[Lvas] An Amateurs and Professional Astronomers Life

[roger ivester]

Fred,

 

Thank you for sharing your "horror" stories regarding your employment in  manufacturing in America.

 

I too have difficulty on Sunday nights also...even after 4-1/2 years. 

 

My sister-in-law's brother whom I have know since the mid 60's and has always been one of my best friends was an A-10 pilot at Nellis AF base many years ago. He later became a wing commander at another A-10 base...forgot where it was now. He later flew a Stealth fighter, went to the War college, and before that was in an exchange program with the Navy. He would tell me about his 100+ carrier landings in the middle of the night with only the strip lights on. He said that you had a 20 foot window as the ship moved up and down...and it was important that you did each landing perfect. He later retired as a full Bird Colonel.  

 

The point: He said that the stress of carrier landings was severe and he would often soak his flight suit with sweat before the landing. That is the way I felt before attending and attempting to prepare for the "everyday" morning management meeting. I still have difficulty enjoying mornings...even having coffee with my wife. 

 

Everyone should read the story of Robert Burnham Jr. author of the Celestial Handbooks. I think the Phoenix times has a good story. Google and you will find much.

 

Burnham lost his job at Lowell after a 20 years of a proper motion star study. He was offered a job as a janitor...cleaning the bathrooms and sweeping up at the Mars Hill complex. He died penniless and during his last 10 tens sold paintings of cats outside a Planetarium in (maybe San Diego). He occasionally mentioned to some of the insignificant astronomers and directors of this planetarium that he was in fact Robert Burnham Jr. 

 

Everyone thought that the pitiful looking guy was just a homeless derelict. He died of congestive heart failure and no one even knew who he was.

 

Roger

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

       

 

  



 
 
 
    I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.      Abraham Lincoln




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