My name is Algis Ratnikas and I was born in a refugee camp in Munich, Germany, in 1947 to Lithuanian parents. Our family emigrated to the United States in I remember waking up to the sound of an engine and looking out an airplane window. Below me I distinctly remember seeing the statue of a large woman. I had just turned 3 years old. My father had a arranged for a job picking tobacco in North Carolina. The job did not wait, but he was quickly able to contact a school friend, already settled in Detroit, to act as a sponsor. I grew up on the West side of Detroit and attended McCarrow public grade school through the 3rd grade and then transferred to St. Cecilia's through the 6th grade, where I also took piano lessons for 3 years.

We moved to Dearborn in 1959, where my father had advanced to work as a draftsman for the Ford Motor Company. In Dearborn my mother enrolled her 4 school-age children at Sacred Heart School, which was taught by the same IHM Sisters as we had at St.Cecilia. I soon began playing the accordion because our old piano had been left behind on Tuxedo St. In Dearborn we lived only a mile or so from the Greenfield Village Museum. One summer I happened upon the deserted Ford Fairlane mansion, while hiking in the woods along the Rouge River. I graduated from Sacred Heart High in 1965 and was accepted to the Univ. of Michigan with a small state scholarship. There I pursued a 4 year pre-med program and concentrated in cell biology. I was very interested in immunology and had spent 2 summers working for Dr. Poulik, a family friend, at the Children's Medical Center on Detroit's near East Side in the electrophoresis laboratory.

At the end of 4 years in Ann Arbor (1969) I received my graduation certificate and draft notice in the mail on the same day. I chose to enlist and selected service as a laboratory technician. I was very much opposed to the war in Vietnam, but figured that my time would be better spent working within the system rather than outside it as a fugitive. Boot camp was at Fort Knox, Ky., and in the 6th week I contracted spinal meningitis. I was fortunate enough to recover and was sent home for a few months recuperation before returning to start boot camp all over. I then went to San Antonio, Texas, for advanced training as a laboratory technician. Most of my class went on to Vietnam, but I was held back for special orders for paratrooper jump school, which was part of my initial delayed enlistment signup deal. Since this was a volunteer assignment, I respectfully changed my mind and was placed on another hold for new orders. This time I was assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado. After one year in Colorado I was transferred to the 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. In Germany I had a little opportunity to travel and spent a few weeks in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and London. I bought an old VW bus and drove to wine and beer festivals just about every weekend. In 1972 I received an early out and returned home and soon I enrolled at Wayne State Univ. for a Master's in the Humanities Dept. My interests in the sciences had severely waned and my lifelong love of reading and music, coupled with new interests in art and history made this a natural choice. Read more