All my young life, as far back as I remember, I have always wanted to be a pianist and composer. When I attended high school, I took all the music courses I was allowed, which conflicted with the usual math and science courses college prep students were taking. Before graduating, I was accepted to The Manhattan School of Music. Since I was living in Elizabeth, NJ at the time, I took a bus to Port Authority in NYC. On the way there, I would bring math and science books with me to try and catch up to where my friends were in these subjects.

    When I witnessed from fellow students at the conservatory,  what real potential musicians were able to do, I realized that I would never be able to play on a professional level  Fortunately, I met a woman, Corinne, who would soon become my wife. I told her my sad story and also my interest in reading Einstein’s audacious comments about the universe being curved around matter and expanding, all based on mathematical symbols that I knew nothing about.

    She suggested that I apply to Rutgers as a physics major, which I did, and was accepted. We married, and the following year our daughter, Barbara, was born. During this time I realized it was mathematics that I loved, and wanted to go on to graduate school 

    I was reluctant to approach Corinne, but not only had she decided I should go to graduate school, but I must go to the University of Chicago. I had applied to several good universities that did offer me financial help, but the University of Chicago accepted me with no help whatsoever. I thought we couldn’t go, but Corinne, being fiercely unafraid, insisted we would make our way.

She eventually got a job at a nearby hospital and I got a job as a cyclotron operator at the Fermi Institute. During the time I was going for my master’s degree, our daughter Susan was born. I was able to stay at the University of Chicago for my Ph.D. I chose to study classical analysis under Antoni Zygmund.

    Mathematics at this time was totally divided between pure and applied mathematics. I thought the dichotomy was ridiculous. To me, pure mathematics was mathematics applied to the human mind, and I began to investigate the differences between the math of the mind and the math of external objects

    I did not put these ideas in my thesis but rather kept to the topics Zygmund had suggested. I knew then, however, what I would be spending my life working on.

    When I was finished, I mentioned to Zygmund that we needed to go back East. All our family was there and some of them had never seen Susan. A few days later as I was preparing my resume, Zygmund called me into his office. He said that there is an opening at the Rockefeller Institute He said he knows people there, and if he makes a phone call, they will hire me.

I had never heard of the place and was not quite sure what an institute was, but if I could get a job on his phone call, why not?

    I had no idea how prestigious a place it was. I was on the same floor as George Uhlenbeck, who, along with Samuel Goudsmit, discovered the electron spin We would say hello to each other every morning.

    The euphoria over being there did not last long. After a few months new young people who were hired that year, about 10  of us, were ushered into a room, told to read the book, Differential Geometry and Symmetric Spaces, by Helgason, and then write a paper on the material. The others were excited. They wanted to work together, meet once a week to discuss where they were in their reading, get a partner to write the paper together, etc. I was crushed. I had no idea I was hired to produce more of their products. I was under the impression that I was hired to produce creative work for the enrichment of mathematics. Not only did I realize that this was not true at Rockefeller, but that the big shots in any prestigious university would steer the research in that department to what interested them.

    I knew I had to leave. I needed to find a dinky college in the middle of nowhere, where I could teach my courses, and be left alone to do my research unimpeded. That place turned out to be Penn State.. Little did I know that I was hired the same year as Joe Paterno, 

Penn State’s football coach. He built the football team to such great heights that Penn State is no longer dinky but is still in the middle of nowhere.

    While at Penn State, I did the work I needed to do, but I had no desire to continue working at any university. I wanted us to start our own business. I talked it over with Corinne. She asked what I could do. I said I could tutor in physics, math, and statistics, and even give piano lessons if need be.

    She said we need to buy a house somewhere midway between NYC and Philly. That way we will attract people in the suburbs of both cities. We got out a map. I put my finger right in the middle and I landed on Bordentown, NJ. We bought a two-family house there and we put ads in several local newspapers,

“Tutoring, from grade school through graduate school, in physics, math, statistics.”

    We had two rules that would govern all our decisions:

1. If it doesn’t support us, then we will support it.

2. Do not turn anyone down.

    Corinne worked her magic answering the phone and making appointments. Instead of a waiting room, she set up a library, with books of great authors as well as Marx’s Das Kapital and Hitler’s Mein Kampf The library had a door so that parents who wanted to wait for their child, could close themselves in the library and have an hour of peace.  Soon, all the tutoring spaces were filled. So, not letting anyone down, she overlapped some of the spots, informing me to just bounce back and forth, like an expert chess player taking on many players at a time. Once I acquired skills along those lines, I ended up being able to manage three people at a time.

    There were also calls coming in from people who wanted help in unusual parts of the subjects I tutored. I called them back and told them I knew nothing about that topic, but I would be glad to work with them and we could learn the material together. I knew that the chances of someone finding a person who could tutor them were almost nil. The majority of those people accepted the kind of help that I offered.

    Then I started getting calls from some of the branch campuses of Penn State. Could I teach a math course at the Ogontz campus outside Philly(now called Abington)? Could I teach a math course outside Reading? Then I started getting calls from other nearby places.. Could I teach a Math course at Drexel U, Could I teach A course in the MBA program (Master of Business Administration) at a branch of Monmouth College, situated at McGuire Air Force Base? In the spirit of not turning anyone down, the answer was always yes.

    In one of my MBA classes at the Air Force base, I had a student who was the commanding general at Fort Dix. After the course was over, he hired me to do statistical work for him. I was a special assistant to the commanding general. I worked there for several years until he retired. I had no idea how much of the state of New Jersey is owned by Fort Dix.

    Another of my interesting jobs came from the Divine Word Seminary, a Jesuit order in Bordentown that set up a junior seminary on land once owned by Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain, and Napolean’s brother. I had heard that there were secret tunnels leading to the Delaware River, to aid Napolean to escape if he ran into trouble, came to America, and stayed with his brother. When I was told that a priest there had a heart attack and they needed someone to teach mathematics. I couldn’t resist it not being me. I took the job, taught the boys math and music, and stayed there for several years, learning all about the order, and loving the beautiful estate.

    We bought a house in Princeton, rented part of the house in Bordentown, and I tutored in both places for a number of years. Then we sold the Bordentown house and bought a coop apartment on the lower East Side in NYC, where I tutored there and in Princeton for more years.

Once the pandemic came, I stopped tutoring and will spend the rest of my life introducing the mathematics of continuously changing objects to the world.

    Corinne died in July 2024. We were married 68 years and I will be 90 on Sept 22, 2025. We were blessed to have two daughters, four granddaughters, and seven great-grandchildren, four boys, and three girls.