Lakewood Lore

Legendary letter writer seeks home for yet another invention

Whatever happened to Andrew S. Kushner, Lakewood inventor and one-time inveterate letter-to-the-editor writer?

Well, Andy, now 86, is still viable but, like many old-timers beset by ailments, having reached the mountain of knowledge, he's not sure he has the strength to climb it.

As a matter of fact, he's offering a "half-finished invention" -- one he had hoped would be his greatest -- to any museum that might be interested.

He calls his creation a "Nuclear Neutralization System." Its purpose: To withdraw and burn off atomic wastes so they need not be buried.

It has provision for vacuum pumps to suck away toxic gases and is equipped with two small furnaces to burn them.

It is made of copper, plastic and wood, in two segments, each about 5 feet long, and it resides in Andy's basement.

"Because I'm less sure-footed and my screw-driver hand sometimes shakes, I don't think I'll be up to finishing it," Andy sighed.

"I'd like to give it to some institution where it could be seen. I've talked to many people, but so far no one seems to care."

Andy has several patents. One is for the design of an invalid bed. In 1953 he built a model of a needlenose space ship, which interested General Electric. In 1955 he wrote a book entitled, "Stop Smoking and Live Longer," which, he lamented, was ahead of its time.

Regarding his inventions, he commented, "If I needed a part, I would make it myself instead of running around to stores looking for it."

Most of Andy's letters to the editor made print in the 1970s and early '80s. They covered a wide variety of topics. He declared a Russian nuke attack was a far-fetched fear; he assailed wasteful bureaucracy and giveaway programs in the face of a soaring national debt; and he decried high salaries for executives in public-subsidized operations, such as the RTA.

His friends thought of him as the ultimate concerned citizen, but once when having an ongoing Biblical feud in a newspaper with another letter writer, a third writer suggested the two busy combatants spare the reader and mail their letters directly to each other.

So many of Andy's letters appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post that former editor Mike McNulty once told him, "Why don't you stop for awhile and give somebody else a chance."

Andy, a machinist by trade, was also an academic gadfly, Although he had to go to work in a coal mine in his native Pennsylvania at 15 and never received a high school diploma, he took more that 100 adult study courses from 1934 to '85. Among them were English, architecture, typing, drafting, carpentry, plumbing, machine shop and auto repair. Most were given at Lakewood High and West Tech.

Andy came to Lakewood when the Great Depression closed coal mines in 1933. His wife, the former Katherine Swistock, had arrived a few years earlier. Both were from small towns near Altoona. On Nov. 25 they will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

Andy worked for the Cleveland Diesel Division of General Motors on West 106th Street for more that 33 years, retiring in 1966. The couple have one child -- daughter Joan Ford of Fairview Park -- and a grandchild.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post September 6, 1990. Reprinted with permission.

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