Cover Letter - San Francisco State University: Fill & Download for Free

Over 10 years ago I bought three vintage suitcases (over 100 years old) at various second hand stores and flea markets. When cleaning one of them I found a Panama Canal Medal in an inside pocket.I learned a lot about the canal and the men & women who built it. In addition to the heavy manual labor involved, the heat, humidity, Malaria and insects were oppressive. In their time off, there was nothing for workers to do except drink… and many became alcoholics. Eventually a pool hall and theater were added. Local labor was used as well as the US Army since the local men were accustomed to the conditions and the soldiers assigned to the Canal Zone had no choice but to stay. Going AWOL was pretty much out of the question as there was no way to return to the States. For civilians who signed on voluntarily to work there, most left after a few weeks or months.Of over 50,000 men and women who worked on the Panama Canal, only 7,404 received this medal, and 3,885 of those received a bar indicating the four years of service. The one I found, Roosevelt bronze medal #5205, was awarded by President Roosevelt for 2 years (1909-1911) continuous service building the Panama Canal; the bronze service bar #3228 was added for two additional years of service (1911-1913). Name inscribed on the medal: W. H. StoneI noticed several Roosevelt Panama Canal medals for sale on eBay and online coin shops at prices ranging from $500 to $750. I believed that the owner was unaware the medal was in the suitcase pocket when he sold it. I also realized that if he was old enough to be working in Panama in 1909, it was impossible that he would still be alive over 100 years later. The extra money would have been nice but I decided I would not sell it until I had done everything in my power to reunite the medal with the family of the man who earned it. Little did I know the search would take me nearly 10 years. Every time I seemed to hit a wall, I stopped the search for days or weeks and sometimes months, until I came up with a new idea or another approach.I tried fruitless searches using various terms on Google and Facebook. I didn’t want to advertise that I had the medal for fear that someone would falsely claim it only to sell it. I really had no idea how to find descendants of someone who lived over 100 years ago when I knew nothing about him (or her??) except initials and a rather common last name. No full name, no birth date, no hometown, etc.When my sister took a cruise through the Panama Canal, I sent the medal inscription information with her and requested that she query the canal expert who was lecturing on board how I might locate the rightful owner’s family. He didn’t know, but referred me to the George A. Smathers Libraries’ Panama Canal Museum Collection at the University of Florida in Gainesville.Online, at the George A. Smathers Libraries website, I found an entry for William H. Stone on page 188 of the Panama Canal Personnel Records matching his medal number. So at least now I had a first name in place of initials. Still, the search would have been so much simpler if he had a less common first or last name. There are many, many people online named William Stone including the governor of the colony of Maryland from 1649 to 1655, and a William Henry Stone who was a patriot during the American Revolution. Neither of them were related to the medal’s owner.I eventually found his canal Service Record Card online through the genealogical records of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. I gleaned bits and pieces of information and unrelated factoids about him along the way, but made little progress in locating his descendants.A message from Rebecca Fitzsimmons at the George A. Smathers Libraries in response to my voicemail there suggested that I contact the Archives in College Park, MD, which keeps construction period records on personnel employed by the Isthmian Canal Commission, Panama Railroad Company, or the Panama Canal from 5-4-1904 through 12-31-1920. However, she noted, they did not keep records on workers once they left work in the Canal Zone so would probably be unable to help me find anything about his living descendants.Weeks passed. I finally received a response to my email from an Archives Specialist at the National Archives Building in College Park MD stating that their Panama Canal records had been relocated to the National Archives in St. Louis, MO and suggesting I contact them since they also had military records and many Panama Canal employees subsequently joined the military.I contacted the St. Louis Archives. They reported that they had no relevant information but referred me to the National Personnel Record Center archives website. There I read: “On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The records affected 80% of the records on Army Personnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1980.” According to a notation on his Panama Canal service record, William H. Stone was discharged