Millions of people around the world - and their dogs - have enjoyed the game of tossing and catching the plastic discs known as frisbees. The man who perfected the toy was Ed Headrick, who died on August 12th aged 78, and he loved them so much he asked that his ashes be moulded into memorial discs.
"Steady Ed" put the request in his will, with instructions that money from sales of the discs go to a museum devoted to the frisbees history. It was not such an odd bequest, for the novelty goes back to 1871, when William Frisbie bought a bakery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and named it the Frisbie Pie Company.
Students at the nearby universities of Yale and Harvard, who took deliveries of the pies, would throw the empty tin platters across campus, yelling "Frisbie" to the catcher as they sailed through the air.
Nearly a century later, at San Gabriel, California, a toy firm called Wham-O - creators of the hula-hoop - heard the legend and borrowed the name without knowing the correct spelling.
Ed Headrick, who had a natural talent for technical matters, offered to work free for three months at Wham-O in 1964 if they would give him a job. He was directed to a warehouse full of plastic left from the hula-hoop craze and decided to modify the Pluto Platter. This was a disc toy for children that had not flown well, despite a name intended to exploit a fascination with space and flying saucers.
Its design had come from the inventor Fred Morrison, who sold the idea to Wham-O in 1955 and patented it two years later. Ed Headrick made it more aerodynamic by adding ridges and other improvements, introduced it in 1964, and patented the modern version in December 1967. The "professional model" had better lift and could be thrown greater distances than its predecessor. It has sold over 100 million worldwide.
Ed Headrick was born in Pasadena, the middle-class northern suburb of Los Angeles, and after high school served in the US infantry in Europe in the second World War. He later worked as a deep sea welder and sold water heaters, among other jobs, but a friendship with the late Arthur "Spud" Melin, co-owner of Wham-O, gave him his chance at the firm.
He described the frisbee success as an antidote to organised sport that fitted in with the 1960s counter culture. As well as solo players, organised games were developed around the Frisbee and associations devoted to the pastime sprung up all over the world.
Ed Headrick invented disc golf in the early 1970s, in which frisbee-like discs are thrown into metal baskets. He left Wham-O to develop the game and designed the first course in southern California in 1975. There are now hundreds, with two million devotees in the US.
He described the difficulties of developing toys in 1966. "We have to review 100 ideas to find one that has interest. We have to look at 1,000 before we find one that seems worth testing. And we have to run 50 to 100 test ideas before we come up with something good."
Ed Headrick is survived by his wife Farina, three sons and a daughter. He did not want a funeral and was cremated the day he died; but his old firm, Wham-O, said technical difficulties might prevent them carrying out his last wish. If the company could not produce the frisbees they would be made elsewhere, his son, Dr Daniel Headrick, declared.
Edward Early Headrick: born 1924; died, August 2002