Bob's Epilogue

I was born in 1928 into an entirely different world than today. World War I was fresh in adult memory, the AM radio was the hottest consumer product. Horse-drawn wagons delivered milk, ice, and laundry to our house. Middle-income families saved to buy both an automobile and an electric refrigerator, transportation was by steam-powered trains and ships, most country roads were unpaved, and the era of silent films was just ending. It was a slow-paced, analog world with direct and strong connections to past centuries.

My very earliest memory is having my collar bone broken when my cousin, Joan, who was six months older than I, literally kicked me off the bed on which our mothers had placed us, head-to-feet, for a nap. Being undeservedly kicked out of bed by a female at such a tender age undoubtedly warped my view of self and the world for evermore. Looking back from an advanced age of almost eighty, it seems my life has been little more than a series of random anecdotes. I survived four long months in an Army hospital bed, I earned a Masters degree, I had two books and dozens of articles and papers published, I managed to stay married to the same wonderful woman since 1967 and raised two beautiful daughters to productive and loving adults, and, finally, I pursued, but never quite caught up with, an international consulting engineering career. But in accomplishing these life-time achievements, I have little more than anecdotal memories of the trivia that seems to have filled my life. Perhaps I set my goals too low as young man; perhaps my desire to merely support my family while I enjoyed my career were too self serving and mundane.