Historian

Jimmy is one of the smartest people I've ever known. Yes, he was well educated (he holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Canisius College in Buffalo), but he's also just smart in ways you can't get out of a book. He had lots of practical smarts- lots of common sense. When his growing family needed a larger place to live he went out and built himself a house, out in Marilla, NY. Yes, he had help, but the fact that one day a city boy with no real carpentry experience just up and decided to go build a house (and it still stands - you can see it in Google Earth) is an amazing testament to his practical smarts and personal drive. It also says something about his personal commitment - how many say "My family needs a larger house so I'm going to go build one - with my own two hands"? But like so many things in his and Mom's life, there was a close family connection. The parcel he built on was bought from Mom's sister and brother-in-law, Dottie & Andy Harbison, who were our neighbors on one side. Our neighbors on the other side were Mom's parents, Mary and William Winterberg.

Dad seemed to know everything, and it amazed me. One day while we were driving to the Jersey shore we passed a long, low building I'd seen maybe a dozen times before on similar trips. The building always caught my eye. So on that particular trip I leaned over the front seat (these were the days before seat belts and child seats - we just bounced around in the back like a bunch of rubber balls) and asked, "Dad, what's that building over there used for". He gave a quick glance to the left and commented casually, "Oh, that's a chicken farm". Wow! I was amazed. I had the smartest dad in the world. He even knows what a chicken farm looks like!

What this all really means is that Jimmy has a natural drive and curiosity that is never satisfied. Everything interests him, from politics to physics. But one of Jimmy's true passions is history, and it's a passion he handed down to me. We are both absolutely fascinated with history and have spent many wonderful hours talking about this or that historical fact, deed or event. I think what helped is that we were often living in places that were just dripping with history. New Jersey and Philadelphia are the cradle of America, and you couldn't turn a corner or step through a door without being confronted with a historical plaque or marker. Even as odd a place as Maumee, Ohio played a significant role in the development of the post-Revolutionary War west. We were blessed to live in places that had a story to tell, and we both drank it in.

Dad reading some historical document, somewhere...

Visiting Ben Franklin's grave in Philly