Call Me Del: Dogged in the Pursuit of Excellence

By Dr. Adel A. Yunis

The Author was born in the little town of Rahbeh in North Lebanon. He was the youngest of four boys. The family lived in a one room house, with no amenities, no kitchen or bathroom. They lived off the land, a limited bit of land. He and his brothers worked hard to keep the farm up and running. Life in Rahbeh in those days was primitive and simple, reminiscent of biblical times.

The author's father who had been in the USA for some years as a youngster came to appreciate the importance of higher education having himself been only to elementary school. Thus the father's life mission was to secure the best possible educational opportunities for his children; this was not an easy task, not in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s. To accomplish that he made the remarkable decision to travel to the west coast of Africa where he spent 11 years away from his family. He would send money home to the mother who's job among her many responsibilities, was to make certain the children were applying themselves at school.

The author completed elementary education at the age of 11, but because of insufficient funds was delayed one year before going to high school. He graduated from high school at age 16 and enrolled as a freshmen in college at the American University of Beirut (AUB). His father's dream was to see his son as a doctor. He thus was determined that his son study medicine. " I have never doubted that he made the right decision for me" the author states.

He graduated from the AUB school of medicine in June 54. During internship he applied and was accepted to work for an oil company. However it was the sincere praise of a single man that not only changed his plan but essentially charted his entire career path. He came to the United States in 1956 to study hematology at Washington University in St. Louis. It was here that Dr. Yunis fell in love with medical research and launched his career as a physician-scientist. Once down that path he discovered an inner drive to succeed and an incomparable passion for his work and the research mission.

This book is Dr. Yunis's way of revisiting the highlights of his career and his research accomplishments. It is also the story of how the author moved from a great institution to a young medical school promising a wealth of challenges and the potential for academic excellence.

Instead he became closely involved in a struggle between two agendas, an agenda for academic excellence against, what in his opinion, was an agenda for a health care supermarket. Because of poor misguided leadership at the top, a center for academic excellence was not realized. Nevertheless, Dr. Yunis could never be swayed from his pursuit of excellence always recognizing that "our mission as physician-scientists is to constantly generate new knowledge through research for the betterment of the quality of human life and to reproduce ourselves always creating new generations of physician-scientists to carry the torch. It is this noble mission and its execution that distinguishes great medical schools from the average ones."

Academic excellence will not thrive at medical centers designed as health care supermarkets. Because such centers place more value on clinical practice and the generation of income they often become graveyards for fledgling academicians. Resources alone, no matter how abundant, will not make a medical school great. It is the leadership at the top; an educated leadership totally committed to academic excellence as reflected by selecting the brightest students and recruiting and retaining faculty academicians of the highest quality.

In this book, the author also touches on a number of topics along with his views. These include : life in the United States, our moral values and how they have changed over the past fifty years; our failed foreign policy and the anti-American sentiment in the Middle East; our war on terrorism; the war in Iraq and the quagmire we have put

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 19, 2008
• ISBN: 9781412236003

Dr. Adel A. Yunis

Adel A. Yunis M.D.; FACP, is a 1954 medical graduate of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. After two years of internship and residency at the American U Hospital in Beirut, he came to the USA to receive training in the specialty of Hematology. From 1956 to 1959 he was resident, clinical and then research fellow in Hematology at Barnes Hospital, Washington U. School of Medicine, in St. Louis, Mo working with Drs. Carl V. Moore and William J. Harrington. From 1959 to 1961 he studied biochemistry with Drs. Edwin Krebs and Edmond Fischer at the University of Washington, Seattle. He then joined the faculty of the Dept. of Medicine at Washington U as instructor, then assistant professor. In 1964 he moved to the University of Miami, Miami Fl to direct the Division of Hematology, where he stayed for the remainder of his academic career. At the university of Miami Dr. Yunis held the following positions: Professor of Medicine, Biochem. and Mol. Biol. and Oncology, Director, Division of Hematology and the Center for Blood Diseases, Chief of Hematology at Jackson Memorial Hospital; Director of the Howard Hughes Laboratories for Hematological Research and Director of the General Clinical Research Center. Dr. Yunis was a Leukemia Society scholar, a recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institute of Health and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was an active member of many societies including; Assoc. of American Physicians; American society for Clinical I investigation: American Society of Biochem. and Mol. Biol., Am Soc. of Hematology and on the editorial board of an number of journals including J. of Lab. And Clin. Med., J. of Cell Cloning and BLOOD. He served on a number of committees of the Nat. Inst. of Health. He is cited in Marquis' Who's Who - 38th edition 1974-1975.

