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.
