mch

2 OUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
American of Greek ancestry, who, as the president of the United
States Chamber of Commerce in Morocco, had helped me a
great deal in the past. He was to be even more helpful now, since
he was also the American vice consul in Casablanca.
I went to see him and asked for advice. He said I should have
my head examined if I ever dreamed of returning to France, already
crowded with refugees from Indochina and North Africa.
His advice was to go to the wide, open spaces of California. A
mutual friend, now residing in Beverly Hills, would certainly be
glad to sponsor me and my family and give the necessary guarantees
to the United States immigration authorities.
I was tempted to follow his advice. I spoke English well
enough, but my wife, who had for some strange reason studied
German as second language in school and had three small boys,
was not so easily persuaded.
I finally prevailed, and the very next morning all of us went to
the American Consulate to sign the immigration papers and to
receive warm recommendations given to our family by my
Greek-American friend.
My decision to move to America proved to be right. For the
next twenty years I worked for a number of aerospace organizations
and industries and was supported by the United States
Navy, the United States Air Force, and NASA. I was even reimbursed
by the United States Government for the cost of moving
my family to the United States, though it took a while to achieve
that.
If ever I regretted coming to the States, it was never for professional
reasons, because working in California is so much more
agreeable than it is in France, where I would never have succeeded
as I did here.
After having lived in Beverly Hills for about a month and having
found that it wasn't too difficult to find work in the electronic
industries, I decided to look for a home in San Diego, where the
rents were more reasonable and the landscape reminded me of
the Cote d'Azur of southern France.
My first job was a three-year stint as an electronics engineer
with Convair Astronautics. Convair was then building the deltawing
F-102 and F-106 fighter planes and the Atlas intercontinental
ballistic missile for the military, which were successes, as well