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Copyright 2007 Dr. Adel A. Yunis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1The Village of My Youth

CHAPTER 2A Land of Poets and Mathematicians

CHAPTER 3American University of Beirut

CHAPTER 4Internship

CHAPTER 5What Better Place Than America

CHAPTER 6Welcome to the Midwest

CHAPTER 7The Ward Fellowship

CHAPTER 8Go West, Young Man

CHAPTER 9Seattle

CHAPTER 10Back to the Beginning

CHAPTER 11The Old Country

CHAPTER 12Miami – The Early Days

CHAPTER 13The Productive Years

CHAPTER 14Recruitment: Stocking the Shelves of Knowledge

CHAPTER 15Sabbatical

CHAPTER 16The Beginning of the End

CHAPTER 17The Worm Turned Again

CHAPTER 18Unshakable

CHAPTER 19It’s All About the People

CHAPTER 20Fighting the Good Fight

CHAPTER 21Along Came Andrew

CHAPTER 22The Makings of a Great Medical School

CHAPTER 23The Three Rs

CHAPTER 24Reflections

CHAPTER 25A Husband, A Parent, AFriend, A Man

CHAPTER 26Sounding Off

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of:

1. My parents who made all the sacrifices for the education of their children

2. Dr. Virgil Scott who by his sincere praise essentially chartered my career path.

3. Dr. William J. Harrington for his inspiration and support in the pursuit of academic excellence.

And to all my former associates, fellows, and students who made my academic career a real joy.

Acknowledgments

Cover photos were obtained as follows:

American University of Beirut (AUB) campus was provided by the office of the AUB Alumni Association of N.A. New York, N.Y.

Washington University Medical Center, (WUMC) campus was provided by the office of development of WU.

The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center was provided by the biomedical communications division of the UM/JMMC.

PREFACE

THIS BOOK REPRESENTS a review of a life well worth living. My life.

No life is free of failures or regret, nor of success or accomplishment, and this book explores both sides of that very revealing picture: my life as a doctor, a researcher, an explorer of the new and a respectful advocate of the old; my years as a father, a friend, a believer in change and proponent of progress. As with the good years, the bad years have taught me to live more deeply, to explore horizons I may have missed otherwise, to appreciate more fully the gifts life has presented me.

Like many emigrants to this great country, I have spent most of my life here. I came here at the age of 26. The year was 1956. It was not a planned move, however. Coming to America had not been a life-long dream of mine. Even less expected was my decision to make this my permanent home. It is often said that America is the greatest country on the face of the earth. I honestly believe that to be true.

Given hard work and perseverance, a person can obtain their maximum potential here. No, that is not to discount the many limitations we encounter; there are always circumstances beyond one’s control. Three hundred years before Jesus was born, the Confucian scholar Mencius said, inequality is the nature of things. This rather profound statement applies in today’s world, and it applies in America. But in America, fighting against those inequalities is our right, it is our responsibility.

One faces circumstances, and one must put their best face forward. Luck may be apart of it, but luck in my view, is that which is left over after you have given all you have to give. A person may not belong. They may not fit a certain agenda. Certainly, no one is free from prejudice or the ravages of politics. And politics, even academic politics, can affect the practice of medicine. I have never been a politician. I consider myself too forthright to be a politician.

Adel, phonetically Adil, is an Arabic name that translates to fair or just, as a judge must be. My father, Assad Yunis, a man of great character, encouraged me to live up to my name, something I have always strived to do.

He once told me, Son, dress appropriately for every occasion. Typical of my father, this was a metaphorical statement that went far beyond outward appearance, and it was a lesson I took seriously. I have always tried to dress appropriately, pursuant to honesty. To do otherwise would be hypocritical, and I have never been very effective in the use of hypocrisy. Often in my career I have found myself thrust into the role of the politician, but honesty has gotten in the way. So, sometimes you have to follow. Derrieres must be kissed. Unfortunately, I have never been a brown-nose. Yes, this is a shortcoming that has held me back on certain occasions, but I have never regretted those occasions.

