Living with a 98-Year-Old Rocket Scientist

For curiosity seekers of aerospace and structural science, for story lovers of the Greatest Generation and World War II, for family members caring for aging parents... Mister B is a national treasure!What Aesop and his fables are to children, Mister B and his memoirs are to adults. Born in 1916, to a Polish speaking mother, Joseph Byk begins his early schooling in rope-tied-baggy-pants-poverty. He is every teachers' dreaded student. Ending his senior year at Woonsocket High, Rhode...
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For curiosity seekers of aerospace and structural science, for story lovers of the Greatest Generation and World War II, for family members caring for aging parents... Mister B is a national treasure!What Aesop and his fables are to children, Mister B and his memoirs are to adults. Born in 1916, to a Polish speaking mother, Joseph Byk begins his early schooling in rope-tied-baggy-pants-poverty. He is every teachers' dreaded student. Ending his senior year at Woonsocket High, Rhode Island, however, he begs a high school counselor to help him make up the deficiencies in his missing math education. Why? Because, suddenly, he aspires to design vehicles that defy gravity. Mister B eventually helps design the space shuttle Gemini, the first moon landing gear for Apollo and the beginnings of Google Earth.Who knew life could be so happily transformed by a busy young couple merging households with that of an eccentric stress engineer? Being politically correct is not Mister B's style. The reader is carried from tragedy to hilarity as his companions seek to please him with foodie experiments while coaxing Mister B to upgrade his 44 year-old home. Too bad the only non-controversial place to renovate the HUD-styled real estate is in the weedy backyard. If only the younger couple had not promised to save their 97-year-old Polish father from the nursing home! A triangle forms as they study and tentatively approach one another. The ol' man and his new companions gradually redesign a dry acre into a flowering conversation piece where mushroom collecting and the sources of hydrogen and iron are discussed. Interior design must take a back seat while the scientific engineer challenges them to consider theories of deflection, accuracy, stress variables, and material strengths. With all the delicacy of designing a conical intersection onto a space capsule, the threesome focus on integrating their relationships in 3-D. With a shot of respect, Mister B's bygone family ideals confront the independence of a younger generation as he reveals a lifetime of secrets. Mister B's family gains more than a conversationalist. They gain a friend.