Written by Bruno in November, 2006
for Bruno and Mannie's 80th birthdays
[intro] This is a short tale about two immigrant kids, Bruno and Mannie, who chanced to meet soon after their arrival in the USA and became fast friends, eventually brothers-in-law, and now, ancients — 80-year-olds! 'Tho a bit decrepit physically but of extraordinarily sound mind, they are enjoying life, supported by their wonderful wives, seven official offspring, thirteen absulutely great grandkids, and a host of fine friends and friendly relatives!
[early] Their early years were not so wonderful. They were born in Germany to Jewish parents during the so-called Weimar Republic, in the middle of the years that started with the defeat of Germany in WWI (and the banishment of "Mad Willie" — Kaiser Wilhelm — and the anointment as Reichschancellor of Megalomaniac Adolph Hitler). This is when "plain-vanilla" anti-Semitism turned into Nazi brutality, gangsterism, and eventually into genocide, the systematic mass murder of Jews in Germany, and subsequently of almost all of the Jews in the lands conquered by Germany in WWII.
[1926] Bruno was born on November 12, 1926 to Johanna and Moritz Strauss, in Western Germany, in the little town (with a big name) of Langenselbold, Kreis Hanau am Main. Twelve days later, on November 24, 1926, Manfred was born to Dina and Herbert Laband in Eastern Germany, in Silesia, in the city of Breslau (which was renamed to Wroclav, Poland, after the defeat of Germany in WWII).
[1934] Mannie recalls reporting to public school as a 6-year-old, only to be shown the door and told not to come back. At about the same time, his father, Herbert, was brually beaten by SA brown-shirt thugs in 1933, sustaining multiple skull fractures. Bruno was also thrown out of Public School, albeit not until the 4th grade. And while the Laband family lived in the shadows in Breslau, barely eking out a living, the Strauss family's home, which also served as a small store, was "decorated" by two SS-men, blackshirts, with a large yellow star in 1934, signifying that the place was to be boycotted. Ultimately, they had no other alternative but to emigrate.
[1938] In the middle of October 1938, just three weeks before "Kristallnacht" — when Nazi thugs trashed and burned Jewish stores and synagogues, and beat and in some cases murdered Jews, signalling the start of the genocide — Mannie and Bruno's families arrived in New York harbor, penniless but alive, after a stormy crossing of the Atlantic Ocean and were greeted first by the Statue of Libery, and thence, upon docking, by family members who had fled earlier. (Inge, Mannie's sister, then 8 years old, recalled being met by her grandfather and immediately stuffed with chiclets chewing gum — an unknown in the old world).
[1938b] Bruno tells the story that he and Mannie almost met in mid-Atlantic when the ship that carried the Strauss family, the S.S. Deutschland, caught fire and signaled for help to other ships, including the S.S. New York, which carried the Labands. As the story goes, the New York started steaming toward the S.S. Deutschland to assist in the rescue. However, the crew of the Deutschland managed to quell the flames and waved off assistance. And so the first meeting of our tonight's celebrants was deferred. But not for long!
[settled] Both families settled in upper Manhattan in New York City, in an area called Washington Heights (within eight city blocks of each other), which had become THE place to congregate for immigrant German Jews. It was referred to with more than a touch of gallows humor as "The Fourth Reich", a take-off on Hitler's "1000 Year Third Reich", which, fortunately, lasted only 12 years!
[startingSchool] Mannie entered Grammar School PS 132 in an "adjustment calss" to learn English, and transferred to PS 115 Junior High School, where Bruno had been enrolled in a "refugee class", also mastering the new language. They finally met, probably in the middle of 7th Grade, sharing the same home room teacher, and within a few short weeks, became best friends.
[America] Although the families were poor, and life in many respects was tough (both Mannie and Bruno were outfitted with shoe-shine boxes and sought to assist family income with their meager earnings), there was great joy in discovering in Civics class "that all men are created equal .. endowed with certain unalienable Rights ... Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." They were now in America, albeit as "enemy aliens", enjoying Freedom, Liberty, Equality .. and they reveled in it! Instead of standing mute and fearful when the German masses "Heiled Hitler", and sang of marching against "the red front", and of killing Jews, they saluted the American flag, and sang the Star Spangled Banner, Columbia The Gem of the Ocean, My Country 'tis of Thee and America the Beautiful.
