Memories – for Mary
Beginning a Friendship
Dear Mary. It is hard to believe we met your father, Jerzy Seidler 57 years ago!
Since that time, and despite the fact that we have lived most of our lives half way around the world from one another, your family and ours have maintained a closeness based the beginning on shared values and over the years on those values plus shared memories. It is amazing to Norm and to me to look back on all the times we have spent together and all the places where our paths have crossed. I am glad you asked us to write down some of our thoughts. I have accompanied those thoughts with pictures. I have pictures from only a few of our times together. I wish I had more. I hope the story of our friendship and the pictures from some of our encounters will interest Paul's daughter, your niece, Anastasia. I hope you will share them with her.
Warsaw - 1960
In 1960 we traveled to Western Europe and then to Warsaw. Volvo made little “bug” autos in the 1950s and 1960s. The cars were similar to VW bugs but rounder, and in 1960 we had arranged to pick up a red Volvo bug in Switzerland. We drove that little “bug” through Austria all the way to Warsaw. One of our stops was in Częstochowa, where my father was born in 1898.
I still remember the narrow roads, the flocks of geese and the wooden carts that constantly slowed us down and the crowds that gathered to see that little red car every time we stopped on that first trip through Poland.
Norm had encountered and appreciated your father’s technical work before our trip, but the trip was the first time we met Jerzy. A few years earlier Norm had met Andrzej Wojner at a technical conference. So we looked up Andrzej in Warsaw and arranged a dinner. Andrzej brought Jerzy along. It was the start of a friendship that lasted almost six decades.
Hawaii - 1972
In 1966 Norm and I and our two children, Mark and Carin, moved to Hawaii, and once we settled, the first person Norm thought of bringing in as a visiting professor was your father.
That first visit occurred in the early 1970s, when Paul was a small boy. Paul had to stay behind in Poland with your grandparents. Your father said Polish authorities at that time would not allow an entire family to leave the country. But your mother, Christina, was able to join us for part of the time and we came to know both of your parents very well.
I remember the first time I drove Jerzy around the island of Oahu, before your mom came. It wasn’t much of a sightseeing trip because the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island was erupting and the wind was blowing the smoke and fumes toward Oahu. The sky was brownish and we couldn’t see much!
While Jerzy and Christina were in Hawaii we sometimes took trips out of Honolulu to visit beaches on the other side of Oahu Island. I remember one trip, when the surf was particularly high and smooth, when Norm and our son Mark, and one of Mark’s friends, wanted to try surfing at a place called Leftovers — because the waves broke to the left and, if the surf was just right, gave a particularly good, long ride. Norm and the two boys took their surfboards out for “just a few” waves. They were gone for over two hours, leaving Jerzy, Christina and me on the beach. We explored that beach thoroughly, finding several fresh water springs that came up right through the sand near the shoreline and collecting a few seashells. And we talked. But we had to wait a long time that day before we could collect our group and head for dinner!
Gdansk - 1974
In 1974 Norm took a sabbatical year. Our summer and fall semester were spent in Budapest, where he worked on a United Nations Development Program project, helping to create a Hungarian technical institute. After a few days we were assigned a very nice small home a block from the Danube in Római Fürdő, on the outskirts of Budapest. But mail in and out of Hungary was a problem. We were told our outgoing mail had to be delivered to the post office unsealed. And we soon discovered that all our incoming mail was delivered with envelops neatly slit open and a small note attached to each envelop that bore a neat hand lettered message: "opened by mistake".
In August we took a short trip. We flew first to Denmark and Sweden to visit friends and colleagues and to meet our children, then crossed the Baltic on a ferry to Gdansk. Our children, Mark and Carin had spent the summer backpacking through Western Europe, with occasional visits to Budapest to replenish their wallets, and were scheduled to return to the United States on time for the fall university semester. It was our last chance to see them before we would return to the United States in November.
