The Father I Didn’t Know

by | Jan 15, 2011 | 0 comments

My father died on the day my first grandchild was born.  His death and her birth are all of a piece. He had always been in my life, but I didn’t know him well, at least not as a son should know a father.  Throughout most of my adult life I more or less ignored him.  Of course, I did the obligatory things that one does, but with little interest or feeling.  His gentle nature and lack of apparent drive or ambition had caused me to conclude that he was, at his core, a weak person.  I, on the other hand, had already achieved things that he could never understand (or so I thought).  We had no basis to relate, except that biology and my mother had conspired to...

A Life in Full

by | Mar 27, 2010 | 0 comments

About sixteen million of our fellow citizens served in the armed forces during WWII.  To put that number in perspective, in 1940 the population of the United States was slightly over one hundred thirty two million.  My long division is not so hot, but my now antiquated HP12C which never fails me calculates that 12% (give or take) of our total population wore the uniform and served in our defense.  Of those serving 416,000 died during the course of hostilities.  I’m sure that many others died subsequently as a result of injuries suffered during the war, but I don’t have that number.  In any case, millions lived on after the war.  They married or didn’t, had...