In February 1998, my dad was living in Playa Colorada, a quaint little fishing village on the norteastern coast of Venezuela, a few miles east of Puerto Cruz. He and I had been planning a reunion for the past 6 months, to meet in Caracas and together drive out to the Paraguana peninsula to witness the solar eclipse that would take place on the 26th, tauted as the "Eclipse of the Century".

Unbeknowst to me, that trip turned out to be the last time I would see my father in relative good health. It also turned out to be an "Indiana Jones" style adventure that neither of us would soon forget. The story behind that wonderous sortie will have to wait for a more formal telling, perhaps as a chapter in my memoirs.

It was, during the long hours we spent together in his 1974 Ford F-150 pickup truck driving to Coro, 20 miles south of our intended observation station, and 500 miles west of Playa Colorada, that my dad and I had "the Talk". We spoke of successes and failures, of adventures we each had, of people we had met, conversations of what we agreed should be the meaning of one's life, of philosophies and desires.

Dad was extremely proud of having as many children as he claimed to have (10) and did not regret that fact, but he seemed disturbed because he could not figure out which one group of children was his favorite. To him, each set had its own characteristics that tugged at some portion of his heart or mind, and perhaps to avoid showing any love or favoritism towards any one group, he did what he did best, dissappear. Move out of town and not tell a soul where he was going.

That habit of his, drove me crazy, and it took me 10 long years of hunting to eventually find out where he was. I was eager and anxious to meet with him and express the myriad questions I wanted to ask of him, so many things of which I would have liked to know his take on, have his advice on.

My father passed away on October 29th 1999, alas, my life time conversation with him was never meant to be.

Dad had this very inquisitive mind. I believe I have inherited that trait from him.

 From him i learned to approach life with a small degree of skepticism, that the way things are related to us are in direct proportion to the way others perceive the circumstances, that the best approach was to fully understand the underlaying basic principles involved, to use those principles to further you efforts at arriving at a sensible conclusion and executing the actions that are the simplest, yet have the most profound effect. That, and there is more than one way to skin a “Cat”.

 When Dan and I were maybe 12-14 yrs old, As a treat for nominal behavior, we'd go visit dad at his office, Forel de Mexico, by the Alex Cardini building next to “La Reforma” in Mexico City, a heavy machinery sales office. Dad and Julio his partner, would be working the late Friday afternoon phone calls, telexes and dictations, and dad would sit my brother and I in an empty office, go to his office and return with some item that seemed weird, unusual and never seen before by us.

 He wouldn't tell us what it was, but would say “you can take this home, study it, test it, find out what it is and what is it used for, and don't break it. When you figure it out or in a week, bring it back and give me a report on your findings”, then he'd leave and go back to work. Later, he would take us to Samborn's, a high end restaurant chain in Mexico, buy us dinner, and in this way we got to spend a special evening in dad's machinery business world.

 Because of these visit we were introduced to the VOM (voltage Ohm meter), HAM radio, Audio recorders, Photography, Drafting, Mathematics, Trigonometry, Vacuum tubes, the Sciences and many more subjects. Through these exercises we were being thought to approach the unknown with an open mind, with as little bias as possible and use whatever information was available to at the very least, come up with a viable description of what we experienced through our senses.

I have used those teachings throughout my life. They have taken me far. That is the one thing I most appreciate about my dad, and I thank him for.

...How I learned the Basics.

I remember having a conversation with my dad many years after not seeing him.  I can point out an immense amount of flaws, but I wont.  All I can say is that during that conversation as an adult child I actually felt how much he really loved Grace, my mom.  Yeah he loved many. But Grace was the special lady.  Because Grace was in fact the most special lady to him.  While he did wrong by her he was smitten by her.  Nobody can change that!!