My story illustrates the tremendous positive influence others can have on a career, time notwithstanding. A word of encouragement, a sincere compliment, a meaningful nudge, an inspirational comment; truly, it was the sincere praise of a single man that essentially charted my career path. Once I began down the path, I discovered an inner drive to succeed, that inner drive fostered a willingness to work hard and to persevere. Out of that blossomed an incomparable passion for my work. How extremely fortunate can one man be? I have always loved what I do, a boast, I suspect, few people can make.

This autobiography is my way of revisiting the highlights of a career, with some well-placed commentary here and there. I cannot swear by the absolute accuracy of every date and every time mentioned, so hopefully the reader will grant me latitude in that regard. Furthermore, any opinions expressed — favorable or unfavorable — are not intended to deprecate or insult any individual or any institution. They are just opinions, consciously made and without haste.

This is the story of a scientist who moved from one of the world’s great academic institutions to a new institution that promised a wealth of challenges and the potential was never fully realized, nor was the dream that dramatic career move spawned. Though disappointing and unsettling, that clash of agendas does not make this a sad story. I am not a cynical or unhappy man. On the contrary, my experiences have validated the truths I learned as a young doctor in Lebanon: never be swayed from your personal pursuit of excellence; recognize that one of the most important responsibilities given you is to inspire young people; make the world of research so relevant to young scientists that they cannot help but be attracted to it. One thing is certain: If my colleagues and I are not able to produce a new generation of scientists, then we have failed.

I look around at the vastly important contributions that the hard-working, dedicated, and able associates and friends I have helped train are making in the world of medicine, and I know they feel as I do: We exist for the betterment of human health. In what greater way could one spend a life?

CHAPTER 1

THE VILLAGE OF MY YOUTH

FOR ELEVEN YEARS and the better part of my youth, my father was absent from my life. He had gone to Africa, sacrificing the small comforts of his home and the company of his family to insure that my brothers and I received the best possible education four Lebanese boys could have. In doing so, he set in motion all our subsequent lives.

I was born in Rahbeh, a small village of several hundred people located in the district of Akkar, in northern Lebanon. Akkar is north of the great port city of Tripoli, gateway to the Mediterranean. The early Canaanites established Tripoli as a means of expanding trade beyond their borders and exploring new markets for the rich spices and exquisite perfumes they exported. There has never been a day since when Tripoli was not a transportation center of great importance.

I was the youngest of four boys: Victor, Aniece (Andy), Michael, and me. We lived in a one-room house built of concrete. It is said that ours was the first house in the village to make use of concrete. There were three adjoining rooms, each overflowing with people and seemingly endless activity. My family resided in the first of the three rooms. My uncles Elias and Toufic and their families occupied the other two. The families squabbled over just about everything.

Our concrete house was equipped with neither a kitchen nor a bathroom. We cooked outside in the open in a cooking pot fueled by stores of wood collected in the nearby hills.

Our mother, Menache, a woman of dignity and grace, gave us a bath once a week. She heated the water over the fire and poured it cup by cup over our heads while we scrubbed with soap.

Our toilet was in the bushes. We used plant leaves or stones for toilet paper. Parasite infestation was rampant. It was not unusual to have a bowel movement composed entirely of tapeworms. The worms ate every ounce of the food you ingested, so they were the only things that showed up in the stool. Other infestations, like Ascaris, were also common, so the matter was a major public health problem.

My family lived off the land, and a very limited bit of land at that. We worked a few acres, planting wheat and corn and harvesting vegetables like tomatoes and beans. Fruit trees growing on our land bore us such treasured commodities as apples, oranges, figs, and grapes.

As had been done for centuries, we harvested our own grain. We would go into the field and cut the wheat with a scythe and spread it on the ground in a broad circle. When the stalks were completely dry, we would break them into pieces for grinding. Like every family, we owned a large wooden board imbedded on one side with jagged rocks; the Mawraj, as it was called in Arabic, was the most indispensable tool a farmer could own back then. Ropes were attached to either side of the board and harnessed to our horse; then the jagged side of the board was placed on the wheat. My brother or someone with more experience than me would lead the horse in a circle — around and around and around — until the wheat was totally ground. I was charged with the best, if not the most important job of the grinding process. I rode on the board to add weight — around and around and around — carefree and happy behind the old horse. When the horse and I had successfully broken all the wheat, we gathered it into a large pile. Using an implement that looked much like an oversized fork, we sifted through the wheat, throwing it repeatedly into the air. Done properly, the useable by products returned to the ground and the lighter straw blew away, separating the chaff from the grain. Then came the painstaking process of clearing the grain of any rocks or impurities; this was a task done entirely by hand. When my mother was satisfied that the grain was ready, it was taken to the mill and made into flour.

