Zeal — Tolly Kizilos

This is a book of amazing stories from the childhood and early youth of a Greek boy during WW II, the Nazi occupation and the civil war. It is the odyssey of a boy who played games and performed with excellence, eventually coming to America on an MIT scholarship. Again he had to struggle to make ends meet. His stories as a steel worker and foreign student at MIT are unique and memorable. He describes the goodness of some Americans and the prejudice and profligacy of others with poetic vibrancy. The author says that freedom to be and do whatever he was able to become and achieve was a key reason for becoming a citizen and starting a family here. The book ends with a love story and a retrospective of more than 50 years of family life as a productive American citizen, with three happily married sons, all with doctorates, and seven grandchildren. One can learn a lot about a family that takes good performance seriously.