[school] They couldn't afford tickets for movies and ballgames, although they lived within walking distance of the Yankee Stadium and the Giants' Polo Grounds, this in the days of Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, and Mel Ott!. So they became PALs (Police Athletic League students) of the local cops and recived free ballgame tickets at the Friday afternoon "lineup" at the Police Station. In the classroom, Mannie and Bruno competed for who was best in class in English, a question that remains unsettled to this day. However, their homeroom teacher, recognizing that both were talented students, recommended that they test for New York City's elite High Schools. They passed and were accepted, and so, both Bruno and Mannie transferred to Stuyvesant High School, arguably the best liberal arts and college preparatory high school in the country.
[hs] Inseparable in Junior High, they now found themselves in different classes. Bruno worked in the afternoon as a shipping clerk and Mannie at a plethora of part time jobs — in a fruit store, a laundry, as a movie usher, stock clerk, and leather factory worker. It should be mentioned at this point that Bruno was becoming increasingly aware of Mannie's sister (who was blossoming into a gorgeous brunette!), although he hid his admiration for some time, she being years younger, and he, shy. Mannie, during this time, had met Esther, who became his "steady" and whom he later married. In their Senior Year, Both Mannie and Bruno, and most of their classmates, volunteered to be guinea pigs for an examination that the US Navy had devised to screen candidates for their Radar, Sonar, Radio Maintenance "Eddy Program". Naturally, they passed the test and recieved Thank You letters from the Secretary of the Navy, accompanied by an invitation to join the Navy upon graduation and attend schools in Chicago that would teach them the fundamentals of maintenance of the Navy's electronic equipment.
[1944] Upon graduating in June of 1944, Bruno, now 17 ½ years old, always (and still) the "hawk", persuaded his parents to let him enlist, and off he went to Great Lakes Boot Camp, and then to the several schools of the Eddy Program. Mannie got in one semester at NYU before enlisting in the same program.
[1945] Upon graduating from Navy Pier, Bruno, now a petty officer 3rd class, was transferred to the Brooklyn Armed Guard Center to await further assignment. During his stay there, he paid a "duty visit" to Mannie's parents, found a now absolutely beautiful not quite 16 year-old Inge, and asked her for a date.
[serving] Since the war was virtually over by the time Mannie and Bruno finished the Navy schools, both now ETM 3/c petty officers, they saw lots of action, all stateside. Bruno was assigned to a repair station on the Panama Canal for a short while where, since the war in the Pacific was virtually over, he perfected his tennis game. Mannie stayed stateside, became an instructor (but never taught) and helped to decommission Navy Pier in Chicago. (He still remembers the spot where gold-plated waveguides were dumped into Lake Michigan and expects to return some day to mine that treasure trove.)
[1946] With the war ended, both Mannie and Bruno were discharged in early 1946, in time to start college in the fall of 1946, under the GI Bill and the NY State War Service Scholarship. Together, these paid full tuition, plus a living stipend. Bruno received an extra stipend since he had provided part of his parents' support in High School. Bruno enrolled at Columbia, having passed the entrance exam and deciding that it represented the shortest subway ride — a hell of a criterion for selecting a college; but who knew about other criteria?) Mannie continued where he had left off at NYU.
[college] Bruno, who had dreamed of becoming a writer of poetry and plays, chickened out and enrolled in pre-engineering, continuing in the electronics field that he chanced into in the Navy, graduating with a BSEE in Electronics in 1950. With jobs hard to get since there were millions of ex-GI's graduating and no war to absorb the engineers, continuing on to graduate school for an MSEE in servomechanisms. He graduated in 1951, when there were jobs aplenty, now that the Korean war had started. Mannie continued at NYU in pre-med, graduating with a BA in 1949, and after putting in a year of graduate work at Columbia, entered into the NYU College of Medicine in 1950.
[1950] Although their college careers took separate paths, Mannie and Bruno did collaborate at least on one occasion when they researched, penned, and submitted an identical composition for English 101 entitled "The History of Syphilis". It earned an "A" at NYU and a mere "B+" at Columbia! However, their friendship continued in full force, with weekend get-togethers for pizza (New York Style — what else!) or Gregorian chants at Fort Tryon Park, usually a foursome, with Bruno now going steady with Inge and, as of some time in 1948, Inge's first year at Brooklyn College, "committted" to each other (it would have been an engagement if Bruno could have afforded to buy her a ring.)
