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12
Mar 13

Things I’ve read recently

Tuesdays sometimes get away from me. Of all the days of the week, Tuesday is the one I’d rather keep in order, but that doesn’t always work out. And yet it was a mostly productive day. Students are putting together the newspaper. I did a lot of grading and reading and writing of emails and so forth. Of its own accord it probably wasn’t much, but it is cumulative. It adds up.

So instead of reading all about that, read all about this!

I finished First Man, by Auburn professor James Hansen a few weeks ago. This is the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, the often misunderstood engineer-pilot-astronaut … why am I explaining who Neil Armstrong was?

This is a fine biography, immensely detailed and well sourced. All but one of Armstrong’s sons took part in in-depth interviews and, of course, the biggest part of the tale leads up to one of the most widely observed accomplishments of all of humankind, so, you know, there are notes for the author to consult.

And despite his analytical, engineering approach to pretty much everything Hansen hints at an engaging Armstrong. He even tells jokes! Which might sound odd of a man considered by so many of his contemporaries considered aloof. He sounds more private, unassuming, and unsure of why you need to know so much about him. Armstrong, after all, only considered himself “a white socks, pocket-protector nerdy engineer,” (pg. 602).

One of the best anecdotes, perhaps, actually involved his wife, Janet:

For the terrors of the landing, Janet again needed to be alone, so she retired to the privacy of her bedroom. Bill Anders decided to join her. Bill and Janet together had given Pat White the bad news that awful night in January 1967 when her husband Ed died in the Apollo fire, and Bill felt he should stay with Janet right through the touchdown. Rick, a very intelligent and sensitive boy, also wanted to be with his mother. She and Rick and been following the NASA flight map step by step, now with Anders’s help. Rick settled on the floor near the squawk box, while Janet and Bill sat on the foot of the bed. (Long after the Moon landing, this led to one of Bill Bill Anders’s favorite quips. “Where was I when the first Moon landing occurred? I was in bed with Janet Armstrong!”) (pg. 480)

Last week I also read No Time for Sergeants which famously became both a Broadway play and movie. I find aww shucks hokum and dialectic reading to wear me out, but this was tolerable enough to get through in a day or two. It wasn’t as funny as the dust jacket implied, but the movie is great, and this scene in both formats is terrific:

It always helps to imagine Griffith in this role:

Mac Hyman attended Auburn for a short while before the war. He lived here. I looked for Hyman in the Glomeratas, but he didn’t seem to make an appearance.

Speaking of Glomeratas, stick around. There’ll be an update to that section later this evening.

books / photo / weekend — Comments Off
3
Mar 13

Catching up

It is time for another installment of Catching up, the weekly post that allows extra photos to finally go some place. WordPress tells me this is the 100th installment of Catching up. Not sure what to make of that.

The guys in Section 111 that heckle the opposing team gave me a shirt this weekend. I made them laugh with a few witticisms of my own. Didn’t have the heart to tell them we were doing this years, and years before they showed up. But that’s a nice shirt, and I subscribe to their philosophy on how to confuse and amuse the poor players from the other team. The 111 guys definitely have their moments, and now I get to pretend to be like them. Here’s the front and back:

She appears to be studying the computer screen intently:

Started a new book tonight. I’ve finished two others recently, and I’ll try to mention them here tomorrow. But this is from Marshall Frady’s Southerners: A Journalist’s Odyssey. Something about this book might make you rethink the South, or journalism, or both. I don’t know for sure yet, but that’s the vibe I got early on. Here’s an early passage on Huey Long and George Wallace.

Even before that I was making a mental list of who should read this collection of essays. I bought this book, published in 1980, off Amazon in the fall of 2011 for $4.25 (as a library book sale, apparently) and it has been sitting patiently in my To Read bookcase ever since. Now it seems you can’t pick this up anywhere online for less than $76. So I did OK.

Here’s the review on Amazon: “You feel the thing he’s writing about, you understand it, you see it, you want more – this is everything writing can do.”

Well, something to look forward to then.

books / cycling / video / weekend — Comments Off
12
Jan 13

Little are the great days

I’m going to speak out of turn here, I’m sure, but there’s just a wonderful feeling when you know you have good legs when you start a ride.

We set out this morning for a spin. I had no particular route in mind because I didn’t know how far I’d be able to go. The Yankee is starting back into her competition training. Since she is going farther she should set the route. So she does and off we go through the neighborhood.

The first two-thirds of that leg is all downhill to the creek. And then you have to climb back out the other side. And it was there that I realized I had good legs today. I didn’t want to stay in the back. That was just slowing me down.

Usually I’m just trying to hang on, mind you.

I passed her and climbed to the top of the little hill that marks the intersection. Off we went up the back side of the local time trial route. At the end I got caught at the red light and waited for her. And then we were off into one of the bigger hills in town — which, I must stress, is only big in comparison.

I got down into something resembling my aerotuck and a little stretch at 36 miles per hour. Crossed the interstate overpass, took a right and hit the next big intersection. I was pretty sure that it was time for me to return home. My legs felt great and my lungs appreciated the exercise. My hands were tingling from compression of the ulnar nerves. My feet were tingling because I have a bad habit of point my toes down when I am too busy trying to breathe rather than concentrate on what I’m doing with the bike.

I could feel it starting in my neck, too, even if I was looking down more than out today. The neck and shoulders are what I’m pampering. Anyway, from standing here making the return route home would be about 18 miles. And I’d put a good 90 seconds into my lovely and competitive wife, who said she was no longer interested in hearing me complain about my form or fitness or anything.

Eighteen miles is nothing, mind you. For a frame of reference, 12-15 miles is a good warmup. I am taking the small steps approach.

So we watched football. I did a few things for work. We had tuna for dinner. We opened the windows.

