And, By The Way, Does Anyone Know How To Say "Full Speed Ahead" In Swedish?

Intellect, Languages, Poetry...

--By Rita Wysong
Bob has always been a brain.  From the time he was in school until he entered the Foreign Service,  he had a knack for knowledge on just about every subject you could name.  He never finished college in Indiana (was inducted into the Army).  But he dabbled in Turkish and Chinese and learned Swedish in the Army in Minnesota.  When he was discharged from the Army to take his job with the State Dept. he easily passed the oral and written exams.  Practically unheard of since he had not gotten his degree.  But when we were assigned back here in the States for 4 years, he would drive over to the U. of Md. every evening and finally got his bachelor's degree.  When he left the State Dept. after 20 years service, he received his master's degree at Georgetown University.  This helped when he took over as Records Manager with the county later on.

Wedding Photo, Bob & Rita Wysong

Besides being fluent in Swedish, he easily learned Spanish and Portuguese during our tours in Mexico and Brazil.  He was chosen for a special course in Arabic beginning in Beirut and off we went in a rush from Calif. so he could begin the class.  Arabic is considered a difficult language but he had a knack for it and it was also helpful when we were assigned to Khartoum.

He always has loved to collect books.  Once he went on a trip through the States driving his pickup truck.  While he was gone I took all our books and catalogued them - title, and subject and made a list, as I put them in order back on the bookshelves.  There were l,000 books.  When we moved from Milton St. to Frenchton Place, I had all of his books put in boxes and brought to our new house.

Bob has also liked to write and often filled notebooks with observations on life etc.  He wrote beautiful poetry and as the grandchildren came along, he would wrote individual poems about them.

I would send his poems to organizations that wanted poems and once he won 2nd place in a poetry contest with his poem, "Daddy's Little Girls" about Linda, Suzy and Mary.

When Linda and Jeremy began their publishing business - first a newspaper and then visitor guides, Bob was there to help.  It was a win-win situation.  He would fly up to Alaska, stay for as long as he was needed, and produce original maps of Alaska.  They were beautiful and Linda sometimes even uses them today in their guides.

Recently I came across 39 of Bob's poems and sonnets.  I put them in a big looseleaf notebook and Suzy is keeping them for posterity.

The grandchildren seem to have developed talents in the literary field as well.  Teaching, writing, getting their degrees.  They are all achievement-oriented.