Day 1111: Book club time

Every one of us agreed, The Boys in the Boat, was an incredibly powerful, inspirational, moving, exciting, suspenseful and profound story.  It's one of the best books I've read in the last five years.  The young men from Washington University who represented the US in the Berlin Olympics were humble, hardworking, dedicated men who represented the best of the greatest generation.

They were tried and tested throughout the Depression, doing impossibly difficult jobs just to survive.  Joe Rantz, who is the center of the story, spent a summer working on the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.  His job was to dangle on the face of rock cliffs in a harness and use a jack hammer to to knock off the loose rocks.

Once they finally got to the Olympics, they got the best time in the preliminary round and the British had the second best time.  They should have gotten the best lane for the finals, but instead the Germans changed the rules to put them in the outside lanes which were buffeted by strong winds.  Nevertheless, they prevailed, winning by two feet.   They came on from the outside, and despite all obstacles, they prevailed, just as the Americans did in the war against the Germans.

We finally got out for a long walk around the college since the temp rose into the twenties.  The men who work construction are tough.  It must be very difficult to work outside and endure the freezing temps we've had recently.

Construction on the back of Rockefeller Arts Center.