When I was a boy, my father told me that he could do anything he wanted to.Dad said that he wanted to be the first to develop color1 prints in our city, and so he did.  When I was 16, Dad looked closely at the violin I played and announced that he wanted to make one. He read about violin making, and then became a violinmaker at the age of 43.He bought the tools and materials, opened a small store and set Mom up as the shopkeeper, while he worked at a local company. He retired from the company 17 years later and continued to make violins and other instruments. Dad often guessed why the Stradivarius violins sound so beautiful. Some experts claimed that it was the unique varnish    that gave those instruments their beautiful sound.  Dad argued that chemists could analyze the varnish--if that were the answer. One of Dad's friends asked him once which kind of wood was used to make violins.When Dad explained that the top was made of spruce   , his friend said that he had an old piece of spruce Dad might be interested in. He worked for the next 12 months making a violin from the wood that his friend had given him. It proved to be a superior violin and it would become Dad's masterpiece. He was convinced that the secret of the Stradivarius sound was in the wood itself. Later, the instrument was stolen.Dad's spirit was broken by the robbery, and he stopped making instruments.  But he kept the music shop until he was 80 years old, selling guitars and violins.        My father has been gone for 14 years now. The violin has been missing for more than 25 years.Somewhere a musician is playing a late 20th century violin with an excellent tone. The owner today may never understand why this ordinary-looking violin sounds so much like a Stradivarius. How long did the author's father live after the violin was stolen?
About 11 years. About 14 years. About 25 years. About 80 years.