I watched the first episode of 60 Minutes Sports and was underwhelmed. But at least there was whelming, right? A one-sided interview with USADA? A piece on Lionel Messi with the greatest strength being clips from his youth soccer highlights? How is it that you have an artist, the greatest player to play the game, perhaps ever, and the piece isn’t any stronger than that? They wrapped with re-tread piece from 60 Minutes. But that piece on Alex Honnold piece was incredible:

Here’s a National Geographic feature on him.

I’m finishing Wilson Faude’s Hidden History of Connecticut. It is well regarded, even by natives, for all of the small things you can learn in this text. My only problem with this book, so accurately titled, is that he waited until the very end to tell me there is a P.T. Barnum museum in Bridgeport. I must go.

We’re going to read the night away. This is pretty great.

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24
Oct 12

Mussolini at Chick-fil-A

Had dinner at Chick-fil-A tonight. Took a piece of paper to give to one of the guys I often see working there. He always asks me what I’m reading. We’ve talked about the various things we enjoy. I read a lot of history. He said he reads a lot about the Revolutionary War period.

So I’d promised I’d bring him a list of things that I’ve read. I spent a few minutes in my library one day last week writing down names and titles. I pulled images from Amazon to put over the names of the books. I gave it to him tonight. He was happy, smiling, pleased, thanked me.

But then I wondered: Maybe he doesn’t really read about this period. Maybe he was just being nice. Now, maybe, he’s wondering why some guy brings him this piece of paper.

So I got my food, found a table and continued reading Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope — which is good, if you like Alter or Roosevelt. Alter is a fine writer, but he’s a Roosevelt apologist and, really, there’s been enough of that. But I did learn about Roosevelt’s role in contributing re-writes to Gabriel Over the White House, a movie meant to “prepare” the American constituency for a dictator who, ultimately, executes his enemies in the shadows of the Statue of Liberty. This was actually produced and put in theaters. There’s some of that about 62 minutes in and then you’ll see a Star Chamber immediately thereafter. Roosevelt wrote to William Randolph Hearst, who produced the film, that he thought it would be “helpful.”

You can watch the full movie here:

The Library of Congress says about the film, “The good news: he reduces unemployment, lifts the country out of the Depression, battles gangsters and Congress, and brings about world peace. The bad news: he’s Mussolini.”

Happily we didn’t go down those roads, but then again, in 1933 with the Depression on, people in the U.S. thought a lot about Mussolini. Il Duce was in the midst of his successful years. He was winning people over as a dictator with public works, improved jobs, public transport and more. It’d be a few more years until everyone turned on the guy. In 1933 desperate people looked at him and thought, Why not?

So anyway, I’m sitting there, trying to wrap up this book so I can move on to the next thing, and these two ladies sitting nearby are discussing the music they’ll perform in their church choir’s Christmas performance.

They’re flipping through three-ring binders. As it often happens when music people discuss music things there was a bit of singing. The lady on the right was pointing out parts to the one on the left.

A guy comes up, a contractor of some sort based on his clothes, and he says “You sure make that beautiful song beautiful.”

She did have a nice voice.

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13
Jul 12

From the desk of Eddie Rickenbacker

I’m sore. I’m tired of hurting. And tired. I haven’t had a decent night of sleep since hurting myself and being tired isn’t helping matters much. So instead of complaining, let’s just change the subject.

I sat at this desk the other day:

It belonged to flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker when he was running Eastern Airlines.

I wrote of Rickenbacker in this space two years ago after I picked up one of his biographies:

Race car driver, pilot, ace, war hero, Medal of Honor winner, businessman and more, Eddie Rickenbacker is one of the great American icons of the first half of the 20th Century. He died quietly, almost forgotten in 1973. My history professor, the great W. David Lewis (1931-2007) of Auburn University, talked glowingly of Rickenbacker. He researched, for 15 years, his hero — including during the year or so I took his classes — and his book, came out in 2005.

Lewis was a character, full of life and passion for his varied interests. He was a renowned professor of the history of technology, loved cathedrals, pipe organs and, of course, aviation. I saw the autobiography, thought of Dr. Lewis and picked it up. On of these days I’ll pick up my professor’s book; I have to after reading these reviews.

I also met a man last December who worked for Rickenbacker at Eastern Air Lines. He told a story of having a real bad flight, being worked up about and then giving Rickenbacker, the president, an earful … only he didn’t realize who he was talking to. Rickenbacker nearly died in a plane crash in 1941 (dented skull, head injuries, shattered left elbow and crushed nerve, paralyzed left hand, broken ribs, crushed hip socket, twice-broken pelvis, severed nerve in his left hip, broken knee and an eyeball expelled from the socket) and was adrift in the Pacific, dangerously close to the Japanese, for 24 days in 1942. Rickenbacker won his Medal of Honor for attacking, on his own, seven German planes, shooting down two in 1918. He also won seven Distinguished Service Crosses. Eddie Rickenbacker knew a few things about having a tough day (His book begins, “My life has been filled with adventures that brought me face to face with death.”) so he let the indiscretion slide.

Because Dr. Lewis wrote the definitive biography on Eddie Rickenbacker, he was also able to convince his estate to donate many of his papers and belongings to Auburn. That desk sits in the special collections section of the RBD Library.

You aren’t supposed to sit at that desk, the librarian told me, but “You don’t look like your up to anything, though.”

So military and aviation buffs should now be jealous that I’ve sat at the great man’s desk. I could have opened the desk drawers to see what was inside, but that seemed a more private thing.

Instead, I read some turn-of-the-20th century recollections from some of the old locals. Some of those notes will get shared here, too, eventually. Probably in the next few weeks when I’ll basically be confined to the arm chair.

Maybe I’ll sleep a bit between now and then.