I believe that the “bridge fall down” line comes from Professor Joshua Zia (Zhia?). He taught math. He always said you get the wrong answer, you get no partial credit no matter what your work showed. “You build bridge, bridge falls down, no partial credit”

Thanks for the memory. I did not have him as a professor but several of my friends did and quoted him often.

Rich Zuccaro
MC 1974

[JR: Sharp eye and memory. I had him for 3 semesters. One repeat and two original. I picked my classes by time. Couldn't let them interfere with my part-time job -- bridge or hearts for money in the injineering cafeteria. More than once, I heard his mantra. The one question final would break many a heart. I think the exact quote is: ""U in-cha-neeeer. Wrong sign; bridge fall down. Noooo partial credit." With a toothy grin. :-) Maybe I should put that on my tombstone? "Here lies a fat old white guy injineer who never got partial credit."?]

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John,

Your blog against the death penalty raised two thoughts in my mind. First I too am against the death penalty, because when they finally get around to executing the miscreant after years of expensive appeals we don’t really provide justice for society, for the murdered, or even for the murderer. In lieu of the death penalty, I suggest that the convicted prisoner be given Life Without Any Chance of Parole in Solitary Confinement. This will save society lots of money for not needing to defend numerous appeals, protect other prisoners from a convicted murderer with nothing to lose by killing again, and will most importantly provide the prisoner with lots of free time to contemplate his crime and hopefully permit him to make his peace with God before he assumes room temperature naturally.

Your reference to the bridge collapsing reminds me of a classical incident at Manhattan with Professor Zia who taught us engineers Differential Equations in the early sixties. An engineering student had been given no credit at all for one of the more important test problems by Dr. Zia on one of his tests, and he appealed to Dr. Zia when he received his test score. He told the professor that he had classified the problem correctly and had worked almost all of the solution correctly down to the last line of the solution where he had made a silly addition error in gathering like terms, and thus came out with an incorrect final answer. Dr. Zia’s highly-accented response was classic when he told the student – “When you become engineer, and do most of a bridge design correctly, but make mistake on last line, the bridge fall down, everybody die – no partial credit!”

Lou Apoldo
BCE ‘63

[JR: <1> The Death Penalty is unconstitutional and immoral. I don't want any costumed group of thugs deciding who lives and who dies. The only difference between "judges" and the KKK is the color of the uniforms. We can't depend on Gooferment to only kill the "right" people. The only solution is to say to the Gooferment, politicians, and bureaucrats: "You can't kill people." It's not about "cruel and unusual" or the safety of the chemicals used. The logical extension is the Nazi Death Camps, Pol Pot's Killing Fields, or Bush / Obama's Drone Assassinations. Gooferment's role is to keep the peace here. That's all. <2> Ahh, yes. I think of Old Doc Zia -- and his one question exams -- every time I see someone reach the right answer for the wrong reason. Now I know that, in matters of life and safety, injineers always move the decimal point on design loads over a digit or two. Just to ensure that Zia's bridge doesn't fall down. I remember it as if it was yesterday: "U in-cha-neeeer. Wrong sign; bridge fall down. Noooo partial credit." With a toothy grin. He was lucky he didn't get his lights punched out. But, he was correct. Hard lesson to learn.]

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On Nov 12, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Mike McEneney wrote:

Dear John,

   The 11/4/10 Edition of CATHOLIC NEW YORK has an article on the front page about how Fred Salerno, ’65 and member of the Board of Trustees at Manhattan, was able to bring back to the States the Body of his Uncle who was killed in Action during World War II. After he was killed in action, his body was never recovered. In 1994 Fred and his wife Pat went to France on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Fred hired a French speaking guide and went to visit St. Germain d’Elle where the battle took place where his Uncle was killed. They met an old farm couple who recounted how, after the battle, the towns people buried the fallen American and German soldiers. Fred left them his business card in case any more bodies were found that might include his Uncle. 15 years latter Fred received a phone call from a Virgina man who said that he had information about his uncle. He was a member of a group of motorcyclists that were dedicated to finding and returning the remains of soldiers lost in Action. It seems that a construction crew found the body in a shallow grave together with his Uncle’s dog tags. After reading about the find, the Farm couple recognized the name and dug out Fred’s business card. This eventually led to his Uncle being buried at Arlington with Cardinal Egan presiding.

   Some local TV stations also picked up the story earlier this week. I have a copy if you need it.

   Mike

McEneney, Mike (MC1953)

[JR: Thanks, Mike. Much appreciated. Great find.]

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http://www.cny.org/stories/Uncle-Johnnie-Finally-Comes-Home-to-Heros-Funeral,3875

11/3/10
‘Uncle Johnnie’ Finally Comes Home to Hero’s Funeral
By RON LAJOIE

*** begin quote ***

Though he was absent, “Uncle Johnnie” was an overwhelming presence in Fred Salerno’s young life. His picture hung in virtually every room of the house in Queens where the three-generation extended family of 10 lived. Devout Catholics, the family would pray together every Friday and his grandmother would offer up the Rosary in memory of her son, the uncle that Fred never had the opportunity to know.

“I was less than a year old when he died, so I have no first-hand remembrance of him,” Salerno, now a parishioner of Resurrection in Rye, said of his missing uncle. “But my two brothers, Charlie and Peter, and I were very impressed by his story. We knew we had a heroic uncle who had made the ultimate sacrifice over there. It was a point of pride for us…We were told how easy-going and friendly he was, about his athleticism, how handsome he was.”

*** and ***

Fifteen years later, just before Memorial Day 2009, Fred Salerno received a telephone call from a Virginia man who said he had information about his uncle. The news hit Salerno like a lightning bolt. Bruce Biggs, a member of the Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcycle organization dedicated to finding and returning the remains of American soldiers lost in action, told Salerno that a construction crew working near St. Germain d’Elle had found the body of an American soldier buried in a shallow grave. Dog tags found nearby bore the name SSGT. John R. Simonetti. Army DNA specialists would later verify the remains were Simonetti’s. A story appeared in the local newspaper and the farmer’s wife, recognizing the soldier’s name, had sent Salerno’s now outdated business card to a local official. By an astonishing coincidence, the French official happened to be Biggs’ brother-in-law.

The business card listed Salerno as vice chairman of NYNEX, a company since merged with Bell Atlantic and subsequently merged again with GTE to form Verizon. The phone number was long out of date and, in any case, Salerno had retired from the company as vice chairman and CFO in 2002. The apparent difficulty did not deter Biggs.

“Bruce deserves all the credit,” Salerno said of Biggs’ dogged search to find the soldier’s kin. “He hung in and made the connection. There was nothing in it for him except to do right by our heroes. He is a true patriot.”

*** end quote ***

Salerno, Fred [MC1965]

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