PRIMETIME of your life FREE | VOLUME 5 • ISSUE NO. 2 | FEBRUARY 2016 Interesting features for our 50+ audience
James Havas
a man with tall shoulders By Lucinda Sue Crosby For PrimeTime of Your Life
I
t could be said that the greatest gift from a parent to a child is a pair of tall shoulders to stand on while reaching for the heavens.
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Being uprooted, starting yet again from scratch, an optimistic spirit and true grit, not to mention an ability to create new remedies for everyday challenges … these are valuable traits in any nation of immigrants. And such is the heritage of James Edward Havas that allows us to peer a bit deeper into this complex and accomplished man. James’ father, Andrew, lived in a village that was part of the Austro/ Hungarian Empire. More precisely, after the treaties of WW II had been haggled over and broken, the region became part of what is now Slovakia. Andrew moved to Budapest as a boy and went on to establish a successful dental practice. In December of 1938, he escaped from Hungary, avoiding the most tragic and terrorfilled years of Holocaust. Sadly, his older brother, who had delayed departure, lost his wife and four children in Auschwitz/Birkenau. James’ mother, Jeanne who worked with the Braille Institute, was a native of New York City. She and Andrew met and married there and that’s where James was born, although the family relocated to Los Angeles in 1957.
CANADA/SNOWBIRD FEST PAGE 12 Sheela and James Havas In school, James was drawn to subjects like math, history and geography – disciplines that illustrated how things and people fit and work conjunctively. “I was always taking a part an alarm clock and putting it back together.” James said. At age 14, he built his own stereo system by wall mounting inexpensive speakers in cardboard boxes and wiring them to his record player. He is now quite the nerdo-techie and a godsend whenever his friends’ PCs are behaving as though possessed by the devil.
James also discovered two other life-long passions about then – the first was music. “My father played classical and opera before, during, and after dinner,” James said, “but my mom preferred musicals like South Pacific, Kismet and My Fair Lady. I wanted to play my own tunes so I started delivering an afternoon paper to earn extra money. I bought a transistor radio and discovered blues and pop, then country and Rock N’ Roll … then R Continued on page 8
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