There are people who create things.

Then there are Originals.

Those are the people who change the way the rest of us see the world.

Vics’s father, William Edwin Reddig, was one of them.

[Bill and the Kelvinator Design Team]

George Romney didn’t hire Bill because he could draw.

He hired him because he could imagine.

At American Motors, Bill was selected from the auto styling shop to design the future at Rambler’s Kelvinator Division. There, Bill led a remarkable group of industrial designers who believed the American kitchen could become as exciting and efficient as the automobiles coming out of Detroit.

That was a radical idea in the early 1960s. Twenty-five years later Vic tried his hand at it, but it wasn’t in the same league.

That was as Original as things got in 1978. It was a feeble attempt to re-create the sort of thing our creative partner Vic’s father had been able to do for George Romney over at the American Motors Company. That was the company George was convinced could build a Rambler automobile that would change how men-and WOMEN- participated in the American Century.

Dad’s fascination with the opposite sex is apparent from his old Navy drawings- like this one:

This is what he thought of those “Wimmin,” based on movie star Betty Grable’s famous glamour shot.

That was the way Vic’s Dad saw things when he was released from WW II service and met this young woman from Ohio, who was working for a former college professor at the Texas Company in the Chrysler building in Manhattan.

We would run it this morning, but time is short and there is competition with other issues of direct interest to Socotra hOuse. we will get to that in a minute. We have Deirdre anxious to keep trucking with her new book, “Cooking for the Crowd.”

Rocket and Splash both have some issues that might turn into something else, and with renewed conflict in the Gulf are going back on alert for wht is next, since the president used some rather abrupt language on what he was going to tell the armed forces to do to what is left of organized resistance in the Gulf.

The Legal Section has assigned fast Eddie, personal injury partner, to come down and monitor whether Doctor Fauci’s 112 refusals to answer all questions yesterday on the Hill- including the color of the tie he was wearing, or the day of the week- on advise of Counsel. We expect the Good Doctor will finally be dragged before something to amend for what he accomplished in Government service.

Of course there is other stuff going on, so Miles has asked Graphics to do something unobtrusive we can include in the daily to keep everyone posted on what is likely to happen August, September and October. If you think it is exciting now, just stand by! Everyone, including the resolutely resistant die-hard Islamic Revolutionary guards who would prefer some sort of Death-by-Cop scenario, a shoulder-fired man-portable air defense system held atop the rubble.

China said they were sending a 300-400 of their QW-12 and FN-16 man-portable air defense rocket to Iran. You can see the dizzyingly asymmetric nature of this. They say a fair-market price for these weapons is about $150,000 on a $60 million deal, , so you can see one angry IRGC trooper on a rooftop is a potential threat. it may have been one of these weapons that brought down a Navy jet two months ago. It said a new Navy Super Hornet can cost up to $120 million, so you can see the economic forces behind part of what is going on.

So, you may see something like this counter to help gauge how anxious we are supposed to reflect in the Daily morning-and-afternoon editions.

As you can tell, it is a little difficult to get too wound up this morning. the skies are brilliant blue after two twisters were reported to have touched down with the recent passing storms. We were lucky, and that is an original concept we are announcing this morning:

The original Originals!

The image above is one Vic captured when he was at the Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. It is one of his originals, from a stop on a voyage to the waters off Iran, 47 years ago.

And only thirty years before that sea voyage, the future might have looked something like this- the original Rogues galley, which descended from the Originals created by this guy, who also partnered in creating Vic:

But that would mean introducing a meeting so galvanizing that Rocket put down his offering for the Afternoon edition, which was going to be “Something Beef and Easy on the Grill.”

He was standing with a package of Hebrew National hot-dogs, a kosher beef product that could also meet halal dietary standards with the right light.

We were going to run a picture of Rocket with all the packages of hot dogs he tried- kosher, halal and All-American- but we are out of time this morning and this is supposed to be a morning edition.

So, the question now is not about renewed combat, interest rates or old travels in distant lands.

Lunch!

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com