[west] Inge and Bruno had long ago decided to leave NYC for the West Coast, Inge favoring California (sunshine! beaches!) and Bruno more interested in just getting a job that would lift him (them!) out of poverty, and out of NYC and its slums and humidity. So, with the Korean war virtually guaranteeing a job, Bruno interviewed on campus with Boeing in Seattle and Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles. They knew nothing about Seattle except what the interviewer — a charming warm guy by the name of Bill Hane — told about the company, the city, the Northwest). About Hughes, they dreamed about warmth and beaches. Boeing responded almost immediately with a fabulous offer ($8000 per annum, and "overtime"!, at a time when starting salaries for engineers with an MS was $5000). since there was no word from Hughes at decision time, the Boeing offer was accepted. Inge's father, learning of their decision to move to Seattle, asked rhetorically: Why would you want to live among the Eskimos? Hughes came through with an offer some time later, and, since the offer from Boeing had been accepted, promised to keep the offer open for a year — in case things didn't work out at Boeing".
[1951] In the morning of June 14, 1951, Inge had her 3rd year finals at Brooklyn College in the morning. In the afternoon, Inge and Bruno were married by a Justice of the Peace at City Hall, with their parents and Mannie and Esther present. After an early wedding dinner, they embarked for their honeymoom adventure on the 20th Century Limited (train), heading westward.
[1952] Mannie was ending his first year of Med School when Inge and Bruno left NYC, and, following his 2nd year, married Esther in 1952, treated himself to a mini-car and settled into a midtown apartment. Following graduation from Med School, Mannie interned at Bellevue Hospital from 1954 to 1955, followed by one year of OB/GYN residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital, this followed by a three year residency in OB/GYN at the Bronx Municipal Hospital and simultaneously, working as an Assistant Instructor in OB/GYN at the Yeshiva University School of Medicine, and at night, as College Physician at Brooklyn College. These were busy years. They included selling tool polishers to hospitals and repairing them and radios, and preparing for the private practice to follow, but not too busy to create a family. Sons Jeff (born 1954) and Steve (born 1957) joined the Laband tribe during these hectic years.
[1958] With nine years of medical training behind him, Mannie was now faced with deciding where to live and practice. So, in 1958, he made an exploratory visit to Seattle, found the place to his liking, and decided to leave NYC and join Inge and Bruno in Seattle. Although Mannie and Bruno were separated by 3000 miles for eight years, they saw each other quite often, when Inge and Bruno would visit NYC on weekend flights, usually in the belly of a Stratocruiser. These flying visits were facilitated with passes from West Coast Airlines, Inge's employer after she finished her final year of college at the University of Washington.
[seattle] While this was transpiring in Mannie's life, Inge and Bruno settled into Seattle and Boeing life, living initially on Beacon Hill in a 400 square foot furnished house with a view of Mount Rainier out of the kitchen window! They moved to the Lake Burien Apartments to escape the 24/7 noise from Boeing field where the B47 engines were being live-tested, and finally built their own house in Normandy Park in 1953 on a $2000 lot with a view of the Olympic Mountains. They used a $50 architecture plan, a 25 year mortgage, and a sleazy contractor who had to be watched night and day. They had arrived at "middle class"! They even had a dog, an Irish setter, named Cindy (for its cinnamon color.
[1956] While Inge finished college and then worked for West Coast Airlines, Bruno — who had found Engineering School a grind — was on what he described as an endless vacation. He loved work in R&D in Boeing's tiny "Radar Group", which afforded the opportunity for innovating, creating, and problem-solving — it was almost as good as poetry and playwriting! Bruno loved it all and was well on his way to workaholism when he was chosen to go back East for one year to join MIT's SAGE System program in 1955, to which Boeing contributed its BOMARC Missile. And so Inge and Bruno gave away their Irish setter, rented out their house, and, with Inge pregnant (as discovered soon upon their arrival in the East) settled in for a year in Arlington, Massachusetts where first son Bob was born, followed, after their return to Seattle, with the birth of sons Randy, and then Bill and Michael.
