My Dad was born in the middle of World War II—just over halfway between the attack on Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. He’s part of the ‘Silent’ generation, a moniker that has never made sense to me, given that Martin Luther King, Jr., Anne Frank, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan and Buddy Holly are—or were—all members of that generation.
He was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, in a hospital not far from a mountain that was being carved into a colossal sculpture of four presidents. His father worked for a bridge builder, and they were working on nearby projects for the U.