in 1919 so that was most likely a dead end. (Hmm… I had to wonder: How could a fire in 1973 destroy records of personnel discharged in 1980?)I followed up with a phone call, hoping William H. Stone’s records were among the 20% that were not destroyed in the fire. The administrative Aide I spoke to took lots of information from me that she said she “would relay to staff who would get back to me in a couple of weeks”. Six weeks later, I received a letter stating that they do not provide services to locate living individuals. (So, does that mean that they provide services to locate dead ones?)Once I’d learned that “W” stood for “William”, a Google search of “William H. Stone”with “Panama Canal” turned up an entry on a William H. Stone, Jr. which, in spite of his name being the same, his being the right age to be William’s son, and having joined the Army to serve in the Canal Zone, turned out to be a red herring. No relation at all. Dead end.I had already determined that William was not in the Army between 1909 and at least 1913 while in Panama. He had to have worked on the Canal as a civilian since only civilians were awarded the medals and military personnel working on the canal were specifically excluded from receiving them, as they were “just doing their jobs”.Beginning 8-24-1909, at the age of 28, he worked on the canal for at least four years from that date to earn the medal plus one bar. The last entry on the service record lists him as a Deputy Inspector on 2-1-15. Per the service record, he was a machinist in the engineering department who was initially paid 65 cents per hour, but it appears that was gradually increased to either $1.75/hour or $175 per month (which is the equivalent of about $1.10/hour if he worked a 40-hour week). From the record card, it’s unclear whether he had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army prior to work on the canal or joined the Army after 2-1-1915. However, it’s very unlikely that he was already a Lt. Colonel by age 28. More likely, he attained that rank after his work on the Canal. It notes that he was discharged from the US Army on 6-21-1919, but subsequent information on his military tombstone shows that he fought in World War II so either he was not discharged in 1919 or he joined up again after that.At this point, I was stuck. I posted a question on Quora: “How can I locate and contact descendants of Lt. Col. William H. Stone (born 11-3-1880), a machinist who left his home in San Francisco to work on the Panama Canal from 1909 to at least 1913?” I received only one response but it was a great one. Alan Moll responded with links to the tombstones of William and his wife Annie and their mortuary records.From these links I found photos of their headstones in the Golden Gate Natl. Cemetery in San Bruno, CA and their precise dates of birth and death, plus the mortuary records provided the name and address of their son, and more.William Henry Stone, born 11-3-1880; died 9-9-1962 at age 81California Lt. Col. US Army, US Army, World Wars I and IIHis wife Annie Stone, born 6-23-1882; died 9-26-79 at age 97 (She died in Coral Gables, FL but she is buried beside William in San Bruno. Her inscription is on the back of his tombstone and they didn’t bother to include her maiden or married surname,)Alan informed me that “a search of Google Books showed that William was a member of the Board of Local Inspectors for the Panama Canal in June 1916.” William’s Panama Canal Service Record card (above) lists him as "Deputy Inspector" there on 2-1-1915.It was Alan Moll who discovered and shared with me the links to the headstones, the mortuary records, and other valuable information. I’m convinced that my search could never have succeeded without his help.From the mortuary records I learned that William Henry Stone’s father, Thomas F. Stone, and his mother, Ellen Fallon Stone, were both born in Ireland. Thomas came to the US in 1859. I was never able to learn if he came directly to San Francisco at that time, perhaps for the Gold Rush, or whether he settled somewhere else in the US first. In San Francisco, he was employed by a company that made gold dredging machines. By 1870, the US Census located him in San Francisco, but his whereabouts between 1859 and 1870 are unknown, at least to me.I eventually learned from his granddaughter that William Henry Stone was the third son in the family and it was traditional for the third son in an Irish Catholic family to become a priest. He did not want to do that, so he ran away from home at age 15 and lied about his age in order to join the California National Guard. That would have been 1895 or 1896. By 1909 when he went to the canal zone, he had been discharged from the National Guard. He must have joined the Army at some point after he received his 4-year bar in 1913 since the army inscribed on his headstone that he fought in both World War I and World War II.All these facts were teased out one at a time from information I found online. Each document or narrative that gave me an additional