Solly's dream is for his son Teddy to one day become a concert violinist. Eventually he comes to understand and to endure the heartbreak of knowing that the dream never will be realized. As Solly watches, life takes Teddy from gifted violin student to adult engineer and scientist, leaving no time for the career in music Solly so dearly wants his son to pursue. In the end, there emerges the essence of redemption as Teddy returns to the violin late in life and fulfills his and his father's vision. The story, which is a work of fiction based on real events, will fascinate readers from ages ten to one hundred who are interested in radio, communications, and music and in how it was to grow up in a family whose members trace their heritage to that great wave of immigrants that crashed onto America's shores in the mid- to late 1800s.
Full Circle
A Dream Denied, A Vision FulfilledBy Theodore Jerome CohenAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 Theodore Jerome Cohen
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-2914-2Contents
About the Cover...........................................xiPreface...................................................xiiiAcknowledgments...........................................xvI Rapprochement.......................................1II The Early Years.....................................23III High School.........................................55IV College, the Army, and New Love.....................103V Getting Down to Business............................119VI Fortuitous Decisions................................143VII Requiem for Solly...................................167VIII Closure.............................................175IX Good-bye............................................189Compositions Cited........................................195
Chapter One
Rapprochement
The radio alarm went off at exactly 4:30 AM, dutifully beckoning though hardly needed. Dr. Theodore Stone, or "Teddy" as he is known to his closest friends, had been lying awake staring at the ceiling for the better part of thirty minutes, thinking about the trip he was about to undertake, a trip back to his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a journey back in time.
Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" from WRTI-FM, Temple University's broadcast service, had shattered the quietude of the morning before he could reach the radio and silence it. It would be hours before the station's format changed to the classical music to which he was more attuned. No matter; there was no time to listen. Susan, his wife of forty-some years, was still asleep. She would not be accompanying him on this flight because she was needed at her job in suburban Philadelphia, where she worked as the special assistant to an executive in a publishing company. She would, however, follow along in a few days.
Teddy was pleased that Susan understood the importance of this trip. She had made his airline reservations well in advance. In the days prior to his departure, she also had had his favorite suit cleaned and pressed, and had packed it and his other clothes neatly in one small suitcase that could be checked at the airline counter. She even had scheduled a car and driver to pick him up at 5:00 AM so that he would have plenty of time to make the early Wednesday morning Midwest Airlines' flight direct to Milwaukee from Philadelphia International Airport.
At the vanity, he finished buttoning his shirt and ran a brush through his brown, thinning hair. He could not help but notice that the lines and creases from years of hard work were getting deeper around his mouth, and he wondered if growing a beard would improve his appearance. Probably not! he muttered to himself. And besides, there would be hell to pay in the Stone household if he even started one. He recalled what happened when he returned to the United States from Antarctica decades earlier with a beautifully trimmed beard and mustache, the envy of everyone on the base at which he had been working. In a phone call with Susan, whom he was dating at the time, she suggested in no uncertain terms that he think seriously about returning to his daily shaving habit-immediately-before he even returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Moving quickly to the kitchen, he spotted a gray Cadillac sedan idling in the cul-de-sac in front of their home. There still was time for a light breakfast, after which he walked to the bedroom and kissed Susan good-bye. Grabbing his violin case, plane tickets, and suitcase, he let himself out through the front door and took a seat in the back of the waiting car. As the driver pulled out of their gated community and headed for I-95 south, Teddy smiled. So, he mused, this is what it finally has come to. He was, of course, thinking about the fact that he was heading to his first professional engagement as a violin soloist, something his father, Solly, had dreamed about and first envisioned almost sixty years earlier. Teddy looked out the limousine window into the first light of the new day and thought about his father.
"Solly" was the name affectionately given to him by his mother and sisters; the name on his birth certificate was "Sol." He was the fourth child in a family of seven children-three boys and four girls. His father, Toni, was fortunate to have escaped the Russian pogroms with his life and make it safely to the United States as part of the massive wave of immigrants that crashed onto its shores in the mid-to late 1800s. After a failed attempt as a Hebrew teacher in Manhattan, he traveled to Milwaukee, following a friend's suggestion. Once there, he wrote to Sarah Bockshotzke, whom he knew in Russia, and asked her to join him. She did, and a year later, they were married. About the same time, Toni, together with his older brother Azar, started a tobacco shop that they called Badger Tobacco. With hard work, the business prospered. Toni, forever grateful for his success and the opportunities given to him, repaid his adopted country by acting as an advocate for newly arriving immigrants, a service he performed at no charge to the community.
Over time, Azar brought his three sons into the tobacco business, and the four eventually took control of the company, forcing Toni out. After that, it was exceedingly difficult for Toni to support his family. The stress was almost too much for him to bear, and as his smoking habit intensified from the uncertainties of making a living, so too did the violent coughing fits that marked his daily awakenings. He died one morning of a massive heart attack, almost a year to the day after being asked to leave Badger Tobacco.
Toni and Sarah's two eldest children, Charles and David, finished civil engineering school with help from their father while Toni still was working at the tobacco store. But with little family money available to help with his educational expenses, Solly, the third son, had no choice but to work his way through trade school. A quick study, he rapidly acquired the formal mechanical engineering skills needed to enter the work force and, once out of school, worked as a shop foreman in several southeastern Wisconsin shipyards and manufacturing concerns. It was during this time that Solly, a handsome young bachelor, met a beautiful brunette by the name of Myrtle Rubinstein, who worked as a secretary for a dry goods company in Milwaukee. Myrtle-who played the piano, enjoyed horseback riding (Solly was an expert horseman who had won many awards at local equestrian events, including jumping competitions), and loved children-fascinated Solly. They were married on Christmas day, 1935, and spent a few days in Chicago on their honeymoon before returning to work. With the outbreak of World War II, Solly took a management position at a munitions factory in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that produced anti-aircraft shells. When the war in Europe ended, however, he moved his family to Milwaukee. There, with guidance from his brother-in-law, Harry Rubinstein, he first struggled but ultimately succeeded in forming the Oakland Manufacturing Company, an electronics parts corporation, a few months after the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific.
Solly's interest in music came from his father, of that there was no doubt. Toni, a graduate of Harkof University in Minsk, was well educated in literature, languages, and the arts; his two greatest loves were classical music and opera. With...
