Posted by wendy b. on June 4, 2003, at 22:41:50
In reply to Re: Burroughs and Tangier » wendy b., posted by Snoozy on June 3, 2003, at 21:10:36
> Thanks for setting me straight Wendy! With my memory, it's a good thing I'm not the star witness in a big trial. lol
>
> Now, can you tell me if I'm remembering this correctly: Burroughs family was relatively well-to-do, but not from the Burroughs drug co (!) but some type of business machine? There's a phrase: "business machine"! I think I meant equipment. And did money have any role in the punishment/lack thereof he got in Mexico? It certainly wouldn't be unheard of.
>
> Thanks!
Hey, Snoozy,So here's my next piece of Burroughs trivia...
Yeah, Burroughs' grandfather, William Seward Burroughs (whom he was named after), was the inventor of the adding machine. The company was the Burroughs Adding Machine Corporation. From the biography: "Although some forms of adding machine already existed, none was very reliable, often giving different results depending on how quickly the handle was pulled. Bill's grandfather invented the gimmick which made it practical: a perforated cylinder filled with oil which acted as a hydraulic regulator on the handle so that no matter how sharply or slowly the handle was pulled, the pressure exerted on the mechanism was always the same."
Evidently, the family was advised not to hang on to too much stock that the grandfather had willed his children (Bill's father), and they ultimately had to sell in 1929 (when the stock market crashed). Burroughs inherited a small sum ($10,000) when his mother died in 1970 (long after the death of Joan), so "that doesn't make me a scion of anything," he fulminated later on. And it probably didn't help him as a prisoner of the Mexican government, unless his family name meant something to the authorities down there, but I doubt that it did.'Night,
Wendy
poster:wendy b.
thread:228711
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20030426/msgs/231513.html