In 1938, ten year old Charles was fascinated by this monumental tree on the edge of his town’s renaissance castle garden. Locals in Náměšť nad Oslavou, Charles’ home during World War II era Czechoslovakia, claimed the Pedunculate oak was nearly a thousand years old. Today the tree, aka Žižka’s Oak, stands about 79 feet high …
I promised Charles we’d get the memoir he’d written published. But he died leaving the unpublished manuscript and a grieving wife. I feared I’d never fulfill my promise. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t focus. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my grief and concentration to mix. My heart was broken and I …
In June of 1945, seventeen year old Charles completed his second year of mechanical engineering study in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was making up for time lost during the war years, 1944-1945. His Uncle Josef Robotka asked Charles to live with his nephew Jiři. Jiri needed a math tutor and someone like Charles to influence him to study regularly. By November Charles was feeling homesick …