I am taking a short, but relevant, detour here because our time in Denmark was punctuated by the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the United States. It is relevant because we talked to you father and mother a few days after this event and know they shared our relief that the agonizing and interminable investigation of Nixon and the talk of presidential impeachment in the United States was finally over.
Carin in Copenhagen, August, 1974.
Our short trip to the Baltic was not effortless. Norm had brought a small HP calculator to Hungary with him months earlier and entered Hungary with no problem. He carried the calculator in his pocket. But when we were leaving Budapest for Denmark the authorities at the airport held him for over an hour. While I waited and worried outside, Norm was held in an interrogation room and grilled because those authorities thought he was illegally exporting a "computer" from the country!
When we arrived in Gdansk, Jerzy, Christina and Paul met us at the ferry terminal. (You were not yet born.) This was the first time we met your brother, Paul. He was a lovely and intelligent boy, not the least bit shy, and unfazed by having to hang around with adults.
1974: Paul Seidler in Gdansk.
Your parents were in the process of building a house, which was still under construction in 1974. Christina had worked as the head of a prosthetics laboratory. But when your parents decided to build that house she had to give up her job — it was impossible to build the house without someone devoting full time to the bureaucratic necessity of obtaining permits and materials for its construction.
Here is a photo of your mother — the earliest one I have. She was gathering strawberries in the yard of the still incomplete new home. Christina was a smart, vivacious and lovely woman.
1974. Christina Seidler picking strawberries in the garden of the Gdansk home the Seidler's were building.
And here are some pictures of Paul, your mom and your dad on a trip we took one day to the Gdansk seaside.
Poland - 1980s
We kept in touch with your father over the years, and in the 1980s, I remember that we sent packages once in awhile, mostly with school supplies and an occasional treat for you. Your father sent us the picture above, of you sitting on his lap. I think it was taken in 1983, I think after your mother died. Perhaps you know where it was taken. Was it in your home in Gdansk?
Once when we were in Warsaw Jerzy came from Gdansk to meet us. He took us through the Warsaw Old Town, which had been completely ruined during World War Two and which was being reconstructed meticulously following old plans and photographs. Then we took a taxi to our next destination. While we rode Jerzy talked about how hard it was to obtain proper medical care for you and your brother and how difficult it was to get supplies of all kinds. He talked so openly that I recall being anxious for him.
I also remember once — perhaps on this very same evening — that we went together to a restaurant where we expected to have a good meal and a pleasant conversation. The restaurant was empty of customers and a group of waiters was clustered together at the back of the room, holding an animated conversation. Finally one of them broke from the group and asked Jerzy if we had a reservation. We did not. Space was obviously plentiful. But the waiter told him “Sorry — no reservation, we cannot seat you.”
Hawaii - 1980s
After his first trip to Hawaii with Christina, your father returned two more times between 1970 and 1990. I recall that you came with him both times, and Paul came once.
Each of those trips was, I think, for an academic year. Jerzy was a fine teacher and was doing interesting research, so Norm was always anxious to bring him back. Here’s what Norm says about those visits:
When Jerzy visited the University of Hawaii, his salary was paid by the Department of Electrical Engineering and by the ALOHA research project. For the University of Hawaii part Jerzy usually taught one course in communication theory. The reviews of his teaching by students in his classes were always extremely high so I never had a problem getting permission to have him appointed as a visiting professor.
For the part of his salary covered by the ALOHA project the specific requirements were much more flexible and allowed Jerzy to conduct any theoretical research he was interested in at the time. Some of that research ended up in the books he published and some of it included a basis look at the computer network communication issues of interest to the ALOHA project in general. I recall that his research covered a very wide area of communication theory and much of that research dealt with general basic issues of what is called feedback information within communication networks.
Frequently we would go to dinner in Waikiki, and at times we would walk from our home just below Diamond Head and all the way up to, and through, the tourist part of Kalakaua Avenue. Sometimes we tried to count the number of ABC stores that had sprung up along the avenue. You probably remember those stores, they catered to tourists and were fully supplied with suntan lotion, rubber slippers, beach mats, and loads of souvenir trinkets. The shops were very popular for a time and we sometimes counted as many as twenty in what was probably less than a kilometer!