fact allowed me to do another search by combining it with previously ascertained names, places, or other information.William Henry Stone’s only child, William Francis Stone was born 6-4-1916 in Ancon in the Canal Zone. William Francis Stone was living in Los Angeles in 1935 and was single and living in Berkeley in 1940. He married Joyce Ellen Horgan (born in San Francisco 7-11-1918; she died there on 9-28-2003) who was a single medical assistant in 1940, living in San Francisco. And they had six children. Only their firstborn, Pamela A. Stone survived. Sadly, the other five babies were either stillborn or died the same day they were born. (Twin girls 8-22-1952; a boy 6-8-1953, a girl in July 1954, and another girl 8-25-1957.) William Francis Stone died 5-6-1992 in San Francisco.Their daughter, Pamela Ann Stone, was born in San Francisco. She married and at 22 she had a son, Francis “Frank” also born in San Francisco. She and her husband divorced when Frank was young and she eventually relocated to Fresno, CA. Frank earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Davis. While a student there in the mid-late 1990's, Frank was part of a group working on "Future Car". From their report cover I found the names of the classmates he collaborated with and tried searches using his name with each of theirs in an effort to locate him.I found a 2005 post where his friend Del mentioned that Frank was known as Frank the Tank and that he had moved from northern to southern California. He was working for a firm which makes shock absorbers and Del stated that Frank was a supporter and fan of racing and all things with wheels.Another friend mentioned the name of Frank’s fiancée and that they were planning to marry in Puerta Vallarta in late 2008. When I did a search with Frank’s name and his fiancée’s, I found their engagement announcement in his fiancée’s hometown newspaper.From a forum thread started by Frank’s friend Fred, I learned that the wedding was lovely but there was a tragic accident at the reception when Frank jumped into the pool and woke up days later in a San Diego Hospital, a quadriplegic.I located a record of Frank selling his home, which provided his mother Pam’s address in Fresno. A fairly simple search then yielded a phone number and I learned she was back in San Francisco. We met shortly after that and I was finally able to return the medal to the family of W. H. Stone. Pam shared wonderful memories of her grandfather and planned to pass the medal on to her son.Her happiness at receiving her grandfather’s medal and my thrill at finally solving the mystery meant far more to me than the money I might have gained by selling the medal.

Great Question! Lets got through the facts listed on their web page(info can be found here: FAQ - MS in Data Science | University of San Francisco)The median GRE Score is 167.Our acceptance rate is between 10%–20%, depending on the year.So that provides a bit of information — but not a lot. So I will walk you through the process to give you a bit of insight about how decisions are made and where people get rejected.First, we fully review all applications. Faculty and staff look at all the material sent for completed applications. We do our best to review all applications in a holistic manner — we aren’t looking for unicorns who has excelled at everything.What are things that lower the probability of you receiving admittance:Low GRE Scores (< 160 Quantitative). The GRE isn’t a perfect measure, we get it. We also believe that anyone interested in data science should be able to study, work and get a score in this range.Poor Statement of Purpose:Grammar errors.Failing to address obvious holes in your resume or background. If you have a year long gap on your resume and never state what you were doing then questions may be raised.Grammar.Failing to answer the question posed.Grammar.Did I mention grammar?Poor LOR. When you ask for a letter of recommendation make sure to ask for a “strong” or “good” letter. Many times we receive a LOR which contains reservations. Not a good way to get admitted.Prerequisites — we require 3 courses (Statistics, Linear Algebra and Programming). If you haven’t taken these courses then your application is going to be valued less than someone who has taken them.If you have been out of school for a few years then taking these courses (and getting a good grade) is a great way to prove that you are committed to learning data science.Courses that don’t assign grades (such as MOOCs) don’t count for us. It is too easy to go through them without learning anything.This doesn’t cover everything, but (I hope) should give you some ideas of how to put a competitive application together. To be honest, most of the rejections that we send out are because of one of the above issues!Hope this helps!-nickp.s. I teach in USF’s Data Science program (MS in Data Science - College of Arts and Sciences | University of San Francisco) which is a technically rigorous program located in SF. If you have read this far, I recommend checking it out!

