Sir John Falstaff

Photo of author Nom de plume which the late author, engineer and patent attorney,

used for this labor of love. Mr. Doody made some attempts to interest a few publishers in creating a book of "Alarums and Excursions" several years ago, but there were no initial bites, and he didn't pursue it further.

The earliest evidence of his work on the idea of matching quotes from Shakespeare to odd patents dates to 1954, while he was Assistant General Manager at Patterson Moos Division of the Universal Winding Company in New York, and maintaining a private patent practice at the same time. He was still tinkering with the idea long after his retirement from Hughes Aircraft Company in 1973, where he had served as Chief Patent Counsel and Director of Licensing.

While going through our father's documents after his death at age 87 in 1996, we, his offspring Mary Kay and David Jr., came upon a bound folder in the file cabinet with all the other, similar folders containing his notes on "Alarums and Excursions." The folder was labeled with his name and address, rather than some patent or other, and it was titled,

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR.

Inside were two pages. The first was a title page, with the above quote attributed to Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale III, iii, 59. As soon as we read the second page, which may be seen by selecting "Shakespeare's Comment" below, we were amused by the realization that this had been our father's (typically) wry comment on his own impending, although much later and fairly sudden, exit.

SHAKESPEARE'S COMMENT

This web site was created by David Doody Jr. on December 25, 1997.