Popular Mechanics senior home editor Roy Berendsohn sits down with his father Oscar to talk about the advice and inspiration he received from his dad, a veteran and satellite engineer.
For three decades, Popular Mechanics readers have turned to senior home editor Roy Berendsohn, 56, for instruction on nearly any home project, along with advice on the best tools to use for the job. But who taught Roy? His father, Oscar, 91, a German immigrant who helped design and launch two of the most important satellites in U.S. space history.
THE THUMB
OSCAR BERENDSOHN: My father owned a shipyard on a river near Hamburg, Germany. There were flatcars on it that transported heavy machinery on railroad tracks. I was five years old when a hired guy told me and my brother to sit on the flatcar, and he pushed. I sat down, but as it started rolling I got scared and jumped off. When my feet touched the ground, this car pulled me under and cut off my left thumb.
There was one doctor in town and my father couldn’t stand him. So my brother had to go across the river for another. That doctor sewed my thumb back on, but it didn’t work. Gangrene set in. They had to amputate.
ROY BERENDSOHN: I never saw the lack of a thumb impeding my father. He did all kinds of repairs around the house. He plays the piano.
THE STARS
OSCAR: When I was a boy, it was a marvel for me to look up at the stars. I saw a zillion of them. My father had binoculars, and I looked through them to try to see the details of the moon. For as long as I can remember I tried to make the sky closer.
ROY: My father’s life makes me think of what’s possible. That boy staring up at the night sky through binoculars in rural Germany would one day become an engineer who helped make a crucial spy satellite and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Love it. I always like to see people honoring their parents.
Amazing story too. See for me, this is TRUE WW2 History…the stories of real men and women who not only survived, but flourished!