Norm recalls that once, as we walked along Kalakaua Avenue Jerzy told a joke: “Do you know what the difference between capitalism and communism is?” he asked. The answer, he said, was: “Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man.“ Then after a short pause he continued, “communism is exactly the opposite.”
My memories of this time have more to do with you than with your father. I still remember taking you out to buy your school uniforms in 1986. I don’t know where the photos of that visit have gone. I have only one, taken of you setting the table for dinner in our backyard. I recall that one time we made a pizza together for dinner. Maybe it was this dinner.
I have another picture of you taken in Hawaii a few years later at the outdoor amphitheater at Kapiolani Park. I think we were at the park for a Peter Paul and Mary reunion concert. Please correct my memory if I am wrong because most of the pictures of you I have from this time were taken in California.
California - 1989
By 1989 our daughter Carin had graduated from the University of Hawaii, and had married. She and her husband moved to Northern California where she worked as a software engineer. Our first grandchild, Luke, was born in 1988. We did a lot of traveling between Honolulu and San Francisco after he was born!
Norm and Jerzy had continued to be in touch on technical as well as family matters and Jerzy continued to accept visiting professor positions in the United States. I think 1989 was the year your father was teaching at Manhattan State University in Kansas. You were in high school then. It was a happy coincidence that you and Jerzy were able to visit us during that year. We had just bought a small apartment at the top of Russian Hill to make traveling back and forth to see Carin and her family easier and you stayed with us now and then.
You and Jerzy did some traveling in the Southwestern United States that year and brought us a beautiful set of blue agate bookends and a set of three beautifully carved wooden bears. We still cherish those gifts.
Below are several pictures of you with Carin and her family when they lived in Forest Knolls, in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I remember that trip to Muir Woods. You and I went together one day. And on our way home I remember that we picked up a woman who had flagged us down as we left Muir Woods State Park. She had been left behind by her tour bus and missed her ride back to San Francisco.
Austria - 1992
In the spring of 1992 Norm and I were back in Europe. We crossed the Baltic Sea several times, saw what was still called Leningrad just at its low point after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We drove through Estonia and Latvia to Lithuania to visit Alytus, the once small town where Norm’s father's family came from and then drove to Salzburg where we were able to visit with you, Paul and Jerzy for a few days. I think this was just before you started college in the United States.
Here are two pictures taken at the hotel where we stayed.
One day during our stay, you and Jerzy took us to the mountains above Salzburg. It was a lovely day and a beautiful setting for talking and catching up with your father and with you. Here are some pictures from that day.
California - 1990s
During the 1990s, when you were attending college in Idaho, your family continued to play a big role in our family life. Throughout your time in college you were a frequent and welcome presence in our home and in our lives. Here you are with three year old Luke at a county fair in Marin.
During the first of your visits, you shared the small apartment we had on Russian Hill. Below is a picture of you during your semester break in 1994. The picture was taken in early January on the ferry from Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco to Sausalito, in Marin County. That was just a week before our granddaughter, Katherine, was born.
I remember that Jerzy was continuing to spend as much time as he could away from Poland during that time. He was a fine teacher and a well known researcher and was always in demand as a visiting professor.
I think 1994 or 1995 was the year your father was teaching at the University of California at Davis. Norm and I passed through Davis once on our way to the mountains and stopped to visit with him. He was in him mid 60s then and amazed us by riding a bicycle to join us for breakfast. He rode all around Davis that year on that bicycle.
Our granddaughter, Katherine, was born in 1994. That was the same year we began living full time in San Francisco and traded in our little apartment for a home on Lake Street, where we still live. You spent lots of time in our home and we both hope you were happy here.
