Charles Elmore Burford

Just picked up yesterday's Dallas paper and saw the quarter page obituary for Charles Elmore Burford.  I once had two boy students named Burford - great students and pretty doggone good athletes in Manor and very nice trombone players - and their mom was an excellent band parent person.  I miss those types of folks.
.
The obit said that he was an inventor.   Charles, or Chuck, or Charley, invented the twist ties for bagged bread.  The obit goes into the stone a bit more than I.  Now, that was a good invention.  Before that we used a little piece of plastic and, frankly, I cannot remember what we used before that.
. I see he was 81 and a Baptist.  Wait, the article calls him  "CB" not Chas.  He was born in Lindsay, Okla and became a farmer.  In 1945 his father Earl invented an automatic hay baler, a wire-tying device.  So in 1961 CB made some adjustments and Whammo we have the polypropylene bag ties. Makes you tear up somewhat.
. 
Also, he invented the machine that put sesame seeds on McDonald's hamburger buns.  I would have missed that one too.  How do these guys think up these things?  In the 1960s, ole Burford got the original patent on the 12-can refrigerator pack carton.  He was ahead of his time cause refrigs were too small at the time.   
.
My favorite though was that he was working on spray aluminum that you could spray on a potato before it was baked.  I'm not sure that product made it to the shelves.
.
Moving on:  the last part of the obit states that he made 18 safaris to Africa, 2 trips to Australia  and hunted in South America.  A quote:  "If you've only been to Africa once, you were too old when you went the first time," Burford said in 1997.  Apparently he was into providing good habitat for critters - nothing mentioned about cockroaches - they are critters too.  I bet he was quite a guy.
.
This was not meant to be a soul searching, drama filled blug today.  It is what it is.  Interesting to me.

m3