As the return of spring brings a breath of hope, my latest for the Valley Advocate: a touch of memoir tangled up with politics and science.
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As a kid in Brazil, my dad was science-obsessed. When a teenager, he convinced his uncle to bring him chemicals so he could make them react in his bedroom. Once, he burned through his windowsill when a beaker of sulfuric acid bubbled over.
He came of age during the early computer revolution and was quick to realize its potential. His own father wanted him to become an electrical engineer. But my dad is nothing if not stubborn. He followed his dream, working for Sperry Univac, which took him to London and finally America. Now, having once worked on room-sized vacuum-tube computers, he writes software for cell phones.
All through my childhood, my dad did science with me. From business trips he brought home toy science kits that he and my sister and I opened together. I still remember the chemistry one. It was crammed with little tubes and colorful reagents and stirring rods and instructions. The impact was indelible. My sister today is an organic chemist and teaches at Hampshire College.
My dad taught me how to program a computer. He took me birdwatching on Audubon Society field trips. With him, the world was rich, full of natural surprises to discover.
But I was also passionate for stories, for novels and poems and comics. So I ended by studying geology — the earth’s story…
read more here, at the Valley Advocate
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The image at the top of the page shows the Instituto Militar de Engenharia, the military engineering institute in Rio where my father received his degree.