1995. Norm and Joan on the front steps at our Lake Street home in San Francisco.
Below are a couple of pictures taken of you and Katherine at a Christmas dinner at Carin’s home in Forest Knolls in 1996.
During the holiday season that year we made a family trip to Yosemite. Unfortunately, 1996 was a winter of snow melt, rain and a big flood. I recall that we had to cut our trip back and that our car — with Norm, you and me in it — followed a long and slow line of cars out of Yosemite and through a soggy central valley back to San Francisco. There were no cars behind us. I think we were the last ones out. We know people who were stuck in the valley for several days after we left.
But we had some good times in Yosemite despite the weather and I remember that you were overwhelmed one night by the beauty of the valley and the Ahwahnee Hotel.
The hotel name has been changed since then, as has the management. It turns out that Yosemite Valley was stolen from the native Americans who had lived there and the hotel name was similarly stolen. It took decades to correct the hotel name. The stolen property was never returned. That story has taken some of the luster and joy out of the place. But at the time, in 1996, we luckily did not know.
Here are some pictures from our stay:
Krakow - September 2010
After you graduated from college it was over a decade before we saw you again. You were in touch, as was your father and as was Paul, but we had to wait until we visited Poland in 2010 to see you and Jerzy again.
Of course much had changed by 2010 — both professionally and personally — for all of us. By 2010 you had gone to graduate school and begun your professional life. Jerzy had retired. Norm’s professional life and mine were, for the most part, winding down.
In the 57 years since we had first met your father, Jerzy, Norm and I had all grown old, with some of the impairments that age involves. Your father was living in Salzburg at that time, as were you.
Norm had lectured in Barcelona the week before our 2010 visit. Jerzy had arranged a lecture at the Krakow AGH University of Science and Technology. Norm talk was titled Aloha Random Access.
Jerzy and you both traveled to Krakow to meet with us. Here are a two photographs from that all too short meeting.
So, what is it that has bound us together for all these years? Certainly there were professional ties for Norm and Jerzy, and there were ties simply based on knowing each other, liking each other and sharing experiences over decades. That was probably enough. But there was something more —a matter of shared values.
In 1960, when we first drove that little red Volvo and first met your father, we had come for to Poland for a reason. At the start of this story I told you we had passed through Częstochowa Poland where my father was born. I also told you that in 1992, before we visited you in Salzburg, we had traveled to Alytus, an industrial city in Lithuania — once a small village where Norm’s father’s family had lived.
Both of those visits were made because we wanted to see something of the places where my father’s family and Norm’s father’s family had come from. We knew little about our ties to the Jewish communities of Poland and Lithuania in 1960 and hardly anything more in 1992 — only that we had lost many relatives during the Holocaust. But at that time, it was almost impossible to try to trace what had become of them.
By 2010, with the growth of the Internet we were beginning to discover much more about our families. We learned that Norm’s family — uncles, aunts, cousins and grandmother — several dozen people, had been marched to ditches outside Alytus and Siauliai and gunned down by German einsatzgruppen. We knew that my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins — another few dozen people — had been starved and beaten to death in ghettos in Poland or slaughtered in Chelmno, Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen during the Holocaust.
It was a painful subject and we talked infrequently with you or your father about this.
But once, during our times together — probably during a 1980s or 1990s visit where Jerzy talked about his life in Poland, he shared a story about his teen aged years in Warsaw during World War II. He told us that he and his sister had been sent to their grandparents’ home to live during the war because their parents considered it unsafe for them to live at home. What was the reason their home was unsafe? Your grandparents were hiding a Jewish family.
Over the war years, Jerzy was given a job by his parents. His job was to scout for extra food, to ride a bicycle into the countryside to find sources of anything edible — vegetables, eggs, perhaps a chicken. He would bring the food back to his father and mother and help to lower it to the hidden basement where your grandparents housed their Jewish friends.
Over our long friendship we achieved a level of comfort with your father — we shared a world view about the war, about politics, about life.
Krakow, 2010. The conversation continues.
