Sanford Evans Jr. 1924-2017

Sad news from California. I have just heard from my cousin that my beloved Uncle Sandy -- my mother's only brother -- died yesterday morning.  He was an amazing man with an incredible mind, a loving father, husband, brother, and uncle.  Born 93 years ago, he led a long and interesting life.  After serving in the US Army during World War II, he attended Harvard University before taking a position at NASA as a physicist.  He made his home in Malibu California where he lived almost the whole of his adult life.  An avid sailor, mathematician, and scholar with movie star good looks, to keep his mind sharp after he retired he learned Japanese because he wanted to read the Japanese press coverage of events during the war.  He also spent some months making complicated calculations of the earth's atmosphere and curvature in order to (successfully!) photograph the elusive Green Flash that occurs just as the sun sinks below the horizon.  He was the last direct link I had to my mother, who died when I was a child.  I will miss him terribly.