How was life in Rome?
It was a very exciting city to live in, and the work was interesting because so much was happening. That was when there was an assassination attack against the Pope, and the Red Brigades were going strong. Obviously I had plenty of stuff to write about in my diary. How long did you stay there? Until the end of 1982. Then I started working back in D.C. until I was able to retire in late 1994. When and why did you move to Boone? That’s a long story. Sometime after I came back from Rome, I met a man who worked in the Defense Mapping Agency. He was born in Egypt and was a physicist and mathematician who had immigrated to Tennessee at the age of 26 to continue his studies. He had been married and had a son and was, like I, divorced. We dated for four years after which we finally decided we were ready to share our lives. Mohamed sold his condo in Fairfax and moved into my house in Falls Church. When Mohamed, who was five years younger than I, was able to retire, he wanted to move to a univer