My mother had loved one man (pictured above) all her life. I guess some women simply do.Ufa, Soviet UnionMy parents met in Ufa State Aviation Technical University. My father Vladimir (now known as Vlad) enrolled there, because being Jewish, he had been denied entrance to the vast majority of universities, while this particular one willingly accepted Jews.My Russian mother, Elena, finished high school with a gold medal and could pick and choose any university in the Soviet Union. However, she wasn’t confident in her abilities. He mother suggested Moscow but she, she wound up taking entrance exams in Ufa, Bashkiriya.Vladimir was a year younger Elena. She felt pretty helpless on her own, in another town, without parents, and Vladimir arranged everything for her. For the purpose, he engaged help from his local friends who would get him tickets to concerts, fetch delicatessen and fix him up with a car.Strange as it may sound, I met one of my father’s Ufa friends a few years ago in Forte De Marmi, Italy.At the time, I was tutoring his godson - whose father Iskander was his best friend and helped Iskander financially to launch his business, which eventually made him rich.Iskander’s father taught economics in the same university where my parents studied at, and helped open doors for Jewish students, including my father.Perhaps this is just a coincidence.My parents’ love affair continued after they graduated from the university. My father moved back to his native Crimea, and during their summer vacation in Yalta my mother became pregnant with me.When she found out, she tried to get in touch with Vladimir, but he was unavailable. She flew to his hometown, Simferopol, where she was confronted by his mother, Bronya.“Go away, Chiksa,” she said. “My son’s not interested in you. He’s a romantic man and now on a merchant ship in the Black Sea.”This encounter haunted my mother for the rest of her life. And possibly not only hers…Ulyanovsk, Soviet Union/RussiaMy mother returned to Ulyanovsk where her father, lieutenant colonel in the Red Army, was just given a one-bedroom apartment by the state. My mother was very upset and was heading for a hospital to do an abortion, but my grandmother, Alexandra, talked her into keeping the child.There had been this invisible, strong connection between my grandmother and me until she passed away in 2009. She felt responsible for me and I felt that I owed her my life.A few months after my mother gave birth to me, my father showed up. He wanted to see his son, but my mother told him, “don’t come back, don’t try to contact us, don’t try to see us.”Coincidentally, my father’s cousin Boris lived in the same town and was the head of the engineering department in the Interregional center of Microelectronics. Boris was angry with his cousin for what he had done to my mother and stopped communicating with him. He hired my mother right away.My grandmother told me the whole story. She loathed my father and became quite an anti-Semite.In 1994, my mother learned she had stomach cancer. Eight months later she was dead. In her painkillers’ induced delirium, she kept returning to the scene in Simferopol when my father’s mother told her off. What kind of family is that? This is what she really wanted to know. I vowed to find out.My grandmother realized she didn’t have money to bury her daughter - her pension and my granddad’s pension were barely enough to buy basic food for the three of us. This was a very dark day for her, as she lost her only daughter and the state she had worked for all her life couldn’t provide for the funeral. She was sitting on the couch and weeping, when the doorbell rang.She opened the door and saw a delegation of Jews headed by Boris.“Alexandra, I told folks in the Jewish community center that Elena was a wonderful person who helped everyone around her, and now we want to help you,” said Boris.He promised they would cover all the expenses with the funerals. They did, and also booked one of the largest restaurants in the city so there was a nice wake, and would bring food for us free of charge.After this incident, from being an anti-Semite my grandmother became a die-hard Judeophile. Whenever I’d have conflicts with Jews, she’d always take their side and scold me to tell me I was wrong and “don’t be like your father; he is a bad person.”A couple years later, I met Boris (he lives in Israel now) and told him I was going to meet my father. Prior to that, I found in my mother’s address book my father’s address in San Francisco, which was provided to her by Boris. She wrote to him asking to take care of me when she found out she had cancer, but he never answered. Maybe he didn’t get the letter. Maybe he did.Boris filled me in on what transpired in my father’s life, which he learned from his relatives who were still in touch with him.A few years after visiting paying a visit in Ulyanovsk, Vladimir married a woman, a singer, and they had