walk to school by himself.

Jose Way and Domingo Road

As a fourth grader, Jory walked home from school one day with his jacket pockets full of heavy chunks of asphalt. I didn't discover it until I was doing the laundry and found the jacket weighted down. I had to carefully dislodge these two heavy, black masses before the jacket could be washed. I called Jory into the laundry room.

“What is this and why is it in your pockets,” I asked, relieved that it wasn't something worse and oozing.

“Mom, you mixed them up! How will I know which one is Jose Way and which is Domingo Road?”

“Those are both neighborhood streets,” I answered.

“Yep, but I wanted to know if they were different and now I don't know which is which!”

The city was repaving our streets and Jory was curious about the process. I had never given much thought about asphalt. I was more interested in protecting the washing machine.

It was always quite disconcerting when other parents, teachers, or principals called us to complain about what Jory did or did not do.  As parents, we were alarmed and it was difficult to stay calm and cool.  We didn't want Jory to be in trouble, yet when he made poor decisions, we wanted him to learn from them without having to repeat the behavior.  His antics were unpredictable and the pressure from other adults was seriously overwhelming. It took us time to recognize what we always really knew:  Jory was NOT devious or malicious.  He was intellectually curious.  We were most always conscious of not squelching that curiosity, even when we had to punish him when he was wrong, advocate for him when needed, and withstand popular pressure when it was biased.

In high school, the principal called to say that the entire brass section of the band was being suspended from school. I asked him if he had asked Jory if he was involved in offensive behavior.

"No," he replied.

"Don't you think that you should ask him what he did at the football game that landed him in the principal's office?" He did, and Jory responded that he didn't do anything but play his trombone.

Troy band at an away game

"What do you think I did?" asked Jory.

"Did you moon the opposing team during halftime?"

"Are you crazy?" responded Jory. "Why would I do that?"

Jory had decided to play in the high school band that semester, but not to be a part of the band geeks social group. He was not privy to their plans and was so focused on playing his trombone that he was totally unaware of what the other kids were doing. 

We felt vindicated that we had trusted in Jory. We were supportive of him, while standing up to authority.  With a kid like Jory, we had to learn to discern and question assumptions and politely suggest fact finding before making decisions. Jory was not suspended.

COMMENTS:  

Click on Jorysmother@gmail.com to send comments.

Jory Prum     January 29, 2009

When I was 3 years old I took apart a radio and put it back together again. And it still worked!

I handcuffed myself twice and could not escape easily. The first time was with my grandma at a grocery store. I convinced her to buy me a set of toy handcuffs. I promptly cuffed myself to the register and then the little plastic key fell through a crack in the register and they ended up having to take apart the entire check stand to get it. Then the keys kept breaking! The second incident was at Danny Ronen's house. There was a real set of handcuffs hanging on the back of his door. I cuffed myself behind my back and then learned that they didn't have a key! I seem to recall managing to get my arms rotated in front of me, but I can't recall how we picked the lock.

I got in trouble for breaking beer bottles on the sidewalk in front of my elementary school. I just wanted to see what it was like to break a bottle! 

When I was 9, all the roads in my neighborhood were repaved. I used to walk home (always the long way, since I wasn't allowed to go the shorter route) and would be bored during my 45-minute walk. My mom was doing laundry and came across my soccer windbreaker and its heavy pockets. She looked inside and found the pockets were full of asphalt! When she asked me what was in my pockets, I replied, "The left one is Domingo Road and the right one is Jose Way!"

Jim Bolner

I’m deeply touched every time I read one of the Jory blog entries.  It is so heartening to know that there is such love in the world.  You and Sam are such terrific parents; your approach to parenting Jory is a model.  Please know that your work on these blog entries are truly appreciated.

Connie De Gerolamo
What a great story . . . laughed and laughed over the handcuffs.

Calle Schrader
Loved the article, Leslye, thank you!  Jory was brilliant from the get-go; can’t imagine a child putting a radio back together other than him.  Love the first picture of him too; always had that wild hair!  Thank you for keeping me updated.

Bobi Hirschbein
 I love reading about your beautiful boy.  Thank you for including me.

Marianne Smith
Thanks for sharing the link to your blog.  I really enjoyed reading the entries; I wish I had had a chance to meet Jory.  Clearly he was incredibly special.

Jim Bolner

I’m deeply touched every time I read one of the Jory blog entries.  It is so heartening to know that there is such love in the world.  Youand Sam are such terrific parents; your approach to parenting Jory is a model.  Please know that your work on these blog entries aretruly appreciated.

Pamela Boscoe

You have such a good memory.  Thanks for including me in your blog.

Sandy Duman

Love these sweet stories!

Molly Presser

What funny stories! It must have been hard to deal with his mischief, but it's a good thing he had special patents who recognized him as just being smart and curious!

Gail Hara

These stories are hilarious. I had such a laugh this morning reading the stories especially the one about the goose egg. What a smart kid.

Judy Howell

I just finished reading “Curiosity”.  I loved it.  The incidents are so funny and amazing, if I could get Ed away from his computer, I would tell him some of the funny things that Jory did.  I also read the story about books.  I found it very interesting too, as you can imagine.  Thank you for writing these stories.  I really enjoy them.

Barbara Davis

I really enjoyed your story about how you nurtured your son Jory's creativity in so many ways. I'm a little envious that you remember so much about his childhood. It was really well written material, I thought.

Geri Downs

As usual. I enjoy tremendously reading about Jory. What a guy. 

Elaine Asa

it is Erev Hag here in Israel and more or less we have finished cooking and so I decided to take a break and laid down with my feet up and to my delight took the time to read your curiosity blog About Jory.  It brought laughter to my tired body but left me so inspired as I am about to celebrate Pesach. What a gift Jory was to your family and what a challenge to those who did not understand him but then again he,was a challenge even to those who knew and loved him. You and Sam deserve so much credit for not squashing that creativity and curiosity.

Linda Saslow

What a fun installment!

Barbara Levine

Jory has an amazing mind.

©   Leslye J. Prum   2017   All Rights Reserved