Eighty years ago, last month, my father pencil wrote a farewell letter to my mother. It had in it,” tomorrow we face an uncertain future.” He was loaded onto a train with 997 men, women and children to end up in Auschwitz and the gas chamber.

A week ago, Saturday my son drove me to the hospital for my “uncertain future.” Three days of chest pains got my attention; so, he drove my wife and me to Southwest, where my diagnosis was that I had suffered a heart attack. That had always been my choice over cancer, but why is it imperative to have one or the other. Now I know that I will have heart surgery later this month, barring another episode. I did get a reprieve to go home for Easter. Now on to the future!

I attempted to write this last week from the Intensive Care Unit but I was constantly being poked, prodded, and otherwise interrupted. So here we are today; Tuesday morning waiting for my next appointment, this time at the Cancer center. Blood is fickle, now I have to go see if my dreaded diagnosis will be added to the first.

Let’s see, I am now eighty-six years old, have survived the Nazi holocaust, then living at 33 addresses; lived through eleven surgeries, a couple were pretty shaky having called all three children for a farewell look at Dad. So far, I have made it. I have visited with you almost every week for twenty-three years. That’s a lot of words!

I managed to spend eleven years in the United States Air Force in Okinawa, France and England plus several bases in the continental United States; five years working in the Space program including the Apollo Eleven program. Three years ago, I completed my goal of visiting all fifty states with a cruise to Alaska.

We have three wonderful children who have given us their children to be proud of. One just retired from twenty two years in the Marine Corps, another will retire from the Army next year. I don’t know how many college degrees that involves for all of the grandchildren; one just obtained his Master’s Degree.

I have had a wonderful wife coming up on sixty-seven years in June. We worked it out a month or so ago, we have thirty-six progenies. Not bad for a kid from Hungary with a beautiful wife from McComb, Mississippi.

This is not a farewell column, but it’s a just-in-case column. So, I will not enumerate the number of friends we have had and still have over the years and throughout this country, plus how grateful we are for their friendship.

My association with the Magnolia Gazette, its publisher Dr. Luke Lampton, and the staff from beginning until now, Nancy. Now for a non-professional Journalist I have appreciated comments pro and con. At least it shows that my words are being read. Thank you, to all.

Now to my uncertain future, not a train to Auschwitz but a car to Ochsner Medical Center with hopefully a skilled surgeon.