Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Hidden Figures for a local book club. I was in the minority for having finished the book. Most of the ladies went to see the movie. I gave the book five stars for the importance of the subject, new information shared, and for the author's extensive research. As a reading experience, I rated the book three stars; I did not have an emotional connection that compelled me to read on.

I appreciate the author's bringing these women to public attention. I liked how their story is presented in the context of the prevailing racial attitudes of their time.

The book is not a biography of a few women, as in the movie. It is a study in culture.

The bulk of the book covers the massive need for computers--mathematicians--during WWII, offering women and people of color unique job opportunities working for NACA. There were at least 50 black women who worked at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory between 1943 and 1980. President Roosevelt signed an executive order to desegregate the defense industry, creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee.

The African American women hired as computers were not only qualified, some had more education than their white counterparts. Their job opportunities and salary level had been limited, and landing a job at Langley allowed brilliant minds work equal to their ability. The women were dedicated, their high standards apparent in their dress and demeanor as well as in the excellence of their work. The high quality of their work brought respect from the engineers. At the same time, Virginia's segregation laws restricted the women to where they could live and what bathroom they could use.

The later part of the book covers the change of the NACA to NASA and the Space Race. I found it more compelling to read. The technology was changing to computers and the mathematicians had to retool their skills to keep up with the times.

My favorite story was about John Glenn's 1962 flight and how Glenn didn't trust computers to get him safely back to Earth; he said, "Get the girl to check the numbers. If she says the number are good, I'm ready to go." He trusted Kathryn Johnson, the human computer.


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Michigan Monsters and UFO Sightings in 1965

What was going on in 1965 that sent people off the deep end?

Sure, we had Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Gemini, The Cold War and "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Ralph Nader. We had The Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago. President Johnson won the election. The Beatles were BIG.

And we had an obsession with UFOs and Bigfoot sightings.

The August 19, 1965, Royal Oak, MI Daily Tribune opinion page remarked, "This is flying saucer season, and the reports--along with those of a local "monster"--are coming in loud and clear." The writer believed that the Perseid meteor shower, aligned with the planet Jupiter, and compounded by atmospheric effects, were behind the sightings.

"Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been coming in from Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, which is par for the course. But this saucer season is something special. Further sightings have been reported in Nebraska, Minnesota, and Brazil." The latest report was from Hershey, PA; a man photographed the object but was afraid to show it for fear of being called "a nut." The writer reported that Carl Sagan dismissed such tales, but urged that myths and tales be reexamined for indications of visits from the past.

One news article reported that a man working at the Northville Ford generator plant decided to have some fun with a hoax photograph that earned a three column article. When he told his neighbor of his hoax, the neighbor "grew wildly indignant," crying, "I saw those saucers myself, plain as day!"

Stories came from around the world, A New Mexico policeman claimed to see a brilliant white object, marked with a red V with three lines through it, that had two figures in white overalls inside. The authorities found scorched grass and indentations where the policeman claimed to have seen it. Brits saw "the thing" several times, an orange cloud with a rising object, accompanied by a boom that broke windows. Four weeks of sightings were reported in Oklahoma. Meteors were sighted in Upstate Michigan.

And in Metro Detroit, a saucer landed near John R and Eleven Mile Road, near the Madison Heights' City Hall. "Apparently in search of our leaders, the glowing lights" disappeared just after midnight.

Flying Saucers were exciting! I loved the movie The Day the Earth Stood Stilll and was sure space aliens only brought good will.

Remember, 

Klaatu barada nikto

No---It was the monster sightings that scared me.

Dowagiac, Michigan reported the Monster of Sister Lake was on the prowl, a nine-foot tall, 500-pound creature covered in hair, with a leathery face and "banjo eyes like Eddie Cantor." Except these eyes shined.

Eddie Cantor eyes! I was scared silly. Who was Eddie Cantor? What were "banjo eyes"? I had no idea. I still don't know. (Time to Goggle Eddie...)

Eddie Cantor "Banjo Eyes"

Those are pretty creepy eyes.

They said the Monster whimpered, and when it walked, the earth trembled. The first reports were from several pre-teen girls, walking near a wooded road in Silver Lake Township, Cass County. The girls ran to a nearby house and the police were called. An armed search party went out but found nothing.

A later article reported, "Get Your Monster Kit $7.95."

It was thought the girls had seen a bear attracted to the fruit farms in the area.

