By Stuart Soffer
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About this blog: Growing up in Brooklyn, NY I lived in high-density housing and experienced transit-oriented services first hand. During high school and college summers I worked in Manhattan drafting tenant floor plans for high-rise office buildi...
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About this blog: Growing up in Brooklyn, NY I lived in high-density housing and experienced transit-oriented services first hand. During high school and college summers I worked in Manhattan drafting tenant floor plans for high-rise office buildings. This could have been a career option, but my interest in computers - unusual at the time - led me to the computer science program at the University of Wisconsin. A programming job on Page Mill Road brought me to Palo Alto after college. Since 1993 I consult on bridging law and technology, and serve as an expert witness in Intellectual Property litigation. We moved to Menlo Park's Linfield Oaks neighborhood in 1994. Neighborhood traffic issues motivated my initial volunteering as a Menlo Park Planning Commissioner, followed by a stint as a Chamber of Commerce board member and most recently a finance/audit committee member. I advocate community volunteering for meeting people, the neighborhoods, and understanding the myriad issues that somehow arise. As hobbies I collect contemporary art and vintage cameras. And? fly helicopters, which offer rare views of the nooks and crannies of the Bay Area.
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President John F Kennedy was assassinated on my birthday when I was in sixth grade. That created four days of indelible memories, glued to our black & white TV set watching every event unfold in near-real time. My aunt from Dallas was visiting us that weekend. Embarrassed that she was from Dallas, my visiting removed her luggage tags. Kennedy was the first president of whom I was aware. What was most significant to me, at the time, was that his two children nearly my age. I was fascinated that they lived in the white house. Ever since I've followed Caroline and John-John as contemporaries living in a parallel world.
In relatively short order Bobby Kennedy and MLK were assassinated punctuating my high school years.
It's impossible for me not to recall those four days every year on this date.