#4

#4 was a Combination Real Book & Kindle Digital Book ~ because that's how I roll.  A sweet lady at church recommended Rocket Boys to me by Homer Hickman Jr.  I had it on my wish list on my Kindle ~ and she handed me her copy of the book, which had been reprinted and renamed October Sky, after the movie that had been made from the original Rocket Boys novel.  So, not only did I read this book in two different formats, I read it as two different titles.  I am livin' on the EDGE here, people.
I love a memoir that reads like a novel.  Homer Hickman, on top of being a self-taught rocket scientist, is quite a story teller.  This is the story of a young boy growing up in a dying coal mining town.  It really gave life to that time, that struggle, and the culture of a company town.  It a story of a dreamer, who becomes driven to learn.  He also becomes the hero of this small town, as someone who can do them proud & show the world the greatness that can come of hard work.

Quotes:
p135 ~ "What's the hardest thing you ever learned, Dad?" I asked abruptly.  He leaned on the rail of the stoop.  "Entropy," he said finally.  I didn't understand the word and he knew it.  "Entropy is the tendency of everything to move toward confusion and disorder as time passes," he explained.  "It's part of the first law of thermodynamics."  I must have looked bland.  "No matter how perfect the thing," he continued patiently, "the moment it's created it begins to be destroyed."

Good Word:
p150 ~  besmirched

   damage the reputation of someone or something in the opinion of others

p185 ~ I knew better than to thank Dad for any of it.  Some dogs you're better off to just let lie in the sun.

p295 ~ "In the queer mass of human destiny, the determining factor has always been luck"

p301 ~ "The Lord preserves the simple" was Mom's response when I mentioned this to her.

fl: Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives.  ll: Even now, Coalwood endures, and no one, not careless industry or overzealous government, can ever completely destroy it --not while we who once lived there may recall our life among its places, or especially remember rockets that once leapt into the ir, propelled not by physics but by the vibrant love of an honorable people, and the instruction of a dear teacher, and the dreams of boys.