Triumph of Persistence, Determination and Preparation

Today is Fathers Day and our children are planning a get together attheir house. As is usual for this time of day, there was the morning fogreplaced later by a clear sky, bright sunshine and warmth. The expectedhigh temperature today is 71 degrees Fahrenheit up from this mornings65 but nowhere near the 91 degrees that thermometers would normallyregister on Fathers day when I was a kid. Our children have invited us overto celebrate, since our oldest son is now a father himself, and as my wifeand I drove over to their duplex, I realized that three generations of myfamily will be there and it became clear to me that the time had come forme to provide them with a biographical accounting that will fill in someblanks about their paternal roots and give them a clearer understandingof one half of their cultural heritage. It may have appeared to our childrenduring their short childhood visits to the ancestral homeland of theirfather, that their aunts, uncles and cousins lived differently, and wereapparently not as sophisticated as the people with whom they interactedin Berkeley. They were too young to appreciate the fact that their auntsand uncles had successful careers as teachers, master welders, policemen,grocery chain manager, and personal assistant to the President of theircountrys Senate. They probably judged that their cousins toys werecomparatively primitive viewed against the electronic marvels that theywere accustomed to, nor were they as numerous. Television receptionthere was deplorable compared to what they were used to at home, andthe duration of programming was limited, but academically, their youngrelatives skills were comparable to their own. On one occasion theywere awed by the ability of a few of their cousins to build a functionallean-to that fitted into the games they were