Family Mack

I have three brothers, one sister, and various in-laws; they're all younger than me. My father was a computer consultant, and my mother is recovering from an aneurysm she suffered in April '95.

• Philip Mack
  Philip was born in 1968 and is a post-graduate research in Hematology/Oncology at U.C. Davis, where he does cancer research (and has been interviewed on Channel 3's news broadcast in his role as Respectable Scientist). Before that he went to Santa Cruz, and graduated with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. He is a lovable musician (he loves to play Beatles songs on the piano and get us all to sing along), part-time curmudgeon, game-player and scientist, and I get half of my sense of humor and all of my sense of fair play from him. (Phil is also the other left-hander in the family.) On June 18, 1995, he married Erin, his UCSC college sweetheart, in Sacramento. Right before Christmas of 2001, Erin and Philip welcome my niece Sarah into the world.

• Joanna Mack
  Joanna was born in 1974. She was studying neurobiology at U.C. San Diego until '95, but when mom became ill, Joanna moved back to Saratoga to help take care of her. In September '96, Joanna went back to San Diego to finish her last year. After graduating, she moved to Calcutta, India, to study the sitar. She came home for a brief stay to help my parents move, and went back to Calcutta several times. She's now living in N. Cal, teaching sitar.

  She is smart, pretty, totally fierce (having studied Hapkido, Judo and other more deadly arts), full of heart, and everyone who meets her tells me, "Wow, Steve, your sister is cool." She's also a great cook. She used to be a real wild-woman in her younger days, always getting in trouble; she still has a very daring side. She has played the guitar and bass as well as the sitar, but these days the sitar is all she plays.

• Robert Mack
  Robert was born in 1975. He studied electrical engineering at Washington State, in Pullman, and graduated in June of 2000. He's currently working on top-secret engineering designs at Marvell, bought a house and married Kelly.

  Rob is the athlete of the family: his sport is ultimate frisbee, and he's by far the tallest relative I have. He's the source of the other half of my sense of humor. He's also a wild man. He can be moody and I think he's changing a lot, day by day. He's a great guy, full of integrity.

• Harry Mack
  Harry was born in 1980. He too went to Saratoga High School, and graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a degree in music. He likes games and he got almost all A's in school. Harry, along with Joanna and Phil, are the real musicians of my relatives: Harry sang in the choir and jazz choir and plays the piano like a maestro. He also has a bizarre sense of humor -- the kind that other people like to imitate because it's creative and crazy. He found a dream job composing music for video games, and is currently living in Canada.

• Erin Setzer Mack
  Erin is a year older than Philip. She teaches science to elementary school kids in Sacramento; she studied biology while at Santa Cruz and got her teaching certification from Sacramento State. She and Philip live in Elk Grove (near Sacramento, where Erin grew up). She's wonderful, funny, serious, hard-working (everyone else in my family, including me, is lazy) and very very very very patient. She and Phil are big 49ers fans.

• Mark Franklin Phillips
  My cousin Mark a year young than me and he's everything in the world. He's written his own page, so you should see for yourself (except it's down right now?). He used to live with me in Saratoga, working for a software company. Now he lives with Marine in Virginia, writes, and studies philosophy. He's a smart human being and also a great writer and humor-guy. He and Marine are married and their son Marceau is growing up fast.

• Ed Mack
  My father is Edwin S Mack (the third), which is where I get my name from; I'm actually the fourth Edwin S. Mack, except my dad's S doesn't stand for anything and mine stands for Stephen. Anyway, my father is a very opinionated, intelligent person. He's practically an albino: very pink skin and extremely sensitive to sunlight, with white hair. He's a well-known computer consultant and systems designer; he could fill many books with his wisdom and/or opinions. He was born in New York, and used to spend a lot of time there working for Nynex and other companies. He's now retired. Even though he and I differ politically, he's taught me just about everything I know, especially about computers. He also has a great sense of humor, and we are always trading jokes. Don't get him started on puns...

• Anne Mack
  My mother was born in Louisiana as Ruthanne; she became Anne Mack when she married my father in 1965. She is an expert flower arranger, a sometimes poet and author, and an avid reader. She hates having her picture taken, perhaps because she says she always looks so sad in photos. But looks can be deceiving. Her birthday is the day after Christmas. She and my father lived in England from soon after they were married until 1979, when we all moved from London to Saratoga, California; I was 12 at the time, and I have a vivid memory of her having to explain to me how American coins worked, since I had no idea what a "dime" was. In April of 1995 she suffered an aneurysm, and the focus of our whole family was her recovery. She has made excellent progress; you can read the diary for details. My mom inspires in me: creativity, liberalism, a passion for reading, love.

To understand the four of us Mack boys: I'm the writer, Phil's the scientist, Rob's the athlete, and Harry's the musician. As for the Mack girls, Joanna and Erin are all of the above.

Another metaphor: picture the fingers of a hand. I'm the index finger, because I once had a job creating the index of a famous computer architecture book and because I'm the oldest but not the tallest. Phil is the ring finger, because he's the only married one. Joanna's the thumb: strong, important, and the shortest of the five of us. Robert's the middle finger: in the middle, the tallest, the most digitus impudicus; Harry's the pinkie because he's the youngest and cutest. But you need all five fingers to make a hand. To cut off even one finger would cripple that hand.

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