Businessman. Statesman.

Late in his career, Dad's industry connections and vast experience had him traveling internationally with what had been a great, but short-lived, extension of the Peace Corps. He was one of a dozen-or-so businesspersons from the U.S., handpicked from a much larger pool of applicants, who traveled to Russia and former Eastern Bloc countries to council businesses on how to open their products and services to western markets. In some ways, it was a perfect fit for Dad: freedom to travel and advise persons who were mostly ready and willing to grow their businesses in ways they'd never imagined. Dad loved to give advice for growing businesses and did a good job of not being too pushy or arrogant with his suggestions. He'd say things like, "Have you thought about..." or "You may want to try..."

He met many characters along the way, like the retired Russian general who "inherited" an entire tank factory after the Soviet Union fell. He was converting the factory to make remote-controlled firefighting equipment. Dad asked him how he was planing on marketing his new vehicles. The general was insulted at the suggestion that he needed to market his product, "I will build them, and people will buy them. That's the way it works." Dad had to gently remind him that Mother Russia would no longer be fueling the economy by purchasing his output as it had for decades before. He also had to carefully decline the rounds of vodka that the general would offer him at nine o'clock every morning. He had to teach some, and listen a great deal—these were people who had been behind the Iron Curtain just a few years earlier and Dad was very conscious of that; the deep historical significance was not lost on him.

Once, while on a trip to Poland with his group, they met late into the evening in the restaurant of their Warsaw hotel, debriefing each other on the day's events (this was also the same evening that one of his traveling companions was served tea made with water that hot dogs had been boiled in...it was late, and the water was already hot, explained the server). As the night wore on, the restaurant had cleared out and left their party and another group of about 10 men sitting across the dining room from them. At one point, one of the men approached their table and asked their interpreter if they were Americans. Yes, the interpreter responded. The man was very excited to hear this and asked if they could join their discussion. As it turned out, the Polish gentlemen were newly-elected senators and were working on a draft of a new constitution. They were using the U.S. constitution as their benchmark and wanted the Americans' feedback about what they should and should not copy from it. Dad, being careful with his words, suggested that they take into account that our constitution was 200 years old, written for specific conditions that did not necessarily exist in contemporary Poland...not to mention in contemporary U.S. He said (as retold to me later), "The first amendment, that's a good one. The second amendment, well, you may want to take a look at that one pretty carefully."

Hot dog water tea aside, he really enjoyed his trips. He went places he never thought he would, places like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don and Warsaw. He'd come home to Mom with armloads of chochkis and many, many stories to share. From stories come legends and the legend I'm reserving for my children is of how their grandpa played a role in the creation of the Polish constitution.