50 Years of Christmas Letters

It's 1971. American Jack Pendray and his family-wife, Linda, and first son, Michael-live outside Paris, where Jack has just begun his career in what is widely thought to be an up-and-coming field: computers. Each year, from 1971 on, as regular as clockwork, Jack will pen a sometimes hilarious "Christmas letter" to family and friends, charting his family's growth and development while discussing his professional doings in Europe, Australia, and the States. A University of Florida Sigma Nu and early graduate of Stanford University's nascent computer science program, Jack tells tales of family triumphs and challenges, his stint as a junior Air Force officer at the Pentagon, the back-and-forth between consulting and teaching, and a lifetime of warm friendships, many forged in his happy high school days at Coral Gables High as a member of the Ching Tang fraternity. Always good-humored, always kind-50 Years of Christmas Letters: The Life and Times of a Lucky Man is the story of a son, brother, and father coming of age at a time when America sent its sons to far-flung parts of the world to wrestle with and conquer emerging technologies. A member of the "Lucky Generation"-a phrase sociologists use to describe the generation between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers-Jack is the first to acknowledge the role that "luck," coupled with a generous dollop of plain old hard work, played in his life and in his success.