ABSTRACT
I. THE BEGINNINGS Everything begins as a child-it is all set before we even know it is being set, our interests, leanings, desires, drives, excitement, appreciations, needs, and lifetime careers. It comes from parents, environment, neighborhoods, public school, high school, college, initial employments, college advisors and instructors, and then it all gets reinforced as the career evolves into graduate school, postdoctoral training, initial permanent jobs, sabbatical leaves, and so forth. Some of us are very fortunate, we are born into families that care about education, provide a nurturing environment with books, TV, concerts, trips, more education, and the push to do better and learn more. My own Jewish upbringing in The Bronx, of all places, was filled with education, its importance for future life and work, its importance to succeed in life, its importance to earn a good living, and just the importance of continuous learning. Perhaps because we owned a small book, school supplies, and stationery store, I never went without what was essential for school, whether it was books, bookcovers, pens and pencils, slide rules, triangles, paper, book bag, and so forth. But behind it all was an understanding between child and parents that school came first, that it was the most important thing that could be done with one's childhood.
