Well, actually, I only knew one. As a Polish-American guy who grew up in a working class town in New Jersey, and who never really got out of “kielbasa world” (even though I’m now a vegetarian, thank goodness), you wouldn’t expect that I’d have met too many Daughters of the American Revolution. But I actually did have an acquaintance with one. This being Independence Day here in the USA, it seems the patriotic thing to do to reminisce a bit about her.

Her name was Celeste Underhill, of Shelter Island, New York (a ritzy little island off the far northern tip of Long Island). To me, she was “Aunt Celeste”, even though she obviously wasn’t in any way related to me. She was the great aunt of a guy who I worked with back in the mid-1980s, and with whom I struck up a friendship (we’re still friends today, pleasantly enough). Anyway, Ed and his wife Jane were quite close with Aunt Celeste, and used to visit her little estate out on Shelter Island (in the “heights” section) quite regularly. And I had the honor and pleasure of accompanying them on two or three of those weekend trips (my memory isn’t that good anymore; I know I was there at least twice).

I don’t think that Aunt Celeste was spectacularly rich, but she was well enough off, as were just about all her neighbors out on Shelter Island. Definitely out of my economic league! Her home and grounds, and the Island itself, were really a nice place to be. And Aunt Celeste was a very gracious host. We all had some pleasant chats and nice meals while there. It was just a mellow place where time goes by with little problem, no danger of boredom. Aunt Celeste’s personality fit in just fine with it all.

For better or worse, I lost touch with Ed and Jane in the early 1990’s, as I was entering a “hermit” phase after a couple of relationships that went bad. I was perfectly content to sit home all weekend to read and meditate. Aunt Celeste was in her 90’s by then and was declining physically and mentally. By ’96 or so she went into a nursing home, and passed away at the age of 98, in 1998. Yup, she was born at the turn of the century — 1900, start of the 20th Century.

Well, I finally got back together with Ed and Jane recently, and we talked about Aunt Celeste a bit. Ed told me how she had traveled to Europe back in the 1940’s by steamship! I think he said she made one trip on the S.S. France, which was quite the way to go back then (not a third-class bunk on a banana boat, as I probably would have been on had I been around back then!). Yea, Aunt Celeste’s life covered almost the entire 20th Century, with all its wars and big social changes. And yet, from what Ed told me, she remained gracious and classy right up to the end. He also said that she always spoke well of me. And I’ll always speak well of her.

SISTAS IN SPACE: Last I heard, NASA still plans to launch the Space Shuttle today (the Discovery). I count myself among those who don’t think the Shuttle, nor the Space Station, are worth the expense and risk anymore. It’s all a big system that started out with the best of intentions, but went bad. It just didn’t work out, like a whole lot of well-intentioned things on this planet. The USA is still trying to wring something out of the whole effort; but it seems like good money after bad to me, mostly an attempt to save face. I say, admit that it didn’t work; junk it all and get on with an attempt to do better next time. But the powers that be are pressing on.

One of the crew for this mission is Stephanie Wilson, the second African-American female astronaut. The first one was Mae Jemison, a medical doctor who went up on the Endeavour in September of 1992. I’m interested in them because they represent a rare intersection between two “rivers of experience” of my own life. On the one hand, I have my technical side, with my engineering degree from N.J. Institute of Technology, and my (late) father who made guidance devices for the space program back in the 1960s. I have science and technology in my blood. I can “feel in my bones” all the chemical reactions and electronic pulses and airflow dynamics and servomechanisms activating and hydraulic devices surging during a Shuttle launch.

But there’s another side of me, the side that ventured into community development and governmental work in urban areas, along with some brief volunteer efforts. So I’ve gotten to observe and know something of the African American culture over the past 40 years. There isn’t all that much overlap between “techie world” and “urban world” (which is one reason why urban-world has so many problems today), so it’s interesting for me to see a person who hails from both. Ms. Wilson was born in Boston and grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. If you look at a map of Pittsfield, you’d think it was a pleasant little town in the Berkshires, nothing at all like Philadelphia or Detroit or Camden. But Pittsfield was built around old GE factories and paper mills, so it has the some of the same gritty social and economic dynamics, just on a smaller scale. Despite being a Harvard graduate, I’m sure that Ms. Wilson knows what “the streets” are about.

Anyway, God speed, Stephanie Wilson. I hope that the Shuttle has a good day, and that you get back safely. And I hope that thousands and thousands of other black kids from the ‘hoods will find out about you and seek to reach for the stars, just like you’re doing today.