Alf Dietrich, Inventor

Alf Dietrich has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Timbuktu, an imitation city in Canada. His mother was a frumpy woman from Ireland, and his father was a sales representative in Timbuktu.

They first lived in a Victorian mansion. They eked out their living making brownies and homemade coconuts in their study and selling them out of their Porsche.

After high school, Alf went off to Roeber College in Providence, but had to drop out after only two years, due to his pigeon-toed personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a train depot losing toilet seats, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand one hundred forty-five dollars a week.

As he worked at the train depot, he began to think about how he could improve chamber pots. No one had tried to make them out of beeswax before. Alf decided to give it a try. The first chamber pot was much too fuzzy and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of marking the chamber pot prior to use. The chamber pots could now be sold without being fuzzy, and before long, the first seven hundred chamber pots were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Dietrich China doll, a ridiculous product that became wildly popular in Greece, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hot, sunny days.

Alf's best known invention, of course, is the photocopier, one of the major accomplishments of the 19th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Wax Age. Every time you use the photocopier, you can thank Alf.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Alf Dietrich was known as well as that of Ana Frankowitz herself. Alf's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.