Then came the Monroe Monster. It wore pants. "I knew it was a person with something like a fur coat drawn up over his head," the man reported. Then he said the monster "threw him around like a rag doll." A Monroe mother and her daughter also reported a monster attacked them in their car; they underwent a lie detector test.

Oakland County, MI then "built a better monster" by reporting an amphibious monster on Voorheis Lake, Orion Township. It looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

An article reported that the Monroe Monster was "on the move," showing up in Gary Indiana, perhaps by hitchhiking on the Tri-State Highway. "Those truck drivers on I-94 are too friendly," one policeman said. "They'll give a ride to anybody--or anything." The police said the monster appeared in swampy areas where high weeds could "provide cover for any number of gorillas."

Monroe persisted that the monster had not left them. Coarse, dark hair was found on a car it had attacked. The car owner claimed to have been attacked by the monster when he and eight friends were in the car. "We all want to prove, once and for all, that there is no monster," stated the police. Another lie detector test was scheduled.

Apparently Michigan has a long history of Bigfoot sightings.

I eventually grew out of being afraid to look out the front door window at night, worried I would see "banjo eyes" looking in at me. I am still waiting for that space ship to come and save Earth from itself.

A Little Sewing Going On

I have been working on Icicle Days from Bunny Hill Designs.  Embroidery will be added later. I am using the fabric I won from Quilter's Newsletter, Fontaine.

I have two of three February 1857 Album blocks finished.

I have not been hand quilting very much on my Austen Family Album... Too busy with doggies at night, and I have been working on the applique at my weekly quilt group.

But I did share my Album quilt with the weekly group, and shared it on Facebook quilt groups to much acclaim.

Album quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske

I finished it several years back. I used patterns from magazines and books and created several original patterns, including the Shiba Inu Princess Feather at the center top.

Four Shibas block by Nancy A. Bekofske

This is for our Shiba Inu pets Kili, Suki, Kara, and Kamikaze.

Kamikaze, a puppy mill breeder rescue

Suki, a puppy mill breeder rescue

Kara, a puppy mill breeder rescue. Our foster dog

of nine months. Died of kidney failure.

Kili, our first Shiba, lived 16 years.

My husband came up with the idea of the Dachshund bookends for our dogs Pippin and P.J.

in process block for Album Quilt

Pippin

A Facebook quilt friend, whom I have yet to meet, quilts with the group I quilted with almost 30 years ago. She sent me this photo of Claire Booth, applique' and quilt artist extraordinaire, showing a wool quilt she made while I knew her.

Claire Booth

This is the wall hanging she designed and created for us when we moved in the late 1990s.

quilt by Claire Booth

I have been invited to go back and visit these ladies who taught me so much when I began quilting in 1991. I hope to arrange something this spring.

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic

You know the film. Sheriff Kane has married a Quaker beauty and is hanging up his gun and turning in his badge to run a shop. Then Kane learns that a gang is out to get even--Kane's life to pay for his arrest of their leader, now out of jail.

Get out of town, everyone advises. This two-bit town wasn't worth dying for.

Kane knows you can't escape the past. He had to face the danger and end it once and for all. As he tries to form a posse Kane discovers he is alone; everyone else in town justifies retreating into their protective shells.

Clocks tick off the minutes until noon when the train carrying his nemesis arrives. Kane is left alone on the empty street of a town without moral conviction, friendless; even his pacifist wife is leaving town without him. It is Kane alone against four armed men bent on murder.

The simple song with the hoofbeat rhythm tells the story, and its melody morphs and evolves, becoming menacing and persistent, until it is High Noon.

Stanley Kramer owed United Artists one more film to fulfill his contract, then he could get on making movies under his own studio. Screenwriter Carl Foreman had been working on an idea for several years, High Noon. They secured the over-the-hill but still box worthy actor Gary Cooper to play the lead, and newbie Grace Kelly to be his wife.

No one thought the film would amount to much. Cooper's acting lacked oopmh, Kelly was too young, and, used to emoting to the back row in the theater, over-acted. The early film version was deemed awful and needed cutting and remaking.

I was thrilled to read Glenn Frankel's book High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic. High Noon is a favorite film in my household. I know it scene by scene. Frankel's account of how the film was made was fascinating and exciting. Frankel portrays Gary Cooper as a handsome Lothario, also described as one of the nicest, greatest guys; Carl adores Coop.  Frank Cooper was the son of a Montana lawyer who wanted to be an artist but could not afford art school. He went to Hollywood after learning they needed stunt artists. He was a quick study. His handsome good looks caught the eye of Clara Bow for her famous movie It. Gary Cooper was born.

