D.W. Buffa

D.W.Buffa (Dudley Wilbur) was born December 8, 1940 in San Francisco.  His grandfather, Sam Buffa, became a very rich man during Prohibition making and selling illegal liquor.  He was caught by federal agents who threatened him with prison if he did not give them, and a few judges, everything he owned.  Faced with a choice between dishonoring the family name by going to prison or losing a fortune, he chose with Sicilian rectitude the honor of his name and to the continuing disappointment of his grandchildren ended their dream of effortless wealth. 

His father, Harold Buffa, spent several years sailing the Pacific as a seaman on steamships before starting college.   He became a high school, and later a junior college, teacher and football coach who read constantly and insisted his son study Latin, a subject for which his son was to demonstrate no facility whatsoever.

When he was only seven, his mother told him that Mozart was a genius and had started composing before he was six.  He wondered if he could do something like that as well, and so he sat down at the piano, brought his small hands high off the keyboard and then sent them crashing down, certain he was about to hear something quite wonderful.  Hours later, when he recovered his hearing, he began what would be a lifetime of questioning about the real meaning of human intelligence.