wasted intelligence

Dad was an inventor...and a great one.  He insisted that he invented the vibrating bed before anyone else.  He sure didn't like it when he heard someone in Japan had invented it, about three years after he had.  Actually, that old saying--- 'Necessity is the mother of invention'---that's what spurred my dad on.  His dad was deaf you see.  He worked at a factory and had been injured by something there.  In those days, not much compensation was allowed for work-related injuries.  So, grandpa still went of to that factory job everyday.
Only problem was...he couldn't hear the alarm any longer to wake him at 4:30 in the morning.  My grandmother complained that she had become his alarm clock, and didn't like that new role one bit.  So my dad invented a motorized box-springs that shook his whole bed, whenever the alarm clock went-off. 
Only problem was---dad overdid it!  Grandpa would bounce off that bed and onto the floor, the second the alarm went-off.  So, dad tamed it down some, and everybody was happy.  Until the day that dad heard a Japanese man made millions selling that idea to hotels...for other considerations than getting 'out of  bed'! 
It's so sad that my dad had all these nifty ideas, and never did anything with them.  Like the time he invented a gas dryer for my mom.  She always had two babies in diapers, at the same time.  In the winter that was a hassle.  (We are now so blessed!  I don't know 'how' they got along in the pioneer days.)
So, since dad had dug a basement under our little 600 sq. ft. home to install the new furnace, he then cut a larger hole in the kitchen floor, made a huge hamster-like encased chicken-wire pen, and then he took-off from his motorized  vibrating bed idea, attaching a pulley system to turn that giant hamster cage.  The diapers went in there, and every time the furnace turned-on, the pulley also turned the cage, the diapers flipped and flopped...and soon mom had more freshly dried diapers for her  babies bottoms.
Dad also invented tools for his trade.  He was a mechanic, by trade, worked on cars and trucks, and he was an auto body man.  Dad loved cars, everything about them.   He invented tools to make the jobs easier.  Yet, dad never took it to the next level of patenting any of them.  Dad was our own Thomas Edison.  Only problem was---he never aspired to bettering himself or his family.  The bottle was his main objective, main goal, and first love.    So enough reminiscing for one day...see