2937 Спутник

Not even my kids know this story. I'm not sure I've ever told anyone about how one little event that the whole world knew about completely changed the direction of my life. Спутник. Sputnik.

My date, D.B., and I were returning to Manchester College after seeing a movie in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and we heard about the Sputnik launch on the car radio. I doubt if I paid much attention to the news in those days, and even TV news, which I never saw until 1960 was only 15 minutes when I did start. But D.B. knew the score. He was a sophomore chemistry major and today we would call him a geek, but in 1957, he was just a brain. I was a freshman no-major and I'd describe myself if I could, but really have little memory of that girl's personality. But both of us were sort of overcome with a feeling of dread--that the Soviet Union was now going to overwhelm the United States. I imagine I listened to him explain the seriousness of it--because I still remember how frightened I was in those days of the Cold War.

A few weeks later I walked past an article posted on a bulletin board about the USSR's superiority in science and math, and it had a graphic of the cyrillic alphabet. I stopped to examine it and was fascinated--and made the instant decision I wanted to study Russian. Since Russian wasn't offered at Manchester, I would need to transfer. It was offered at the University of Illinois, my home state, and so I made preparations to transfer for my sophomore year.

And that's how I got to Columbus, Ohio, to take a position in the Ohio State University Library in Slavic, where I put down roots, raised a family, and retired (from the veterinary medicine library, not Russian, which I've totally forgotten), and started writing blogs. Thank you, Спутник.

Where were you October 4, 1957?

Sputnik
Cold War
1950s
career decisions
serendipity