20200320: Dear CoronaVirus/ COVID-19/ China Virus/ WuFlu, Daily Thread

I’ll never forget taking Gunner everywhere shopping for colleges. He had been to MIT/Duke/GaTech and Univ of GA for various seminars. Yet, one of our first trips was to Texas A&M, between his sophomore and junior year. Gunner was headed to MS Math and Science for 11th and 12th grade and would take many university classes, so we wanted to know what Texas A&M would accept as transfer credits for engineering and which credits they would deny.
Made sense, right?
Instead of taking the normal campus tour, fluff, and football stadium, we spent three days there, for specific meetings.
We met with Engineering School admittance, not just univ admittance.
He had an hour appointment with Dean of Electrical Engineering (cuz he thought that might be an option) and ended up having lunch with the Dean, and then spent the afternoon with a class of grad students the Dean was teaching over the summer.
Things were going well.
Third day, “we” had a 10:00am, mid-morning appointment with old savvy Mech Engineering professor at their Accelerator Lab. Professor was an older but tall and handsome, snow-white-haired-German, and my kid was name Gunner. The two of them were like thieves and over my head in about 60 seconds. Appointment was supposed to last about 20 minutes because the Prof was working on a big project with a few grad students.
Well, appointment ended within 10 minutes, abruptly, and prof invited us to take a look at the lab……gravitating back to his grad students, showing Gunner the kind of stuff they were working on.
Okay, made sense.
I’ve never seen that much conduit in my life. What kind of place was this?
Well, the Prof’s two grad students were Chinese nationals, and clearly, the Prof hated those two. He talked to them like dogs. They were dumb. Hey, I’m the accountant, but I can listen to basic directions. Gunner worked well with the Prof and seemed to read his mind about what tool he needed and what he was trying to accomplish. They had….. a rhythm about them.
They were testing a new drill bit for an oil platform for Amoco. It was a 5 million dollar drill bit. If successful, it would save Amoco about 300 million a year.
After about 45 minutes-hour, the Prof got so mad at the Chinese students, he sent them home. Water was pouring from the top of the test bit. Spraying everywhere and the Chinese Nationals acted like they were afraid of the water. Failure. Little tense, and I thought it was time to leave……. but the Prof asked Gunner to stay. I took a chair. Fifteen minutes turned into an hour.
So, I left and went to Chic-Fil-A to buy the Prof and Gunner some lunch.
I returned with food……. which they scarfed……. and it was like I wasn’t even there.
Boys…… playing with big toys.
Gunner to Prof: “Can I tell her to go back to the hotel?”
(My own son, talking about me in the third person????)
Prof to Gunner: “Yeah, can you stay until about 5:00?”
Head nod from Gunner.
Gunner to me: “Mom, you can pick me up at 5:00pm.”
Declarative sentence from my son, not a sentence seeking permission……hmmmm….. Good, I thought.
I kissed the Prof on the cheek, which he did not expect but did not shun, and whispered to him, “You two boys have fun”
I returned about 4:50pm with Big Gulps.
They were still working, dripping wet, and could not have been happier. They were both like kids playing in the rain…….. but serious at the same time.
I sat and watched the two “men”, only absorbing about 10% of what they were saying, they worked in a rhythm and had a language of their own.
Engineering/Construction-Man-Speak-Martian-type-language.
Made me see my son in a different light.
Not a baby anymore.
They were both big and strong men.
About 6:30pm we finally had success, for the moment.
And it was a great moment.
The Prof threw Gunner a dry towel and grabbed one for himself, “You ready to go to dinner? I’m hungry!”
Gunner, nodding.
Prof to me: “Mom, are you buying?”
Me to Prof: “Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world…..”
Off to dinner.
Over dinner, and I swear those guys ate like cattlemen, the Prof was disappointed I did not have 6 sons to send to him, to “make good engineers”.
Sounded like my Uncle Ed.
The Prof pretty much dismissed me and talked to Gunner about other projects they were working on. New stuff, coming up. At one point, even suggesting Gunner take a GED now, skip the last two years of high school, and enter A&M in the fall.
Huh????
To me, the Prof railed endlessly about the Asian students, “deficient in every way” and “in 20 years, only two which have been good”.
Honestly, his “bigotry”, and I don’t know what else to call it, was alarming to me. Yet, he was completely justified in his reaction, according to his story. At A&M, it was an endless parade of Asian students whose parents were sometimes wealthy but sometimes not, “sponsored” he said. They could not think critically, think for themselves, and work together as a team. They were great at rote memorization but not think as a process, suggest different things, or work as a hive mind to create a good solution to a problem. Their culture, he stated, was “every man for themselves….. which, fundamentally…. is incompatible with an engineering team”.
Interesting take and brutally honest.
The Prof wanted us to stay……. heck, he wanted Gunner through the summer, “custom internship”, and “surely you know someone here where he can stay”. And truthfully, I thought about staying. Would have been the opportunity of a lifetime for my son. But alas, he had a schedule to keep.
Best college interview.