Saturday, June 28, 2014
Just dropped in to see what condition her condition’s in
Pretty. Poor.
Married at 16. Divorced at 17. Again at 18, again
divorced, at 19.
21, the inevitable at 22.
At 24, married to a math professor she met at a gym
climbing wall, and who delighted in showing her previous
stints in a formula.
Came the critical year and they drank champagne.
So, she broke her string.
Took her GED instead. Then enrolled at the university in the
Bachelor Program in Physics!
Most thought she’d wouldn’t last the semester. Graduated with
honors.
Accepted as a PhD candidate.
Given a lab after that graduation...and twin girls.
Spent three fruitless years in research...but, somehow, was
getting somewhere.
Gave a paper in Gutenberg, and Hiyakawa of Japan and
Schiller of Germany lingered after it. They’d been experiencing
the same frustrations in the same slippery area.
She had no such right, but invited them to join her at the lab.
The dean went along for the publicity value. But the president
harbored numerous doubts. Had to be begged by her for budget
year after year.
In the meantime, her husband received a prestigious, though minor,
Math award, and they celebrated with colleagues in his jammed
office. The little girls were very cute in insisting on handling the
cleanup by themselves. Hardly big enough to lift the empty bottles.
Since it was so quirky, he knew his work would receive no further
recognition. But hoped for hers and her partners’.
“That ship has sailed!” she announced to them after one long day.
“But our ship sails on!” Shiller countered, and Hiyakawa applauded.
Those two continued to go at everything in a spirit of fun.
She, of fire.
The papers they wrote together were joked to be by Lady Macbeth
and her Song-and-Dance Men.
On her 44th birthday the Nobel shockingly called. Her team had been at 30 to 1 odds among the trade.
The celebration in the lab became a blast! With Drs Hiyakawa and
Schiller dancing a flamenco as their wives clapped and shrieked.
In the strange quiet after, with all gone except the family, she
exploded into tears. “The stupid...little broad...has done...
growed up!”
Teen daughters mystified.
Labels: academics, divorce, marriage, Nobel, poverty
