This month, Concord resident Gene Rudolph chats with Meet a Senior’s Anita Hickey about his life adventures and the road that brought him and his family to New Hampshire.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in New York City, and at the age of three we moved to Long Island. Long Island was the place that I called home for most of my life. . . . . After returning from service in World War II, I settled back on Long Island and began my career. When I met my wife, Irene, she became part of my life, we were married and raised our family. We were Long Islanders for many years until our move to New Hampshire.
Where were you stationed in World War II?
Upon leaving work as a Marine electrician in a shipyard, I joined the U. S. Navy. I was assigned to a repair ship that serviced amphibious craft in the Philippines.
After you returned from the war, what opportunities where available to you for a career?
After my time in the Navy I engaged in an unsuccessful partnership with an electrical contractor. Following that I took a job in an aircraft factory as a plant electrician where my future wife, the love of my life, was also employed. Around 1950, television was beginning to convert to color. I was fortunate to secure a job with NBC-TV located at Rockefeller Center. NBC provided schooling for me to learn how to adapt all their television productions to color. . . . It was difficult keeping pace, especially with such popular live productions on NBC-TV as the “Steve Allen Show,” and the very popular “Show of Shows.”
I spent 11 years at NBC and then accepted a job at CBS-TV. This was my introduction of a master computer assisted lighting operation. It was very difficult to get it to work properly and was very frustrating to all of us. With the aggravation of this job I decided that perhaps starting my own business should be my next project.
How many years ago did you move to New Hampshire?
It was 20 years ago that we purchased a home with 8 acres of land in Weare.
You now are a resident of Concord. What do you like about our city?
We are so happy here. The citizens are all so nice. It is not at all like the big city. No one pushes you off the sidewalk so that they can pass by you! When Irene and I miss the excitement of city life, we head to Boston. And, yes, sometimes we do still get pushed off the sidewalk. City dwellers at times can be rather rude. They could learn a lesson about kindness from Concord.
