This is a memoir about the author's exposure to the culture surrounding his grandparents and the Spanish language they spoke. They were important influences in his long relationship with the state of New Mexico and they impacted his life far into adulthood. He describes his recollections of headless snakes, children with rifles, railroads, desert storms, horses, ranches, and research about family outlaws. The account culminates in adventures that he and his wife Deborah had in Mexico during their efforts to adopt a child.
About the Author: Frank was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in May, 1943. His father was a Naval Officer and Pearl Harbor survivor whose newly assigned ship, the USS Baltimore, was under construction in Quincy. His mother was a New Mexico native who married his father four weeks after meeting him while his first ship, USS Tennessee, was being repaired in Bremerton, Washington. When his father returned to the War, he and his mother moved to New Mexico, at which time he was four months old. After WWII Frank spent most of his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area in California but, typical of Navy families, he moved several times. The one constant in his life was that he spent a couple of months every summer in New Mexico with his grandparents . Back in California, or Washington, or New Hampshire, or Pennsylvania he attended school and Presbyterian Church. In New Mexico he ran around having adventures with horses, rabbits, rattlesnakes, etc. He also attended Baptist Church and couldn't understand the differences between the two Protestant groups. Frank attended junior high and high school in Vallejo, California, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in mathematics. He obtained graduate degrees in mathematics and psychology and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh. After working for Westinghouse and Bell Telephone Laboratories, he spent most of his career at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh as a faculty member or researcher in robotics, public policy, and philosophy. He lives with his wife Deborah, a retired psychotherapist of several decades' experience, and five year-old grandson Matthew in Santa Fe. His older daughter Diane is a Latin teacher at the Emma Willard School in upstate New York and is happily married with three sons. His younger daughter Flor, adopted in Mexico, is a personal banker at Wells Fargo in Albuquerque. Matthew is an expert on Godzilla, tornadoes, and Minecraft.