An experience this month made me reconsider how I judge people. A fellow had emailed to say he liked my book, Submerged, and remarked how similar it was to his career. (I get quite a few emails like that.) He wanted signed copies for his four children. I said, “Sure, send me their names”, which he did, but in addition, I got a long email listing all their advanced degrees, successes, and professional achievements, not just the four kids but also those of the twelve grandchildren. What a braggart, I thought. Three days later, I got an email from his son, who was going through the man’s emails. He had died a few hours after writing that email to me. What I had interpreted as bragging was just a fellow reflecting proudly on his children, in the last moments of his life. Something to think about when we judge people without knowing where they’re coming from.
I finished up the class on submarines in May. It went well, despite a former submarine skipper sitting in the back of the last class! He didn’t call me out on anything, so I guess I didn’t mangle the subject too badly! I am teaching a subset of that class at three lectures in Loudoun County libraries this summer. It will be a slightly condensed version of the GMU class:
U.S. Submarines: A Deep Dive
Part One: Nuclear Power and Life Support Thursday, July 30, 7-8 pm Cascades Library
Part Two: Thursday, Aug. 20, 7 p.m., Rust Library – Communications, Weapons, and Tactics
Part Three: Thursday, Sept. 10, 7 p.m., Cascades Library – Operations
In May, I teamed up with a fellow member of our writing club to sell and sign books at one of those places you think might be an April Fool’s joke—a tavern with axe-throwing booths, in addition to pool tables. Not little toy axes. Big hefty ones. The kind Hansel and Gretel’s dad used. Axe-throwing and beer. Two great things that (maybe?) go together. It was a fundraiser for a dog rescue, an activity near to my heart—I don’t do it anymore, but for many years I ran rescue dogs in my plane from kill shelters to adopters. In fact, the book How to Hotwire an Airplane is based partly on those exploits. They interviewed all the authors at the event, and you can see mine here and my fellow club member’s here.
I will be signing books at the West Virginia Writers’ Club Annual Conference in Ripley, WV, on Friday and Saturday, June 12-13.
Oceans rise, civilizations fall, but one thing remains (for the past fifteen months, at least!): As we head into June, Submerged is still the top Amazon seller in Military Biographies, Navy. Thank you to everyone who purchased and read it!
And finally, here is a movie review: My wife and I watched Pressure last night. WWII is basically the Iliad of the modern age. I am sure that 3600 years from now it will be told as an epic poem, and the heroes we perceive as flesh-and-blood today—Patton, Nimitz, etc—will be presented as godlike as Achilles, Hector, and the rest. Pretty much all the battles and generals have had movies made of them, so moviemakers have turned their attention to…weathermen. The title is a double entendre, referring to how air pressure affects weather and the pressure felt by the planners of the D-Day invasion—Eisenhower and his staff, and the chief meteorologist and his—in selecting the date for the invasion, in the face of a storm that might or might not hit on the selected date.
It is a gripping movie, with excellent acting and special effects, very watchable, despite the fact that it never happened. Yes, there was an oncoming storm that delayed the invasion by a day, and yes, the meteorological staff successfully predicted a 36-hour gap in the weather that allowed the invasion to proceed and thereby got the jump on the Germans, who apparently did not have the same caliber of weathermen. But the histrionics in the staff meetings, the subversion of the chain of command, the throwing of chairs, and the general chaos the movie depicts are completely overblown and, to a large extent, manufactured. Yes, the Met chief was a dour Scot, and the American deputy chief was a bit of a blowhard, but the movie completely omits the man generally credited with predicting the gap in the weather, a Norwegian meteorologist who probably didn’t make the cut because he was not cinematically volatile enough. The show corroborates something I always suspected: Movies reflect the time they are made. We live in a world where it is impossible to debate and disagree respectfully and work as a team, so the movies we watch mirror that dysfunction.
Until next month, Peace.