[boston] Since MIT had no particular use for this Boeing "representative", Bruno was at loose ends and spent his time learning about vacuum tube computers and programming (and witnessing the first ever transistorized computer being born), and working on his own volition on designing a program to integrate into the SAGE system the NIKE missie (somewhat a competitor of BOMARC). There was lots of time to visit NYC and their relatives, explore Boston and its environs and eateries (Durgin Park in Boston; Chez Dryfus in Harvard Square; a pizza place in Waltham), hike Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and walk the beaches of Massachusetts. It was on one of these walks that Inge, now in her 8th month of pregnancy, experienced pangs and decided to settle in to await the arrival of son number one, Bob. He was born on an early Sunday morn at Mount Sinai Hospital in Boston, Bruno rushing Inge there at 5:30 AM, waved on by the police who were on the streets en masse for the 6:00 o'clock church crowd. And so an eventful year passed.
[return] Inge and Bruno headed back to Seattle in late fall of 1956, with Bob in a take-apart Pram bed in the backseat. They had a brief but wondrous stopover in Estes Park, Colorado, where, according to Bruno, son #2, Randy, was conceived, Bruno had been inspired by the Rocky Mountain elks who appeared every evening for their bugling and rutting contests.
[1957] Arriving back in Seattle, Bruno was approached by his higher level manager, who was planning to leave Boeing to start a company, with an offer for Bruno to become the company's Chief (and initially only) Electronics Engineer, to start work as soon as the the company landed its first contract. After discussing and agonizing with Inge , now 30-year-old Bruno accepted the conditioned offer, flattered that he had been chosen for this job. Upon notifying Boeing of this, Bruno was wooed to stay and told that if things didn't work out, he'd be received back with open arms. So, with nothing to lose, Bruno left Boeing in April 1957 to join what would eventually become ELDEC, where he stayed and grew and prospered, designed and invented products, planned, organized, managed (and controlled!), eventually running the $100 Million company as its President and member of the Board of Directors. He retired at age 65 in 1992.
[1959] Mannie and family arrived in Seattle in 1959, lived for a while in the Shorewood Apartments on Mercer Island, and in 1964 bought a house on Mercer Island, which is still (as of 2006) the Laband residence. In the years to follow the move to Seattle, Mannie was in private practice first in the Stimson Building, then in the Cobb Building and Renton Family Practice Center. Simultaneously, he was on the clinical teaching staff of the Department of OB/GYN at the UW, the teaching staff of Doctors and Swedish Hospitals, named Doctors Hospital Physician of the year in 1966, OB/GYN Department Head and member of the Board of Trustees. To keep himself busy, he worked on a number of committees, worked and spoke to get changes in abortion laws, served as a member of the Merger Board with Swedish Hospital, and, after the merger, served as Co-Chief of the Department of OB/GYN at Swedish, was on the QA committee, and was appointed Clinical Professor of OB/GYN at UW. Whew!
[1968] During all this hyperactivity, the marriage of Mannie and Esther came to an end and a new chapter in family life started. Mannie married Karen in November of 1968, and in 1971 their daughter Amy was born.
[1992] Bruno retired in March of 1992, but remained on the Board of ELDEC until the company was sold in 1993. Post-retirement, Bruno turned from workaholic to Hedonist, assisted and abetted by Inge, traveling, visiting the growing family, and enjoying life to the fullest — on many occasions in conjunction with old friends, including Mannie and Karen and their growing family. Their most memorable trip was to the Labands' old haunts of Breslau/Wroclav in now Poland, where they found themselves in a hotel, glued to the TV on 9/11/2001, one day after visiting the horrors of Auschwitz, witnessing from afar the attack on the World Trade Center towers, and the birth of a new and more troubled world... again! But, to end this tale on a more opimistic note, and quoting from the lines of a well-known spiritual, "we shall overcome" ... again!
[2006] Bruno and Mannie, lucky in their choice of loving parents, lucky to have survived potential disaster in their land of origin, happy to have Mannie's parents and Bruno's mother and sister join them in Seattle, proud of their professional accomplishments, consider themselves very fortunate to have made it through life to this point with the support and encouragement of their friends, relatives, and particularly their wonderful wives, Inge and Karen, their children, Bob, Randy, Bill, Michael, Jeff, Steve, and Amy, and their absolutely beautiful and accomplished grandchildren, Aaron (21), Joey (19), Danny (16), Jordan (14), Benjy (14), Joshy (11), Sarah (8), Rachel (5), Annika (4), Laura (4), Carlyn (2), Logan (1 ½) and Madison (1 ½).
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