James Svoboda was a deep thinker. Mr. Svoboda died a couple of years ago before concluding his book, Forming a New Mental Equation. Mr. Svoboda's lovely and charming widow Virginia contacted me and asked me if I would take on the project and I agreed to do so, quite frankly before I understood the magnitude of the project. James Svoboda had been working on his book for many years before he died, had multiple edits and rewrites of several chapters, and probably a total of two full bushel baskets of papers.

After working part-time on the book for several months I began to feel I had an understanding of the author (whom I had never met). His writing is conversational. It is the conversation of an elder family member sharing stories of his youth. It is the conversation of a philosopher looking at life. Although the original project was to be a traditional book, the conversational nature of Mr. Svoboda's writing lends itself well to the web page. Most of his topics are short, usually just a few paragraphs. So, the idea of adding the subtitle: Conversations with a Deep Thinker and making the conversations available on the World Wide Web was born.

Initially, there are about 32 topics covered. More may be added later. To more fully embrace the Conversations theme, we have provided a Feedback page for your comments, with an eye toward making your comments available to everyone in the future.

I hope you will enjoy these conversations with a deep thinker.

Andrew D. Callahan

Editor

January, 2008

Feedback Page

CONVERSATIONS

My Earliest Days

Recollections of WWII