Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Sunday, 9 June 2002

# 6:20 PM

roger alexander, 192x-2002

My grandfather is dead.

He never recovered from the heart attack he suffered last week. He was unconscious for most of that time, but did wake up enough to recognize and speak to my grandmother on Friday. I'm told he died in his sleep, early Saturday morning.

I'm not sure precisely how old he was (pathetic—what kind of grandson am I?) but he interrupted his college education to fight in the second world war, so he has to have been born in the twenties. He had a long and distinguished career as a geologist with the Standard Oil Company (Chevron, after the breakup). After he retired, he taught petroleum geology for a while at Cal. He never stopped doing stuff, even this past year when he was continually ill. In fact, the thing that makes me saddest, right now, is that I remember him being all excited last Christmas about doing a geologic cross-section map of the Bay Area. It was to be displayed at the Mount Diablo state park's visitor center. He never got to start it.

Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash sh'mey raba, b'alma di v'ra hirutey, vyam-lih mal-hutey b'ha-yey-hon uv'yomey-hon uv'ha-yey d'hol beyt yisrael ba-agala u-vizman kariv, v'imru amen....

Goodbye, Roger, I'll miss you.