a son, Stanislav. The singer was not Jewish, but this time his mother accepted him into the family, and helped bring him up.In the meantime, Vladimir did a PhD, and launched a business importing computers to the Soviet Union. He became rich, bought a yacht, hired a crew and was the first citizen of the Soviet Union who docked on a private yacht in Israel.Later his business was raided and he decided to leave the country, which was now Ukraine.In order to immigrate to the United States as a Jewish refugee he needed to bring in a family. Two persons qualified as family.He paid his ex-wife eighteen years worth of child support and took his son with him to San Francisco, California. There was a sponsor in California, who financed their first steps in the new country.Next, Vladimir’s mother, his sister, her husband and their two sons followed.Boris hadn’t heard from him in three years, so he didn’t know for sure Vladimir’s current address.And then he gave me a piece of advice. “Your father is a hard man. He’s not going to accept you. You’d be bitterly disappointed. Don’t go looking for him.”But I remembered my mother, who till her dying day wanted to know what was wrong with my father’s family, and so I decided to disregard his advice.Bay Area, California (1)It took me years to get to the United States, until I finally did in 2001. Once there, I found out that my father changed his address.I headed for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. After three hours in line, I was told that they can’t provide the address of my father because they had to protect his privacy.Next, I went to a Jewish Community Library. A librarian listened to my story, and was sympathetic to me. She gave me my father’s address. I took the BART to Millbrae and walked down El Camino Real to Burlingame. I rang the bell at a dingbat apartment building. Nobody answered, but I already somehow knew he did not live there.I walked out and saw a public phone. On the spur of the moment, I opened the phone book and found my father’s family name. There was a new address, in the same town, Burlingame.It was a short walk, and when I reached the house, I felt I was at the end of a long journey. I sat on the porch of a single-family house, and watched a plane slowly move across the sky. I remembered what Boris told me that I shouldn’t look for my father. There was still time to get up and leave and never come back.I stood up and pressed the bell.A young woman opened the front door. She looked Russian, but just to be on the safe side I said, “Hello.” “Who are you?” “I’m Misha. Vladimir’s son.”She shut the door in my face. I sat on the porch and waited. It was too late to run away. About five minutes the young lady opened the door again and let me in. She was Russian. She and her ten-year old son lived with my father. “Vladimir is coming”, she said.About fifteen minutes later there came my father. He was a tall, burly man with a beard and black hair. He spoke in a monotonous, trembling voice. He didn’t look directly at me, but sort of circled around the living room like a bull around a toreador.“Are you Elena’s son?” he asked from a safe distance.“Yes.”“Where’s Elena?”“She passed away.”He stopped and stared me. I wondered if it came as a surprise or he knew. I couldn't tell.“There is no Elena…things would have been so different. No Elena,” he mumbled. “Mind coming with me for a ride?”I nodded. He drove me in his Lexus to a park by the San Francisco Bay.“I’m going to ask you a direct question,” my father said, not looking at me again. And then after a pause, said, “What do you want from me?”There were many things that I could tell him - that I wanted to be part of his family.That I wanted to get to know him.But I just felt he didn’t want to hear it and so all I managed was “Help me with getting a US citizenship.”“All right,” he breathed a sigh of relief, “and please call me Vladimir. Don’t call me “dad” or “father.””Vladimir let me stay in his house, while he was sorting out my request. I somehow knew he wouldn’t help me “adjust my status” but I also felt that he wouldn’t kick me out, not while his girlfriend was watching, and introduce me to his family.Only Vladimir didn’t, although they all lived nearby. While he was at work in Silicon Valley, where he was employed as a coder, I became friends with his girlfriend and told her the whole story. Stressed out, she kept borrowing cigarettes from me, and I could hear them argue in the evening. They would break up after I left.Vladimir took me to see his lawyer and she dutifully announced that my status couldn't be adjusted, and Vladimir said he wouldn’t pay for my college studies.When we left his lawyer’s office, Vladimir said, “That’s it. Now you can see that I can’t help you in your request.”Next morning, he woke me up and said it’s time for me to leave California. He handed me a one-way train ticket to New York. He took me to the train station and