My family owned two cows and a scattering of chickens. Our diet consisted mainly of grains, vegetables, olives, bread, and the homemade cheeses (shankleesh) that I dearly loved.

Of course, milk from a meager herd of two cows was hardly enough to make significant quantities of cheese, especially if you were interested in selling some of the cheese at market. Accordingly, three or four families pooled their daily milk in rotation; this allowed one family at a time to make enough cheese both for their own table and to sell.

Meat was a luxury. The town butcher normally had a selection available once a week or so, but it was rare that we could afford a slab of beef more than twice a month. When we did purchase meat, it was a special occasion to be sure.

My brothers and I worked hard to keep our farm up and running. My mother occasionally paid for hired help, especially during harvest time, but the bulk of the labor fell to us. When the day was done, we all slept on a single mattress that rested atop a rectangular wooden platform. Beneath the platform were compartments for the storage of wheat, corn, and beans. It was a clever use of space. At meal times, the grain was dispensed through a hole at the bottom of each compartment.

The neighborhood baker lived across the road from us. Her name was Rhoda. Rhoda’s bakery was a big hole lined with hard packed mud walls and surrounded by smooth mud ledges. The Arabic name was Tannour. Every morning, she filled the hole with wood and started a roaring fire. As the wood burned down and the coals grew hotter, the surrounding mud absorbed the heat until the ledges were hot enough to cook on. Then Rhoda would arrange the flat circles of her loaves, and the smell of baking bread would fill the air. At first glance, it might appear to be a very primitive way of baking bread, but the first breads were, after all, most definitely flat and most often cooked over an open fire; in many parts of the world it’s still done in this fashion. In parts of Lebanon and Syria, bread is cooked on a sajj, a sort of inverted wok. The sajj is placed over a small fire, and pancake-thin bread dough is placed directly onto the dome. In Mexico, tortillas are still prepared on a griddle over an open fire.

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Before my father left for Africa, he held two jobs. He worked on our farm in the morning and at a local silk factory in the town of Beynou the rest of the day. Silk has a long history in the Mediterranean. The members of the ancient Persian courts clothed themselves in silks imported from China, and the Greeks were importing it from western Asia as far back as biblical times. The silk industry in the area known as Canaan is nearly as old.

The factory in which my father worked collected silkworm cocoons from individual families in the neighboring villages. In the spring and summer, almost everybody in and around Akkar raised silk worms, including the Yunis clan. It wasn’t that complicated, and it produced a tidy sum of much needed money. We bought the ova of the silkworms from local dealers and incubated them outside in the warm weather. When the ova hatched, they produced tiny silkworms that we farmed in rectangular trays covered with branches and twigs. We fed them chopped mulberry leaves. Six weeks later, the silkworms stopped eating, climbed into the branches and twigs, and began spinning their cocoons. The harvested cocoons we then sold to middlemen who eventually sold them to the factory where my father worked. In the commercial production of silk, only enough adult moths are allowed to emerge from their cocoons to ensure the continuation of the species. The rest of the silk worms are killed by heat, either by immersion in boiling water or by the dry heat produced in ovens. Remarkably, each of their cocoons produces an individual fiber as long as 3,000 feet.

To reward our efforts in helping raise the silkworms, my mother would give each of us several cocoons to take to the candy shop. The owner of the candy store accepted the cocoons as barter for pieces of hard candy and chocolate, though I never knew for sure who got the better end of the deal.

My father saved enough money from his job at the silk factory to build us a new stone house with three rooms, and, shortly thereafter, he set out for Africa and his eleven-year hiatus from the family.

Here it is important to honor my father’s contribution to my life by stepping back for a moment. In 1912 and just a teenager, Assad Yunis was given the opportunity to travel to the United States in the company of a close relative. He lived in Shreveport, Louisiana for nearly ten years, working primarily as a storekeeper in an immigrant neighborhood and then as the store’s manager. He was in his mid-twenties when he returned to Lebanon, and shortly thereafter, he gained employment in the silk factory in Beynou. It was there that he met my mother.