What really makes this book relevant and important is learning how the Cold War fostered an era of fear that allowed wholesale persecution.

Before High Noon was complete Carl Foreman's name was given to the House Un-American Committee as a member of the Communist Party. Carl had been a member, drawn to its Anti-Fascism and promotion of the rights of minorities, Jews, immigrants, and unions. Carl had signed an oath in 1950 saying he was not (then) a member of the Communist Party.

The Communist Party of the early 20th c attracted progressive liberals and intellectuals who supported such 'un-American' ideals as unionizing and workers rights; their agenda did not include the overthrow of the United States. The Communist Party was seen as a social club, a place for making connections. When Russia became an ally against Hitler, Hollywood was called upon to portray positive images in films like Song of Russia and Mission to Moscow.

The House Un-American Committee 'quizzed' accused Communists, rewarding those who cooperated with reprieve, but not always forgiveness. Milton Berkeley gave the Committee 150 names and was their darling; yet when his son graduated from Yale he was denied acceptance into the Navy's Officer Training Program, blacklisted because his father had once been a Communist!

Carl could have played their game, admit his sins and name several Communist party members they already knew about. He'd be off the hook, perhaps with his career damaged, but not over. Carl would not bend his convictions; he'd rather go to jail. Alone and afraid he faced the tribunal. They were not pleased.

Carl was a liability. Kramer fired Carl; no studio could afford to be associated with Communism. Cooper, a Republican anti-Communist, believed in and supported Carl and wanted to help him start his own company; the deal fell through. Even Cooper couldn't defeat the HUAC and stand up to the threat of blacklisting. Foreman went to England and went on to write The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, The Mouse that Roared, Born Free, and Young Winston.

The HUAC's abuse of power was finally addressed by the Supreme Court in an a1957 ruling, stating that "There is no general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of Congress. Nor is the Congress a law enforcement or trial agency." Senator Joseph McCarthy's fall also damaged the HAUC's credibility.

Carl Foreman had lost his job; his name was expunged in the credits of High Noon and The Bridge on the River Kwai; his passport had been revoked; and his marriage damaged. And yet years later, back in America, he ran into John Wayne, an ardent anti-communist. They embraced as old friends. When Carl asked how he could accept an old enemy so nicely he replied that Wayne was a patriot and had only been doing what he thought was right.

In times of national stress fear manifests in attacks against perceived threats, which in hindsight are seen as ill-advised, unconstitutional, and morally suspect. The red-baiting witch hunts of the 1950s were such a time. Frankel's book reminds us of the cost of allowing our fear to negate the rights guaranteed by our laws and warns against the misuse of power.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

High Noon
Glenn Frankel
Bloomsbury
Publication February 21, 2017
$28 hard cover
ISBN: 9781620409480

You Must Go Home Again: The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis

"O brothers, like our fathers in their time, we are burning, burning burning in the night." --Thomas Wolfe

Phillip Lewis's debut novel The Barrowfields is a remarkable story, beautifully written and wise. Henry's journey resonates with self-recognition and affirms that going home can open the path to the future.

The language is lush with a penchant for rarefied words, a nod to Thomas Wolfe's poetic and verbose style, and the novel is imbued with vivid descriptions and cinematic scenes.

The protagonist Henry Aster narrates the story of his family, beginning with the first settlers in Old Buckham. Settled deep in 'the belly' of the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, "a town of ghosts and superstitions," and populated by under a thousand people, 'everyone else lived in the hills beyond.' His grandparents survived on little but were content.

Henry's father was considered "awful queer," a bookish boy who idolized Thomas Wolf. University provided an escape and brought him a love of Poe and Faulkner. After graduation he teaches while writing, winning early acclaim before faltering. He wants to write the great American novel--to prove his worth. Then he is called back home to care for his failing mother. The family moves into an abandoned mansion on a hill, a 'macabre' house with dark corners, haunted by ghosts. A lawyer by day, at night he retreats into a cubbyhole room to struggle with his unmanageable novel and his growing alcoholism.

"Aster's work, for all its brilliance, is impenetrable."

Henry had idolized his dad; they shared a love of books and music. But he and his sister Threnody watch their father retreat from the world until he is a 'ghost.' They pledged to always be there for the other. After the tragic death of a new sibling, their father succumbs to despair and deserts his family.