stood on the platform to make sure I didn’t get off the train.I spent four and a half days on that train smoking weed with some students from Boston. They wanted to take me with them to their campus, but I decided to get off in New York.Vladimir didn’t inquire if I had any money, and I’d given my last hundred dollars to a French guy in the hostel where I was staying before I found my father. The French guy was looking for the girl he was in love with, so I really wanted to help him out.New York, NYI had thirty five bucks on me, but even half of a Jew would never go hungry or sleep on the street in New York. I went to a random Orthodox community in Brooklyn, and they gave me money and a job taking care of a rabbi with Parkinson's disease in Manhattan hospital.The rabbi’s brother took me late in the evening across the Brooklyn Bridge. As I watched the wall of lights, mesmerized, he said, “G-d gives, G-d takes.”A few days later, I woke up to the smell of smoke in the air and breaking news on the TV. My new roommates were shouting “the twins have fallen.” I went outside and watched half-burned scraps of paper fall from the sky. People were numb, silent. I took a bus and got off by the Brooklyn Bridge.Smoke was billowing from where the Twin Towers used to stand. Five days prior, I was in the lobby of one of the towers, and was told by the security the day was too cloudy and the observation deck was closed. Office workers covered in soot were walking from the bridge like zombies, their eyes blank.I didn’t give up and decided to stay put. I got a job in a laundromat, and rented a room. My neighbor had a famous guest staying over at his place, the Uzbek-Russian singer Aziza.Aziza toured Brooklyn and spent afternoons sitting with me and my other roommates in the backyard. She told us stories and sang songs. It turned out she met my father’s ex-wife.“She was an alcoholic. Slept with every man in town. Your silly father needs to do DNA test and see if his son is actually his, you know, biologically speaking.”And then suddenly, out of the blue, Vladimir called on my cell.“My mother wants to meet you,” he said. “I’ll buy you a flight ticket.”Bay Area, California (2)I flew to San Francisco the very next day, and my half-brother picked me up in the airport. Stas smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and that’s all the things we had in common. He was out of the army, working as a bank teller. His car was his pride. He took me to meet his Russian friends. They drove around a Starbucks in a circle, showing off their cars and their choice of music blaring from the speakers.I stayed at Vladimir’s house in San Mateo, where he lived with Stas. Next, I met my two cousins, Misha and Sasha. They were both coders. Sasha lived with his mother and grandmother. I think my grandmother changed her mind, because I wasn’t being invited over, and continued to stay at Vladimir’s place waiting for the meet.On the spur of the moment, Sasha, with whom I was now spending most of the time, as I had more in common with him than with my brother, took me to his place. I sat in the living room when his - our - grandmother showed up.“This is Misha, my cousin,” said Sasha.My grandmother stood in the doorway, not sure what to do. She was befuddled, completely taken aback. She hesitated - I could see she was fighting with herself. Finally, she turned away and went upstairs without even saying hello to me. That meeting, too, was anti-climactic.Next day, Vladimir introduced me to his former girlfriend and tutor, Della Peretti. She invited me over to her house in Oakland. Her children, Jonah and Chelsea, lived in New York. We spent a nice time chatting and I told her that I write short stories in English, but I can’t get them published.I flew back to New York the next day, again, without any money. I found another Jewish employer to give me a job. I felt morally exhausted and really wanted to leave the United States once I earned enough money for a flight ticket. Boris was right - my father didn’t need me. There was nothing wrong with their family - I was just not part of it nor would ever be.Vladimir called me up and said, “My mother passed away…I think it’s time for you to leave America.”My grandmother didn’t get a chance to speak with me. I was there, in her living room, all smiles. She could have come over and said what was in her heart and mind.My mother lived with her pain of a broken heart, and the pain killed her. Or perhaps it was just a coincidence?I was exchanging emails with Della, and then out of the blue she invited me over to California. Instead of flying home (and where was my home anyways?), I bought a bus ticket and crossed America from coast to coast.With other passengers, I applauded a man who saw snow for the first time in his life as he caught snowflakes with his open palms.I saw a boy slowly walk around the bus station with a golden belt of a wrestling champion in his