FYI: Dad's patents:
I don't know much about Dad's life as an engineer. He didn't teach us anything about either electronics or math (to my knowledge).
My older brother and I did well in school. My brothers didn't do quite as well, but in those days, I never heard anything about "learning differences." I think most of us assumed the schools were good and kids reached whatever potential they could.
I don't remember how old I was, but I have one memory of being in the car with Dad when he asked me something about "approaching zero." Perhaps he asked, "How far from something would you be if you keep moving half the distance to it?" Maybe I was 10 or 12? I think I said something like "You'd never get there" and he made the point that the distance would be zero. His answer seemed correct, but I didn't understand why.
On April 23, 2017, Dad shared on Facebook:
What's on my mind? Not much, today! Am in the process of renting out my timeshare and also putting up for sale. Comes a time! When we have to decamp. And it feels good to dwnsize, pass the baton, Goethe hasa saying which I'm translating for you from his German: Ultimately, It is the greatest art to closet (beschraenken) and limit oneself. I read this as shedding the trivial; getting to know oneself; avoiding the unimportant; putting self on highest pedestal.
"Putting self on highest pedestal" - that strikes me as easily being misunderstood, since the phrase has different meanings.
He didn't mean one should think oneself is perfect, or beyond question or deserving better treatment than others.
He meant it in the sense that one should focus on making ones own life important, rather than worrying about criticizing others. While he took many civic actions and always voted, he put his own responsibilities first. And while he watched a bit of TV and movies, he never worried about what celebrities were doing.
Dad's focus was on making his own life great. Partly because one is primarily responsible for oneself and one's family. And partly for pragmatic reasons — it is what one has the most power over.
By practicing this, he was a contribution to friends and community, as well as his family. Not only did he hugely improved his employer's ability to gainfully employ many hundreds of people over the years, but that was often foremost in his mind. Plus he, and they, contributed to the aerospace technology that has enriched all of our lives.
Dad was proud of his accomplishments. He valued that his early experiences with prejudice and danger in Nazi Germany didn't debilitate him. He had only hatred for the Nazis, but that hatred was rarely present. And it didn't lessen his friendship with German ex-patriots or German business people.
Dad loved life. He loved symphonies and poetry and literature. He'd sing in the car, and occastionally in the living room when reminded of a lyric. Unfortunately, I didn't share his taste in music and have a natural impatience for songs, but I appreciated his willingness to punctuate a point with a performance.
He loved the outdoors. I remember camping trips to the Olympic peninsula. I remember driving to the Klaloch Campground, watching the maze of trees zoom by from the back of the station wagon. I have a bit of a memory of Mom on one of the early trips, but mostly it was Dad and us four boys. Sometimes we'd smelt- I remember Dad standing in the surf and then come up out of the waves and we'd empty the silvery wigglers into the bucket.
One he brought a fishing pole and we fished for perch in the surf. Dad was excitedly saying "Wow, guys, look!" and we crowded around the bucket as a fat perch gave live birth in front of us. More than once we sat around the campfire at night and sang with the ranger.
When I was
He loved the freedom and opportunity that America offered.
Dad was both a romantic and a pragmatist. At Peter Stuyvesant High School, he was a voracious reader. During his stint in the Navy, he was an electronic technician, but his first love was poetry. He used to wrote and sung lyrics with a fellow enlisted man who played the guitar.
Afterwards, he was faced with a choice- the poetry that he loved, or study electrical engineering. He made the pragmatic choice.
His sister had taken care of their mother for years.
Why was she needed? Moritz died in Oct 1958... Was Peter Stuyvesant High School right on the Hudson River? (Ronnie was born July, 2946, when Dad was 20... When did