Again home, Helen
rubs her hands before the hearth,
Attic winds chill the air.
Menelaus, peace
in hand, rubs his belly’s scar,
still king, gray-whiskered.
The dead now, across
the sea, a roll call, told
and sung, old men’s tales.
Whither Patroclus,
Whither Hector and Paris,
Whither, too, Ajax?
Helen, braiding her
daughter Hermione’s hair—
whither Achilles?
Lyman
2022
"I hope I have encouraged [everyone] to be dauntless and courageous when considering a new barrier-breaking path in life." Walter E. Massey
Heralded as a leading American physicist, eighty-four-year-old Walter E. Massey currently chairs the board guiding the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope which is being built to have 4x the resolution power of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Membership on boards has long been part of Massey's service, including stints with McDonald's (he is director), Bank of America (Chairman in 2009), BP, Tribune Company, Motorola, First National Bank of Chicago, Continental Materials, Amoco, Research-Cottrell, Delta Airlines, and Analytic Services.
Also, the Mellon Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the MacArthur Foundation, the Rand Corporation, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Woods Hole Institute, and many more.
Massey, born in deeply segregated Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1938, was at 16 identified for his gift in mathematics and given a scholarship via the Ford Foundation to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta. There he met Sabinus Christensen, a white physics teacher at the historically black, all-male school, who guided Massey to a degree in mathematics and physics and suggested he pursue his doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis.
Why Washington University? Because Christensen believed a black student like Massey had a better chance of being accepted by faculty and peers there.
His academic work led him to a research position at Argonne National Laboratory operated for the Department of Energy by the University of Chicago. Teaching positions would follow at the University of Illinois, Brown University, and then the University of Chicago.
His professorship at the University of Chicago coincided with becoming the director of the Argonne National Laboratory. In 1987 Massey presided over the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1990 he was appointed director of the National Science Foundation by President George Bush.
After the stint at the NSF, Massey was selected provost and vice president of academic affairs for the University of California system, moved on to become president of Morehouse College, then president of the School of Art Institute in Chicago.
Now, as noted, Massey seeks funding for the Giant Magellan Telescope.
To date, Walter E. Massey is the only person to chair both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
The younger man leaned his rake against the sycamore in
his front yard, dropped his gloves on the trunk of his car, and crossed over to
his neighbor’s driveway.
“Hey, Will.”
Will looked up from his mower and shielded his eyes. “Blades
don’t engage.” He stood up. “Your mower got a bagger?”
“Not on the riding mower. My little push mower does, but
it would take an hour or so to cover your yard.”
“Well, repair guy’s not calling back.”
“Listen, Will, I’m sorry about Hazie. I know a lot of
folks have come by. I guess maybe you can get talked out, so I waited to come
over.”
Will offered his hand. “Thanks. Sudden, you know. In the
kitchen. They had me keep doing cpr. Didn’t matter though.”
“Damn, Will. That’s rough.”
“Couldn’t do anything about it. All that wind blowing
last week, all those leaves all piled up in the back by the fence.”
“How is your daughter doing?”
“Tough on her. And with the grandbaby, you know. It’s the
neighbor trees really, most of it.”
“I could run mine and mulch them.”
“No, I need to bag them and get them out of here.”
“Okay. Not sure I can offer much advice or anything.”
Will looked toward his front door. “Oh, folks already telling
me what to do. Not to pay off the house. Not to live alone. But this is my
home, man.”
“I guess three weeks is not enough to know what you are
going to do.”
“My sister-in-law has already showed her ass once or
twice. Most are being mostly nice. Maybe the neighbor would let me run his
since their leaves piled up on my side.”
“Yep, maybe.”
“Got a lot of stuff of hers—“ He glanced down.
“It’s all right, Will.”
“Yep, rough, you know. A lot of stuff. Got to bag it up—nobody
wants any of her stuff.”
“You end up with—well been a lot of living, I suppose.”
“Already bagged a bunch of it, got it over to the Goodwill.”
“Well you know if you need help with furniture or
anything, Will, let me know. Anything.”
“Thanks, man. Hate the yard being a mess, you know. Just
got to, got to deal with it. Nothing else to do.”
Lyman
2022
