Notes - on my father /

        Your father's birthday is today, Richard Bookman Orndorff, 8 December 1918 - 12 January 2001. The facts as you have them in your Reunion 10 software: "Avid hunter and fisherman and all round outdoorsman. Killed one of the largest elk in Colorado. Also a craftsman gun builder. Full of strong self discipline his whole adult life. Loved square dancing." Do you have anything else you would like to add? - Amorella

         No, I don't, not at this time. It pretty much sums up his interests.

         Earlier in the blogs you mention he was an eagle ranked Boy Scout, class officer several times in his Westerville High School Class of 1936, his degree in chemistry from Otterbein. His work at Chicago munitions plant, Oak Ridge, his part with the Third Army Combat Engineers, his part in freeing the German Nazi Dachau death camp and his ability to speak German, which helped disseminate and bring necessary German scientists to the United States after the war, while taking further class work at OSU after the war he played second/third string quarterback on the OSU football team; research metallurgist on the saber jet engine at North American Rockwell, research metallurgist at the Ohio State University, and he was a dedicated employee in research and as plant manager at the English company, Foseco, a leading metallurgical industry for over fifty years and operations in over thirty countries. He was also a full-fledged agnostic (like yourself) and a dedicated, family man his entire life. Do you agree? - Amorella

         He liked jazz and most kinds of music; and he played the saxophone in high school and college. During my high school years he worked as maître de at the Grandview Inn on Saturdays. He loved to meet and greet as well as to get to know to hear the well-known musicians (Louie Armstrong and the original Dukes of Dixieland come to mind first). I forgot this stuff.

         You need to remember these things once in a while. Uncle Ernie told you a few years ago that your father was a good man, though he knows you and your dad did not get along well during most of your father's life. Post as a lesson to you. - Amorella