![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Happy Birthday Dad!
Nov. 14th, 2006 04:06 pmToday is my dad's birthday and I am very happy that he is my dad.
Caroline calls him Pop-pop and she loves it when he makes silly faces. Apparently I did too when I was her age. She knows that Pop-pop uses a computer a lot and that he takes lots of pictures of her earning him the nickname the Grandpaparazzi.
He taught physics for many years with a specialty in optics and spectroscopy. He has a passion for his work that always impressed me even as a kid. I knew what LASER meant before I was in kindergarten and by the 2nd grade I even knew that it should have been LOSER rather than LASER because it is due to oscillation not amplification but who wants to work with a LOSER? I learned a lot about light and properties of light from my dad. He gave me my first prism that I used to make rainbows all over my room. I still have that prism. It has traveled with me from place to place. I can remember going into his lab and the laser he was using was set up on the sand table to minimize movement. The table had rubber tires in the middle of the legs. I remember watching him tune a laser from one color to another. I also remember my mother trying to figure out how to deal with ties that had dye and burn marks on them when they got in the way.
My dad taught me a lot about photography. How to take a picture and how to frame a picture. I can still hear his voice in my head when I get ready to take a shot. He also taught me a lot about art and music and how to look at art. My musical tastes were influenced a lot by my parents. I grew up with both pop tunes and classic music playing in the house along with big band and jazz.
I can trace my love of Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer back to my father along with Flanders & Swan (A chorus of yums can still run around their dinner table). Clever use of puns and language was always encouraged by my father but woe betide you if you used words incorrectly. Correct grammar and neutral accents were a must in my house for which I am grateful since learning how to speak at a young age has allowed me to be understood all over this country and in several others as well.
I love you Da.
I am so grateful that my father is my father.
Caroline calls him Pop-pop and she loves it when he makes silly faces. Apparently I did too when I was her age. She knows that Pop-pop uses a computer a lot and that he takes lots of pictures of her earning him the nickname the Grandpaparazzi.
He taught physics for many years with a specialty in optics and spectroscopy. He has a passion for his work that always impressed me even as a kid. I knew what LASER meant before I was in kindergarten and by the 2nd grade I even knew that it should have been LOSER rather than LASER because it is due to oscillation not amplification but who wants to work with a LOSER? I learned a lot about light and properties of light from my dad. He gave me my first prism that I used to make rainbows all over my room. I still have that prism. It has traveled with me from place to place. I can remember going into his lab and the laser he was using was set up on the sand table to minimize movement. The table had rubber tires in the middle of the legs. I remember watching him tune a laser from one color to another. I also remember my mother trying to figure out how to deal with ties that had dye and burn marks on them when they got in the way.
My dad taught me a lot about photography. How to take a picture and how to frame a picture. I can still hear his voice in my head when I get ready to take a shot. He also taught me a lot about art and music and how to look at art. My musical tastes were influenced a lot by my parents. I grew up with both pop tunes and classic music playing in the house along with big band and jazz.
I can trace my love of Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer back to my father along with Flanders & Swan (A chorus of yums can still run around their dinner table). Clever use of puns and language was always encouraged by my father but woe betide you if you used words incorrectly. Correct grammar and neutral accents were a must in my house for which I am grateful since learning how to speak at a young age has allowed me to be understood all over this country and in several others as well.
I love you Da.
I am so grateful that my father is my father.
