Perhaps this idea of writing my family history was reawakened in me during this past year (2009-2010), when I returned to living in Riga after my two-year consulting position in Tbilisi with the Parliament of Georgia. I am now in the 60th year of my life and my thoughts often return to reflecting about the path my family's history has taken. Both my parents were born in Latvia--my father Jekabs in 1911, when Latvia did not yet exist, but was part of the Russian czarist empire, and my mother Daina in 1919, a few months after Latvia had been declared to be a new independent state, but only on paper as a civil war/war for Latvia's independence was being fought.

The last twenty years of my life, since 1989/1990, have been the most rewarding years for me, as I have been able to enjoy that rare privilege of realizing one's dreams. These included dreams of working as an international journalist or as a diplomat, dreams of making a real contribution to the world and dreams of achieving idealistic goals. Today, I can proudly admit that I've accomplished such dreams--by grabbing an offer to work as an unpaid volunteer at the Information Office of the Latvian Popular Front in Riga for the last three months of 1989, taking an unpaid leave of absence from my well-paid job as an attorney at the law firm of Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman.