Remembering Dad

Today is March 1st and it is my father's birthday.  He died many years ago from cancer, but he was a pretty fantastic guy.  Dad was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in the early part of last century as the youngest child in a family of three - one older brother and one older sister.  His early life was idyllic, but when he was fairly young, his mother died and his father remarried.  My father and aunt always described their step-mother as evil - the original evil step-mother, just like in the fairy stories.  He lived with his father and step-mother until my aunt was able to afford to move out and took him with her to Vienna, Austria.  They escaped and never returned. 

Prague, Czechoslovakia is one of the most beautiful

cities in Europe. 

My father was a lore-master.  He was someone who wanted nothing more than to bury his nose in a book.  Unfortunately his life and Europe at the time, really didn't allow for him to engage in any advanced education.  But after he finally managed to escape Europe and arrive in the US, his life took a decided shift.  He and my mother moved to Colorado where they took a small apartment and he started to make a living as a door-to-door salesman.  He wasn't very successful at that career, and came down with tuberculosis.  After a long stay in the hospital and rehabilitation, he was trained as a bookkeeper and began a new career that kept him employed, running his own business, until I was in college.  Then he retired and began the life he had always wanted.  He went back to school, earning his BA, MA and PhD in a series of classes, straight-A grades and full scholarships for his advanced degrees.  He devised an education program for Business German and was accepted by Colorado University as a teacher at their Boulder, Colorado campus.  He wrote textbooks on German language that are still in print today, and he loved being a professor.  The last twenty years of his life were spent doing what he truly loved. 

The campus of Colorado University in Boulder, Colorado

is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  It's a

beautiful campus in a lovely town. 

My father loved opera, was a great dancer, and was a courtly gentleman.  He had his bad points too, because he was human and not everything is sunshine and roses for human beings.  But those bad points were quite minor.  He worshipped my mother and was always amazed that he was lucky enough to be able to marry her and share his life with her.  I remember and salute you today, Dad.  I love you still, and miss you every day.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to share you with the world - because you were a remarkable man.