Though my father had only gone as far as elementary school, his stay in the United States had given him an appreciation for the importance of higher education. My father’s life mission was to secure the best possible educational opportunities for his children, and he vowed to use whatever means necessary to provide it. This was not as easy as saying the words might imply. Not in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s.

Formed from five Turkish Empire districts, Lebanon became an independent state in September of 1920 and was administered under French mandate from 1920 to 1941. When the French withdrew in 1946, the Lebanese people took the issue of education into their own hands. Today, the literacy rate in my homeland is an impressive ninety-two percent, approaching the United States’ ninety-seven percent, and making me very proud. An education was not as easily acquired, however, in my father’s days.

After my father had settled his family in our new home and after his four sons were safely enrolled in the village school, he made the rather remarkable decision to travel to the west coast of Africa. The year was 1936. An overland journey covering 1,500 miles of the most unsettled lands in northern Africa landed him in Free Town, Sierra Leone, in what was known back then as British West Africa. My father gathered together a small group of investors, friends with a few precious pounds to spend, and opened a liquor store and bar catering to soldiers and traders — anyone with a spare shilling to spend.

My father was never a heavy drinker, and I always found this admirable. He had one or two drinks a day, generally before a light dinner. He favored Arak, a local liquor distilled from grapes with anise. Every evening, I remember him sitting down with family or friends around a small table laden with plates of fresh sliced tomatoes, a homemade cheese called Shankleesh, in a bed of olive oil and homemade preserves and bread. This was how men of his generation socialized.

With the coming of the Second World War, the influx of British and French soldiers increased, and the bar’s popularity grew. Monthly, my father would send money home to my mother, and with each letter, he would reinforce the urgency of our continuing education. If it was mother’s job to make certain we were applying ourselves at school, it was only one of many responsibilities a woman raising a family alone and tending a farm had. She was a truly remarkable lady.

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I remember those early years vividly. I entered the village school at the age of four. I was reading fluently a year later. With all due modesty, I was always first in my class, and there was seldom a close second. Mr. Michel, or ‘Teacher Michel’ as we called him, would sit me on his knees and call everyone in the school to come listen to me read. Kids twice my age would stare in amazement, and I have to admit that I enjoyed the attention.

When summer came, I raised a lamb or a goat hoping to make an extra penny or two. I would fatten her up and sell her at market right before I went back to school. I also had my own cow. Her name was Friday, a rather common name for cows back then; don’t ask me why. I often took Friday to the pastures overlooking our village. It was a two-mile walk and quite an adventure for a young boy. In one hand, I carried the lunch my mother prepared for me, and in the other, I carried my handmade flute. These were special outings for me. I like nothing better than spending the entire day in that pasture. From my vantage, I could see all of Rahbeh. In Arabic, the word Rahbeh means a roomy place or extensive and spread out. Appropriately, Rahbeh covered the slopes of two rambling hills, a spectacular 2,000 feet above sea level. During the winter and into the early spring, the mountains to the east were glazed with snow, adding a touch of splendor that lives even now in my memory.

Above all else, Rahbeh was a village of many waters. It was often said that there were 360 natural springs feeding the valleys and glens in and around our village and providing precious water for the many fields of wheat and corn and the trees heavy with apricots and pears, peaches and grapes, figs and olives.

Life in Rahbeh in those days was primitive, simple, and reminiscent of Biblical times despite the passing of two thousand years. Houses were clustered so tightly together that one family could almost hear the passing of a whisper beyond the walls of the nearest neighbor. It was, in many ways, as if we all lived in one sprawling house. Everyone got up very early because sleeping much beyond dawn was impossible. Every morning we were greeted by a symphony of sounds created by crowing of roosters, the braying of donkeys, the mooing of cows, and the swell of human voices. These were the sounds of farmers preparing for a long day’s work.

In those days, a single, unpaved road led to and from the town. Within the town, a scattering of narrow, weather-beaten roads wound in and around the sod huts and the stone houses that climbed the hills of Rahbeh. There was hardly a moment during the day when these ancient concourses weren’t teeming with the traffic of donkeys and cows and swarms of people. The sight of a motor vehicle was as rare as rain in summer, and if a car or truck were to appear, the animals still had the right of way.