Henry leaves Old Buckram for university and law school. He falls in love with Story, a conflicted girl with her own father issues and a fear of intimacy. As he supports Story in her search for her father, returning to her home town of Lot's Folly, Henry realizes that he also must go home again and confront his past, and face the sister he abandoned.

" I suppose that one can never leave a place completely."

Wolfe's influence pervades the novel, from the setting and theme of the search for the father to the influence of  Wolfe on Henry and his father: just before Henry graduates from Chapel Hill he reads Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again and "never got over them entirely."

The role of books is hugely important. The Barrowfields is a 'wasteland of nothingness," a desolate opening in the woods outside of Old Buckham. When the town gathers there to burn Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Henry implores his father to stop the book burning. In a frighting scene, his father stands up to the crowd to defend and protect the volume from the fire.

Our past leaves its scars and questions, and painful as it is, we become free by confronting it. Lewis has written a story that hearkens back to the great literature of the past while offering insight into the universal human condition.

You can learn more about Lewis and his debut novel in my interview with the author in my blog post on February 26, 2017.

Phillip Lewis

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, The Barrowfields is a breathtaking debut about the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparation power of shared pasts." from the publisher's website

The Barrowfields
Phillip Lewis
Hogarth
Publication Date March 7, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN:9780451495648

Whereas: Poems by Stephen Dunn

"What's a poet anyway but someone who gives/ the unnamed a name?"

Many years ago I came across Stephen Dunn's poetry. I thought I knew where but it turned out to be a false memory. It happens to me more and more often now, misremembering something vividly recalled, learning it didn't happen that way at all. I requested Dunn's new book of poems Whereas through Edelweiss because I recalled his name and wanted to read his latest poems.

Dunn begins with a poem on his seventy-fifth birthday considering "the movement from ignorance to astonishment" and the "strangeness, the immensity" of life. He ends with A Short History of Long Ago, recalling the simple things of childhood that brought contentment followed by adulthood's choices and desires, concluding, "A bad memory is the key to happiness./I apologize for everything I haven't done."

These poems written from the wisdom of maturity are thoughtful without being abstruse, universal by being personal. Duplicity and truth, the role of the storyteller, nature vs artifice, faith, and superstition, marriage and parenthood, the mystery of life--his themes are universal.

I read the poems several times, with certain lines resonating with me.

The Melancholy of the Nude considers an artist's model who lives in "a world where she was both woman and thing."

 In Be Careful you are warned not to look into the eyes of an animal, no matter how beautiful, for staring means aggression, and "Doesn't blood usually follow when language fails?"

In Even the Awful he writes, "I would prefer an occasional bout of joy, which I could recover from in a day or so, and maybe even speak about, whereas ecstasy (that one time) made me silent." A deceased friend "just lay there, immobile, like a Calder without a breath of air to move it. In fact, he had become an 'it', and those of us who knew him noted how poorly itness suited him."

In Creatures we see him at the seashore watching a pelican following a dolphin, feeding on a school of fish and concludes that "to step out/of our houses any morning is to risk/being variously selected, and that nothing/like kindness of beauty of justice/will ever change the truth of some lives."

I keep returning to these poems. Each reading I discover something I had missed.

Dunn won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
http://www.pulitzer.org/article/stephen-dunn-influences

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Incisively capturing the oddities of our logic and the whimsies of our reason, the poems in Whereas show there is always another side to a story. With graceful rhythm and equal parts humor and seriousness, Stephen Dunn considers the superstition and sophistry embedded in everyday life: household objects that seem to turn against us, the search for meaning in the barrage of daily news, the surprising confessions between neighbors across a row of hedges. Finding beauty in the ordinary, this collection affirms the absurdity of making affirmations, allowing room for more rethinking, reflection, revision, prayer, and magic in the world.

Whereas
Stephen Dunn
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication February 21, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0393254679
ISBN-10: 0393254674

Eugene Gochenour's Memoirs: Jokesters Join the Lab

Dad wrote about "New Blood" as the Air Conditioning Lab expanded in the 1980s, including two jokesters who loosened up the lab. These stories became legend in our family. 

Eugene Gochenour at work in the 1980s

"As the demand for air conditioners in automobiles increased, it became necessary to increase the size of our lab. The lab had always been serene, orderly, and fairly quiet (boring), but that was soon to change. One day two new mechanics transferred from another lab to ours.

