My father’s father – my grandfather – died in the depths of the Great Depression when my father was five. He was the second husband his mother buried. She then single-handedly raised my father, his brother and his half-sister.

For a few years anyway. My father flunked the sixth grade, twice. He dropped out of school altogether in the eighth grade to go to work to help support the family. Kids grew up early in those days.

He joined the army at age 17 just before the war ended, and served in Europe and Japan. He got his GED, and landed a job as an engineering technician.

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