Very often, the farmers in their fields would load up their donkeys with bundles of wheat or corn, point them in the direction of the village, and send them back home unattended. The donkeys were so well schooled that they wound their way down the winding roads and among the tightly packed dwellings until they found the one that belonged to their masters. A parade of donkeys was a sight we all took for granted.

There were few shops in the town of Rahbeh. There was no electricity and no running water. The women of the village used a large spring in the middle of town for their cooking and bathing needs, and there were always two or three of them filling their jugs and several others hauling them back up the slopes to their homes. The sight was as familiar as animals parading in the streets.

It was not unusual for me to take my cow, Friday, to the pasture above the village in the morning and to leave her there while I went to school. I never worried about her; this was part of village life. Friday, like the donkeys, routinely returned home by herself at sunset. I grew to expect it.

One day she failed to return. I waited until the sun was past the horizon and the night stars were beginning to show themselves. Still Friday did not return. By this time, I was extremely upset. I lit a gas lamp and went out searching for her. I followed my route to and from the pasture, but Friday was nowhere to be found. I went to bed thinking something terrible had happened. Early the next morning, I resumed by search, talking with everyone I met, and combing every field. Eventually, I learned from a neighbor that a man in the adjoining village had confiscated a cow, though she could not confirm that the cow was indeed Friday. According to my neighbor, the man had discovered the cow feasting on his wheat crop and decided this was enough to call the cow his own.

When I reported this news to my mother, she and I set out for the village. If the cow was indeed Friday, she assured me, we would get her back. Once we entered the village, the man’s house was not difficult to find, and when we saw the cow tethered out front, it was none other than my Friday. After a short negotiation, my mother paid the man for any damages Friday may have inflicted on his crop, and we started back home with Friday in tow. I was as overjoyed as a ten-year-old boy could be.

I would return often to those beautiful hills. Banked with mountains as pristine as any I would ever see, it remains to this day one of my favorite places.

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Figure 1

Family in 1946–1947

From left: Michael; Father Assad; Andy; Mother

Menache; Adel; Victor

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Figure 2

My Father and My Mother

CHAPTER 2

A LAND OF POETS AND

MATHEMATICIANS

IF YOU GO to Rahbeh today, the town has grown considerably, and, some would say, for the better. The population has grown to 8,000 people with its fair share of doctors, lawyers, and assorted professionals. There are villas overlooking the hills. A mayor and a 13-member council rule the town government.

On the occasion of my recent visit to Rahbeh, summer 2004, I was honored at a ceremony organized and hosted by the city council. It was truly a proud moment for me to be so welcomed by my hometown and the people I love. During this visit I also had the pleasure of reuniting with many relatives and friends I had not seen for years.

The main streets have long since been paved, and cars are plentiful; still, however, the condition of the back roads leading to the fields and into the mountains remain nearly as rugged and rutted as they were in my youth. Most of Rahbeh’s homes are equipped with electricity and/or generators, and electric appliances are a luxury enjoyed by many if not all.

Signs of the past do still exist. Even today, the produce from the fields - grains, vegetables, and fruits – is occasionally transported into town by domestic animals.

Likewise, life in the village has not changed very much. If you stay in the village overnight, a cock crowing at three in the morning may still awaken you. If you hear shouting well before the sunrises, it is the men of the village preparing for a long day in the fields. At the crack of dawn, the smell of coffee will fill the air, and you will see the villagers with their animals straining under their loads as they head for the fields or the market. As the day progresses, little girls and boys come out to play in the streets, and the sounds of their laughter and cries fill the air.

It is rare to find a villager who is not friendly and full of life. You are expected to greet everyone and be greeted. The people will want to know who you are and where you are from. Why are you there? In Rahbeh, everyone knows everyone else, and the business of one is the business of all.

That was my universe as a child. The sense of community was inherent in everything we knew and did. We were surrounded by the beauties of nature and blessed with the gifts of every season. I was absorbed by this beauty and thankful for these gifts long before the names of the flowers were even known to me, and, to this day, I love nature. I feel sorry for people who cannot stop to observe flowers, bear witness to the trees, or feel the cool of the rain on their face.

This is the land that I was born to, a land of poets and mathematicians.

My father may not have been a mathematician, but he had the spirit of scholar and the heart of a poet. When we were children, he would recite poetry to us as a form of entertainment. I remember listening