Norberth, My Son

They had come as immigrants from Germany about 1950 - Isa, strikingly beautiful and capable; Horst, a skilled workman, quiet and solid. Their small house was carefully kept inside and out. But the focus of their lives was their only child, Norberth. In every way, Norberth was worthy of their love and work, their pride, their hope and ambition. Three months from his twenty-first birthday, he stood six-foot-two, one hundred seventy-five pounds. With his broad shoulders and narrow hips, he was a strong, classically Nordic physical specimen. He excelled athletically. In addition he was an "A " student at the University. Hang gliding was in its early days. Norberth and his friends had made a hang glider. They would tow it behind a Jeep bouncing over the open fields of the farmla…