Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 14

My grandfather, whom I adored and who adored me, was born in 1892. He was eleven years old when the Wright brothers made their flight at Kitty Hawk.

I remember my grandfather describing the thrill of seeing the first airplane fly over, and how children and adults alike were running and screaming and waving at the godlike man in the incredible flying machine. In early 1969, my parents and I marveled that my grandfather got to experience both the first manned flight and would live to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. What unbelievable progress he witnessed in his lifetime!

My grandfather died two months before Apollo 11 made it to the moon.

My father worked as a handyman in a printing office in Manchester, Tennessee. There was one sink in the back of the shop for both washing hands and drinking water. There were dippers hanging on the wall on either side of the sink. The one on the right of the sink we all shared. After we drank from it, we would wash it out by swirling a little water in it and then place it back on the hook. The one on the left was for Henry. He swept the floors and took out the trash. Henry was black. I remember people tittering once when I used Henry’s dipper by mistake.

I never knew Henry’s last name.

When I saw all the tears streaming down white and black faces the night Barack Obama was elected president the first time, I remembered Henry and his dipper.

What is the greater marvel, that we moved from the Wright brothers to Neil Armstrong in my grandfather’s lifetime—a brilliant technological feat—or that we moved from Henry the help to Barack Obama the president in my lifetime?