AS A CHILD, I always felt bad when we had fish for supper.

It seemed so unfair.

Looking down at my plate, I couldn't help but wonder what chance the poor creature had. How could this little rectangular portion of protein - no head, no tail, no fins - possibly win when pitted against a wily fisherman like my dad, who, come to think of it, always caught his limit just in time for supper every Friday night?

(The key to the process was discovered by Mr. Maher - he had a chemistry degree from Harvard, after all - who realized that fish contained a certain chemical enzyme that made them particularly receptive to freezing. The fact that he made this discovery while working on a recipe for cat food is probably best forgotten.)

"Anyway," Rich added, "ïï¿¿½½General Foods wasn't interested in developing the fish stick product back then" - (personally, I would have said that General Foods had bigger fish to fry) - "but my dad saw a great future in frozen fish products, so he left General Foods in '52 or '53."

Like a lot of great inventors, Ed Maher had his quirks.

One of them was great pride in his World War II service with the United States Navy. It had always rankled him a bit that he, a Navy man, would wind up working for a company called "General" Foods, so when it was time to come up with a name for his new firm - a fish-based firm at that - he was only entertaining nautical thoughts.

"He wanted to call it Admiral Foods, but that was taken," Rich said, "so he settled for the next rank down and called it Commodore Foods."

Although the Maher family divided its time equally between Gilmanton Iron Works and Ed Maher's work base in Massachusetts, it was decided that Commodore Foods would set up shop in Lowell, Mass., and that all-important patent - which will turn 50 next month - was the operating Bible.

"The fish pieces, preferably filets, are placed in metal pans and covered with metal covers so that a uniform block or slab will be created," it states.

"Generally, it is preferred that the pan be of such a depth that a frozen slab of about 3/4s of an inch in thickness is obtained.

"The slabs are cut into sticks of any suitable size, one ounce sticks being judged preferable from a consumer standpoint. Sticks cut into 3 and 3/4 inches, by 3/4 inches by 1/2 inch will usually provided the desired one ounce piece."

"Any suitable method may be employed for the cutting of the sticks, a series of multiple circular saws being preferred from the standpoint of operating efficiency, particularly loss of fish as 'sawdust'."

We haven't even reached the portions of the patent relating to the battering or breading process, let alone the deep-frying and re-freezing, but I think you get the sense of the NASA-like effort that went into every single fish stick you ever ate.

And I'm guessing that Ed Maher eventually found a use for that so-called "sawdust" - ever hear of fish cakes? -ïï¿¿½½ because the best thing about visionaries is that they're always trying to expand their business and their field of vision.

For all of his hard work? Ed Maher envisioned retirement in Gilmanton.

"Before my dad was through, Commodore Foods employed hundreds of workers, and they sold their foods under private labels to a lot of the big grocery chains like First National, A&P, Grand Union and Demoulas," Rich said.

"He'd travel all over the world looking for fish - South America, Asia, North Sea countries - because when sales were up, they'd be short of fish. He hated that."

He also hated canned food.

"As a food chemist, he had a real aversion to canned food because of the fear of botulism," Rich explained. "Freezing had a lot of advantages."

And Ed Maher took advantage of his good fortune by feeding the kids at Camp Fatima in Gilmanton Iron Works, where campers - much like the Mahers and Claytons - got to enjoy fish sticks, all free, for their Friday night supper.

"My father summered there his entire life," Rich said, "and his parents had spent their summers in Gilmanton Iron Works even before he was born in 1920. He met my mother there and eventually, he retired there. He gave lectures for the Gilmanton Historical Society and he restored several old homes that were falling down in town."

And Ed Maher died there in 1999.

He died while walking the shores of Crystal Lake, but his legacy lives on in his beloved Gilmanton Iron Works, where the patent that launched a billion fish sticks still hangs on the wall of the Maher family cottage.