There's an old joke about the rivalry between writers and scientists:
Writer: "Scientists don't know how to write."
Scientist: "Oh, yeah? Well, writers don't know how to think."
My grandfather seems to have been one of those who could do both. A petroleum engineer recently told me a funny story - he had recently taken a casing design class from Phil Patillo, who passed out a copy of my grandfather's paper to his students. He told the class, "when given the choice of what to take with you to a deserted island, Arthur Lubinki's 1962 paper, Helical Buckling of Tubing Sealed in Packers or an attractive movie star ... always chose the paper. The movie star will age, but the paper will always be beautiful."
Not being an engineer myself, I'm really not in a position to judge the beauty of that paper, but he always was a good writer, mixing the clarity of his scientific mind with a hint of poetry, bringing his experiences to life. Consider his description of the Nazi invasion of Western Europe on May 10, 1941, written in his third language prior to being fluent, when he was just practicing the language:
“What it is?—What is the matter?„ I asked myself half awakened in my bed. A canonnade was heard outside. And suddenly a sorrowful widespread sound of sirenes came to me. The sound was increasing during a few seconds and afterward it was fading to begin presently once more. Every one can understand its dreadful meaning. Alarm! The birds of death are flying over the capital!
“Is the war there?„ I asked myself anxiously. — “Oh no! „ — Still I was fool enough to hope it was not true “Perhaps a squadron of R.A.F. is coming back from Germany and the Belgian army is shooting in a neutral manner that is to say in trying to do no harm„.
I got on as swiftly as I can. Five minutes later I was in the street
In spite of the early time it was already certain that the weather will be fine. There was not a cloud in the sky. The sun rised a few minutes before and its feable beams were awaking the earth to live.
I looked up, but could not discerne at once the airplanes. However I was hearing de roar of their motors, somewhere far up. And suddenly a whiz tore the air. It lasted not long, a few seconds perhaps. I looked eagerly and perceived four or five meters farther, in the middle of the pavement, a thing beaming like a piece of hot steel which just left a forge to be hammered by a blacksmith. Of cylindric shape, its diameter might have been of 6 centimeters and its length of 30. At one end was fasten a fixed steel helix. A hundred meters further another thing like this one fell and a neighbour was pouring a bucket of water on it. But instead of extinguish it, big flames flashed from it.
Now it was not possible to doubt any more. Incendiary bombs were pouring down on the town. The war burst on this happy little country.
There are some minor spelling and grammatical errors, and he uses an older European punctuation style, but his writing was clearer and contains fewer errors than many writing in their first language. I am in awe of it.
Grandpa's oldest daughter, Lillian Lubinski McCullar was also a gifted writer. Her writing, as a junior high student in the 1950s far outstripped the best of my students when I was teaching high school English. Hell, she wrote better than I did when I was her age. Here's how the 13-year-old Lilly described immigrating to the United States as an almost seven-year-old:
We left London on February seventh on a huge trans-atlantic Constellation plane. After a pleasant but short two hour flight the plane was obliged to land in a small Irish town because of bad weather. We spent the night there and took off the next morning. Our next stop was to be none other than New York City. We had a very pleasant flight until the time when the lights of New York could be seen in the distance. It was then that I began to feel sick, I had a headache, a backache, and worse still an ear ache. The stewardess tried to put drops in my ears to stop the ache but I guess I just didn’t understand because I wouldn’t even let her come near me with that horrid medicine, so I suffered, and I might add not in silence, until we landed.
And here's how her 15-year-old self described her birth:
May tenth nineteen forty is a dramatic day, embedded forever in the perpetual history of Belgium. It was on this memorable day that the impossible happened. The Germans invaded Belgium. This day marked the beginning of a period when war, with its destruction and heartbreak was the prevailing factor which cruelly ruled every individual's existence.
Two days previous to this attack a daughter had been born to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lubinski. She put in her first appearance in a quiet and dignified private clinic in a suburban district of Brussels. Under these unusual circumstances the story of my life began. I was named Lillian and I may never boast of a middle name. My parents obtained my name from no particular source nor does it have an interesting story behind it. My name seems to be the only uncomplicated item in my early life.
I also love this description of herself, written with self-deprecating humor and honesty:
Have you ever wondered how far back you can actually remember? I have. After much thought I believe that I have reached a factual circumstance which I can recall today. I remember two of my many revolting hobbies. The first was finding, imprisoning and later torturing huge snails. The second and more worthwhile hobby was raising rabbits. On a warm afternoon while I was walking through the sunlit fields behind our house, gathering various plants to feed my nine rabbits, I heard a terrible explosion nearby. Upon arriving home in hysterics I was told that a bomb had been dropped a few miles away. We quickly sought shelter underground and before long the attack was over with no harm done in our immediate vicinity.
I myself became a writer, getting a BA in English Writing and an MA in English Education and taught English to high school students, but it was later that I found my true talent was in technical writing. I once had a boss describe the SOPs I wrote describing how to perform temperature checks in trucks transporting frozen foods (I was working as a contractor for Schwan Foods at the time) as the best in the industry, which made me feel really good. That said, technical writing is the bastard stepchild to the kind of writing I value most, so I continue to hone my creative writing skills.
And finally, Arthur's oldest great-granddaughter (my daughter Kivi) is also a talented writer. In high school, she was selected to be an alternate for the Teen Artist in Residence at Isle Royal National Park, and won a county-wide essay contest, and she just graduated cum laude with a BFA in Creative Writing.
As much as I wish I'd also inherited my grandfather's scientific skill, I'm grateful that I seem to have inherited his ability to write, and that I passed it on to the next generation.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Neither spam nor mean comments are allowed. I'm the sole judge of what constitutes either one, and any comment that I consider mean or spammy will be deleted without warning or response.