For years I have said that every adult should post his or her obituary on line and update it annually. Church directories and news letters should contain links to respective obituaries, so members can learn who shares their interests. People placed together at a dinner table (or on a train, cruise ship, or park bench) could exchange ObitURLs to find conversation topics.
The self-written obit would, of course, help survivors compose the deceased’s published obit. I’m very tardy writing mine and do it now to persuade my wife to do hers.
David Regen likes to analyze systems, seeking models that account for cause-effect relations; be they physical (cosmology, electromagnetism, radiation), biological (biochemistry, physiology, embryology, evolution), sociological (values, doctrines, ideals, ethics, justice, policy, politics), international (peace, respect, risks). He likes to consider fundamentals underlying or justifying doctrines. He hopes to discover something true and to invent something useful.
David Marvin Regen
Born: March 18, 1934 in Nashville TN
Died: &&&&&&&&&&
Parents: Eugene M Regen MD and LaVerne C Regen
Siblings: Eugene M Regen Jr (Elizabeth) ; Barney B Regen (Catherine)
Wife: Lieselotte W Regen (Lilo)
Children: David M Regen Jr ; Samuel M Regen (Melissa Matthews) ; Ingrid L Regen (Andrey Belous)
Grandchildren: Rowan Regen, Solvey Regen, Terran Regen, Ruslan Belous, Amelie Belous, step Nikki Belous
Schooling:
Eakin Elementary '40-'45
Peabody Demonstration School '45-'47
Duncan College Preparatory School '47-'52
Davidson College '52-'56
Vanderbilt Medical School '56-'58
Vanderbilt Graduate School, PhD in Physiology '58-'62
Extracurriculars:
Highschool: Football, basketball, baseball, tennis,
steel guitar
College: Basketball, track, wrestling, piano
Positions:
1962-64 Max Planck Inst fur Zellchemie
1964-1998 Vanderbilt Univ Dept Physiology
Career Interests: Mechanism and regulation of transmembrane glucose transport and of cellular glucose metabolism in erythrocytes, heart muscle, liver and brain. Heart muscle mechanics. Analysis of biological systems.
Recreation: Age 30-80: Renaissance & Baroque music. Age 60: assembled songbook Ten Carols and a Lullaby translations and arrangements of German carols. Age 35-45: Tennis. Age 45 - 88: Played Dobro in Bluegrass bands: Outbound Freight, Road to Ruin Ramblers, Budget Bluegrass, Assembled two songbooks: Mostly Bluegrass Standards and Country Pathos Country Soul.
Church affiliations:
Woodmont Christian: Arranged and performed Christmas music, Led Summer Singalong, Organized Woodmont Gospelaires, Supervised Safe Haven Family Shelter monthly from 1981 to 1990.
Bellevue Christian (age 69 - 88) Created and led Second-Sunday Singalong, Assembled songbook Gospel Supplement for singalongs, at age 85 produced First-Sunday Seminar and Fourth-Sunday Song Circle. Organized Country Church, a bimonthly service led by pickers with Gospel Supplement as the hymnal.
Retirement: Wrote songs, Did home repair and car repair (had VIP pass to Pull-A-Part Junk Yard), Proposed some inventions (about 20 ideas, 5 patents), Studied machine-tool technology at TCAT. In 2007 began blog journal Ethics Black Hole to protest Iraq-war, now 200 essays.
Narrative:
David grew up on the side of Fairfax Ave with misfits and sociopaths, not the side that spawned athletes, tycoons, university presidents, artists and scientists. He was afflicted with mild dyslexia, OCD, ADHD and asperger, so he did not thrive in grammar school. On two occasions he took remedial reading. But, owing to a strong warning on the first day of high school, he did his math homework daily and eventually completed calculus. He credits his graduate-school mentor, Charles Rollo Park, with teaching him everything useful, including communication. Getting a summer job in Dr Park's research lab after one year of medical school was fortunate in several ways. He found a career path in academia rather than patient care for which he was utterly unfit. One of his lab colleagues happened to know the elegant girl who strolled through the cafeteria during coffee break, enabling him to meet his future wife Lieselotte (Lilo) Wilde. Lilo was an immigrant from Germany, who worked in the hospital records room by day, attended UT by night, and studied art on weekends. She would paint beautiful pictures and scribe beautiful calligraphs and teach these skills professionally. She was a master chef and hosted numerous guests. She was/hasbeen beautiful and creative throughout her && years.
David was curious – later good for his science, earlier bad for his bones and skin. As a kid, he often walked barefoot through the glass-strewn alleys looking in people’s trash pits for mechanical devices, to study, repair or scavenge. Attempting to climb from top of garage door to roof, he fell head first and broke his right elbow in four places. Exploring alternative ways to descend stairs, he broke his left arm in one place. Attempting to dive into shallow water like sailors from a burning ship, he broke his back, wore a torso cast for a month. Attempting to walk on the wall of a school’s incinerator, he fell into the fire, burning the skin off both legs from shoes to shorts. His legs were then covered with mercury ointment and wrapped for a month. Between ages 11 and 25, he suffered constantly painful duodenal ulcers causing chronic insomnia and several nearly lethal hemorrhages and bile-duct obstructions. He designed a blow-torch that almost burned down his house. He raised a few chickens and rabbits, which he slaughtered and butchered for food. There were punctures, lacerations and sports injuries as well as toxic-metal exposures. Working on a lawnmower at age 84, he severed the extensor tendon of his left middle finger, cutting half through the knuckle.
He trusted his scientific instincts and spent his last half decade attempting to understand gravity and light. He encountered several unsatisfying theories and proposed a few of his own. He also advanced some social/political ideas for discussion. He waited in vain for the contrition owed by MAGA Republicans for Jan 6, 2021 and for supporting misinformation broadcasters. At age 87, he invented two ways to prevent semi-truck jackknifing and submitted a patent application for each -- likewise a battery-powered back scratcher, but not the super impact wrench.
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