Their names were Jim C. and Jay F. They were noisy and boisterous and not too respectful of us older mechanics. At first I resented their presence because they were so disruptive. Also, they were always thinking of ways to annoy me.

At lunch time I often took a nap since we had a 45 minute lunch break. Once when I awoke after the nap and tried to walk I tripped because they had tied my shoelaces together! If I removed my shoes while I slept they would hide them and when I awoke I had to walk around in my socks trying to find them.

Once when I was standing on my bench putting in a new light bub in a ceiling fixture and could not drop my hands, they loosened my belt and pulled my pants down. So, there I was, standing on my bench in my under drawers until I could finish what I was doing and pull my pants back up.

On the top of my bench was a small cabinet with drawers. It had many nuts, bolts, washers, and other small parts. Sometimes when they were both by my bench and I was talking to one of them the other would be dumping the drawers full of parts onto my bench. of course when I saw what they did, I chased the one who dumped the parts, but they both just laughed.

In the 1980s we got another new addition to our lab. Diana C. was an Electrical Engineer. She had graduated from the University of Michigan and was very sharp. Well, one of the mechanics had a small wooden statue of a naked man wearing a barrel that was hung from his shoulders by suspenders. it stood about six inches high and with his bare feet looked like some poor hillbilly. Some people would be inquisitive and lift the barrel, and when they did a huge penis wold pop out. We all got many laughs when that happened. But we decided to improve him. We drilled a hole in the penis and hooked up a hose and a water supply to it.

Jim C. and Dad in the lab

When Diana came into the lab one day we showed her the little wooden man and when she lifted the barrel we turned on the water and she got squirted. She was surprised and we all howled with laughter. Diana could have really raised hell for us, but she was a good sport, and never complained to our bosses. She learned fast what she was in for when she worked out in our lab.

One day a huge horsefly flew into our lab Jim C. chased it around until he caught it. He sprayed it with something from an aerosol can which knocked it out, then he came over to me and pulled a hair from my head. He put Crazy Glue on the hair and attached it to the back of the fly. He must have thought about this before because he had a small, quarter inch by three inch piece of toilet paper with the words "Eat at ARA" printed on it. The sign was attached to the other end of the hair on the fly. The ARA was of course the company that ran the Chrysler cafeteria.

Well, there happened to be a meeting going on at a conference room next to our lab with about ten people including our lab supervisor and some engineers and designers. When the fly revived, Jim opened the conference room door and set the fly loose.

So here's this fly cruising through the room advertising ARA with everyone watching and after a few trips around it land on the nose of Fred McC. who was looking up toward the ceiling. When Jim released the fly into the room it became quiet but soon after there was a roar of laughter. No one was ever reprimanded for this, but I think they knew who was responsible.

Setting on a cabinet by my bench was a small toy slot machine. Occasionally someone would come by and pull on the lever. The toy was at about face level and when the lever was pulled a little round funny head would pop up and squirt the person who had pulled the lever. There was always someone new to pull the lever so we got many laughs from it.

Even though we had a good time at work, everyone was a good worker and our lab accomplished much.

Jim C. was a hunter and he and I planned to take a weekend and go to my brother-in-law Don Ramer's cottage near Grayling, MI. I had spent a week helping Don and his wife Marie build the floor, walls, and roof panels of the cottage a few years before. Don had ten acres and his twin brother Dave had ten acres net to his. It was all heavily wooded.

After work on Friday, Jim and I loaded up the car with our guns and hunting equipment and headed north. When we were north of Bay City it was very dark. Parked at the side of the road was a van and as we approached we saw a man waving to us. So we stopped to see what he wanted.

The man told us they had hit a deer and heir van was disabled. He said the deer had a broken back and was lying by the road behind their van. He asked if we had a gun so we could stop the deer from suffering, and we said we did. Jim had brought along a pistol and he went and shot the deer. Then the man asked if we could run him into the next town for a tow truck. We, of course, said we would. There was another man and a woman in the van and they took down our names and our license plate number before we left. On the way to town the man said they had a load of apples in the van.

The first garage that we stopped at in the next town did not have a tow truck but they would take the deer. He said they lived on deer Up North. The next garage did have a tow truck, so we left the man there and continued on our way.

I don't know if it is legal to shoot an injured animal but we could not see it suffer.

On another trip, my son Tom, Jim C, and I stayed at Don's cabin to hunt.

Tom Gochenour and Jim C. at Uncle Don's cabin