Dr. Bortrum
02/02/2011
Looking Back 60 and Also Billions of Years
CHAPTER 6 - FALLING IN LOVE AT PITT
Last week, watching the cabinet members entering the hall prior to President Obama's state of the union address, I was especially interested in Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Chu shared in the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey on the development of methods for cooling atoms using laser light. Working at the Murray Hill branch of Bell Labs, I had minimal contact with those at Holmdel, which hosted two other Nobel laureates, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, whose work on cosmic microwave radiation confirmed the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. Sadly, both the Holmdel and the other major Bell Labs facility in New Jersey at Whippany, are both no longer in existence. Sorry, I just got carried away with nostalgia for the glory days of arguably the finest research organization in the world at one time.
Speaking of the past and the Big Bang, you probably saw or heard of the latest monumental discovery of the Hubble Space Telescope, the finding of what is thought to be the oldest galaxy ever seen. The tiny smudge, which even made the NBC evening news program with Brian Williams, apparently dates back 13.2 billion years. The light from this galaxy started out only a mere couple of hundred million years after the cosmic radiation detected by Penzias and Wilson.
Actually, my most nostalgic thoughts this past month were of my wife and I celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary on January 20! By coincidence, I have reached the stage in my memoirs describing my life in Pittsburgh where my wife and I first met and romance blossomed. Earlier, I described how dancing was involved in my skipping of 12th grade in high school and my enrolling at Dickinson college. We'll see how dancing also played a key role in bringing my wife and me together.
Previously, I mentioned how I moved from Miss Kasket's abode to another location, where I roomed with Fred Edwards when his roommate, Don Koontz, got married and moved downstairs. Don's bride, Emma, was a nurse working at Magee Hospital in Pittsburgh. One of Emma's friends at Magee was another nurse, Vicki Novak. Vicki was also a student at Pitt going for her B.S. degree in nursing education. She was also an usher at the Syria Mosque for the Pittsburgh Symphony concerts that I attended. The highlight of her ushering was meeting Leonard Bernstein when he guest conducted the orchestra.
Living in a small apartment downstairs, Don and Emma would occasionally invite either Vicki or me for dinner. They only had one extra chair, so Vicki and I never got to meet. At least not until the time when the Koontzes acquired a second extra chair and invited both Vicki and me for dinner. As I recall, that's how we met. At the time, however, there were no sparks flying. As Pitt students, we had tickets to the Pitt football games and Vicki would often be in a sizeable group of us at the games. One of those who joined us at the games was my best friend, Al Weber. Vicki also was taking a chemistry course required to get her B.S. degree.
Well, let's get to the crucial point. Vicki was in search of a date for a dance sponsored by the Newman club, a Catholic organization. She decided to ask Al Weber. Al, however, declined the invitation and suggested she invite me. (Al later married one of the secretaries in the chemistry department and I'm speculating that the reason he turned down the dance invitation was that he was enamored with Mary Louise at the time.) Well, I accepted the invitation and went to the nearby Carnegie Library to find out how to dance! My previous experiences at dancing were based on a total lack of knowledge of the proper footwork. At the library, I painstakingly sketched out the dance steps to a couple of basic dances on 3" X 5" cards, which I took to the dance.
To say the least, Vicki was taken aback/amused/disgusted (?) by the total lack of dancing expertise of her partner, who kept pulling out his cards to decide what steps to attempt! Not only that, but she was unaware that I have this genetic handicap of not being able to keep time. A trait I have been trying to convince her of for the majority of the 60 years we've spent together, I cannot, for example, clap in unison with a group doing so in appreciation of a performance of some kind. Couple that with a singular lack of dexterity when it comes to footwork, despite innumerable dance classes and lessons, and my dancing credentials to this day are virtually nil.
Compared to dancing, I was much more adept at just sitting in an audience appreciating a performance of some kind. Accordingly, on our second date I took Vicki to see the play "Up in Central Park", with Beatrice Lillie reprising her role in that play on Broadway. I believe that was my first experience with highly professional live theater and Bea Lillie was certainly top notch. (Years later, I think my first Broadway play in New York was "The Sound of Music" with Mary Martin. I can still remember Mary's entrance. Whether it was the lighting or just the sheer force of Martin's personality, she hadn't spoken or sung a word when she captured my heart.)
Well, Vicki must have been more impressed with my choice of venue for our second date and a romance began to blossom. However, I must say that my income of only $100 a month from my research grant did not permit our dates to involve much in the way of financial outlay on my part. In fact, I (actually Vicki) was the victim of a misunderstanding when it came to dining, if buying ice cream cones at Isaly's could be considered dining. Vicki kept telling me about eating meals in "the Schenley restaurant". I assumed that she was eating at the Schenley Hotel, located near the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt.
The Schenley Hotel had in the past hosted such luminaries as Enrico Caruso, Lillian Russell, Babe Ruth and many other notables. Naturally, I assumed that Vicki must have a sizeable source of income to be eating there so often. Only later did I learn that her "Schenley" was a greasy spoon restaurant in a much less prestigious neighborhood and that she was not impressed with my not treating her to any substantive culinary experiences. Isaly's did make good ice cream, however!
In order to get her degree in nursing education, Vicki had to take chemistry and was having some difficulty with the material. Don Koontz suggested that I tutor her. I did, but was not very good at it, apparently. She ended up getting a 79+ grade, just under the 80 she needed to get a B in the course and be admitted to nursing sorority she wanted to join. The course was taught by a new young professor, Prof. Potter. Some of us graduate assistants and even another professor tried to get Potter to round up the grade from a 79+ to an 80 but he refused. At least Vicki knew we were plugging for her.
Academically, there was another problem for Vicki. It wasn't until her senior year at Pitt that the powers that be realized that she had not had a language in high school and that there was a language requirement in order to graduate. She found that she could take an evening class in Spanish in a nearby high school up the hill from our chemistry building. In order to provide her company and a modicum of protection at night, I would walk her back to Magee Hospital. It was on one of these walks that we stopped at Alumni Hall so she could help me with some data transcribing that led to the biggest mistake of my scientific career! To appreciate the nature of that mistake requires more detail on my research project, which I'll discuss next month.
I had planned to finish this story this month but have been held back by problems created by this *^$@##*& weather (normally I don't use profanity but this has been an awful winter). As I'm finishing this column I'm dealing with water leaking into a bedroom and living room thanks to an ice buildup in our gutters. I think it's more or less under control at the moment and our ice storm seems to have wound down. At least we are not faced with the horrendous situation in Australia with their monster cyclone.
Hopefully, my next column will be posted around March 1, if the weather cooperates.
Allen F. Bortrum