outstretched hands.I watched sunrise over the desert with a black woman who was on her way to visit her children.I played snowballs in the mountains with passengers.In Oakland, I stayed at Della’s house. We hit it off. She drove me around North California in her PT Cruiser visiting coastal towns. Della had a career of teaching English at school, then earned a PhD and became a deputy head of the teacher training program at UC Berkeley. I wrote short stories and Della helped me edit them, as we sat together behind her Mac. She said I’m a fast learner.In a matter of weeks, I began to get published in electronic magazines. But I wasn’t good enough to get published in reputable publications. I gave up on writing believing I wasn’t good enough.In the meantime, I tried to establish a connection with Vladimir, but all my efforts were in vain. He was irritated that I didn’t get lost, and tried to talk Della into kicking me out. In one comical episode, he found a distant relative in Canada and flew to visit him.Della also told me that she suspected that Stas wasn’t Vlad’s son, as he didn’t look a bit like him, not physically, nor behavior or character-wise.Her son, Jonah, who'd soon launch HuffPost and BuzzFeed, came over. He was getting married. I attended his reception. As I mixed with the guests, I managed to speak with him for five whole minutes. Della’s daughter, comedian Chelsea (Brooklyn 99) also came over, but she just ignored me. They were both mildly irritated by my presence in the house where they grew up, but I guess they were just used to their mother’s antics.I had a crush on this girl, Rebecca. Della was the one who hooked me with her. We spent three or four days together, visiting her mother in San Francisco and her father in Los Angeles, and then I received a weird email from Della.She confessed that she loved me and begged me to abandon Rebecca. Rebecca was in a relationship, and she promptly kicked me over to Della, “go to your sugar mama.”Della suggested that we should get married, so that I could get a green card and study in UC Berkeley. She would pay for my studies. However, I wasn’t allowed to have any girlfriend. That was the deal.“Take your time, think it over” she said and to persuade me, she took me back to LA.At the end of the trip, we sat at this fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills Hotel, eating crème brûlée. Della’s old mother was there, too. She looked like she just stepped from a black and white silent movie with her high brow, a pre-Revolutionary Russian.She was nobility in Russia before Bolsheviks kicked them out. I was a grandson of peasants. It seemed like Della’s offer was a fair deal. A serf will always be a serf.When we returned to Oakland, I packed my bag and left Della’s house.About two years later I was planning to take a month-long course in teacher training and asked Della for a $1,500 loan. After all, Della was a teacher, too, and I thought she would want to assist me. But she refused outright.I realized that she had just used me and told her so. She took offense and wouldn’t speak with me again. My grandmother gave me the money, which she had methodically put aside from her small pensions. I did the course and became a tutor.I haven’t been in contact with Della for 12 years.Moscow, RussiaI continued to be in touch with Vladimir for some time, on his condition: “I can give you advice, but I can’t do anything for you.” I met him in Moscow, when he came to visit his new girlfriend and partner.My wife had just given birth to our daughter, and Vladimir was flying in to Moscow to meet his new business partner. “Would you like to see your granddaughter?” I asked him.“Only if I have time.”Vladimir spent three days in Moscow, but he didn’t find time to meet his granddaughter. He never came to see her.This is when I finally realized it was pointless to pretend to have a relationship with him.I haven’t been in contact with my father for 6 years.__Here’s my take from the story. Everyone made a choice and then paid the price. I think it’s a fair game.My mother chose a life of martyr, and martyrs die young.My father chose to adopt another man’s son and abandon his biological son, his flesh and blood. I didn’t know these things happen, but apparently they do.My Jewish grandmother chose to protect her son once, but not twice. She learned from her mistake.Della chose to push her children away only to fill the void in her heart (and house) with someone who could never be her son. I sincerely hope she has a better relationship with her children these days.I have a daughter now. She needs me. If I’d had a daughter then, I wouldn’t have gone looking for my father.There’s one good thing for me that came out of it though.All my childhood I had to listen to my mother and grandmother telling me how I look like my evil father. Finally, I could find peace to live my life like a normal person without looking for demons inside of me.