Michael Zdepski

Michael is one of the 3 Zdepski siblings who traces his birth to Brooklyn NY.  Born in 1921, he was more than 3 years younger than his 2 older brothers (John and Stephen).  Consequently, the youngest he was given some of the less glamorous tasks when for example, catching live skunks at night.  He should have seen the trend when at the age of 4, he and his brothers found a very large Copperhead on Federal Twist and decided to take it home.  It took 3 boys to carry the live snake as it was so large. John and Stephen traded places of several times holding the snake it behind the head while the other carried the middle of the snake.   Michael was “Tail End Charlie” caring the snakes hinter regions.  It wasn’t for lack of trying to take his turn holding the head, but his hands were so small he couldn’t hold on tight enough to be sure the snake wouldn’t lay its venous fangs into one of these 3 musketeers.

Michael was an electronics nerd in the best sense of the word.  He was studying towards a BSEE at Newark College of Engineering (now NJIT) when he entered the service during WW-2 where he ultimately had a crew of 3 working for him installing phone lines, phones, and secure communications equipment in General Omar Bradley, traveling with US 12th Army HQ as the crossed from Normandy to Elbe River.  Anywhere General Bradley went, Michael was probably there 3 or 4 days earlier.  He said, “I climbed a lot of poles and spiced a lot of phone wires.” Of course, he did much more than that. Michael drove a supply truck ashore at D-Day +2 as part of General Bradleys command entourage. Putting oneself in harms way during the invasion won Gen. Bradley as Silver Star, for the ordinary drafted soldier it was just a days work.

Michael mustered out of the Army in California in October 1945. Like his younger brother Stanley, he was undergoing training for the expected invasion of the japanese home islands when the atomic bombs were dropped and the war in the Pacific ended. Michael resumed his education but with a family on the way, left University and began a career was Western Electric working on phone equipment.  Michael liked to build Heath-kits, staying hands on building things like stereo’s and televisions.  He was a keen fan of classical music (something his namesake from Ukraine shared when he confused Uncle Moose by insisting classical music was Brahms and Beethoven and not Johnny Cash).

Michael participated in some firsts for the Bell System. He project managed the first completely prefabricated local exchange in the 1970s – which had to be slid into a building the size of a small house as a single unit, it had 1000’s of contacts in connectors that mated with the a backplane of the pairs of wires going out to the subscribers.  It was the mother of all motherboards in its day.  It was a father-son affair, because Michael Stephen was the architect who designed the building – the telephone company truly made the world smaller! M. Stephen tells how his father performed the first Transcontinental direct dial when a random number he dialed was answered by a young boy in California. Michaels entire career was marked by the continual march of miniaturization. He started with copper wire hung on poles or buried in shallow trenches in France in the WW2, to switching centers were each call was switched by a relay the size of a Bic lighter on a 3’x3′ board hand wired to large backplanes, and retired with digital voice where the switching of 100’s or 1000’s of calls happened on a single chip the size of a Half Dollar coin.

Only a golfer can appreciate that Uncle Mike took up golf in retirement and would regularly shoot in the low 70’s, with a partner in Aunt Vera who one can imagine was laughing and giggling the whole time about her own more down to earth golf game where 70 was likely reached on front nine.  Being analytical,  Micheal was quiet, steady and confident in everything he undertook. …