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Quote of the Day: She Is Squeezing My Hand!
R. Buckminster Fuller“She is squeezing my hand!” —
Richard Buckminster Fuller would have been 125 years old today. Many know of his works, such as Dymaxion Map, Dymaxion House, or Dymaxion Car, or in promoting the geodesic dome.
But not as many may know of his death. He had been married for sixty-six years. His wife was in the hospital in a coma and dying. According to Wikipedia:
Published in Group WritingIt was while visiting her there that he exclaimed, at a certain point: “She is squeezing my hand!” He then stood up, suffered a heart attack, and died an hour later, at age 87. His wife of 66 years died 36 hours later.
This is the Quote of the Day. If you have a quotation you would like to share, well, Tuesday would be a good day.
Aren’t buckyballs named after him?
Yes. There is the substance, Buckminsterfullerene, which is the molecule made of 60 carbon atoms. There is the truncated icosahedron. And then there are the magnets.
Shameless plug for a previous Bucky QOTD.
The same thing happened to my maternal Aunt and Uncle.
That’s the way to go. Lead a full life, accompanied by a good wife, and then poof! you’re gone.
I never knew that. Thank you. I’ve read books about Fuller’s work and it seldom mentions his personal life, which is a shame. He seems to have been one of the nicest eccentrics you could ever meet.
There was a friend of my grandfather’s who he knew from Hartford. Apparently the man had a running joke with my grandmother: When she answered the phone, he’d tell her, “Ann! Have your suitcase ready and I’ll have the car running.”
This friend died while my grandfather was on his deathbed. My uncle, who was still running the funeral home up there, decided not to tell his father, who was still conscious at the time. But it’s nice to know that there was somebody holding the door for Papa when he arrived.
Great post, ‘hant! I didn’t know any of this.
Goosebumps.
Where is that dome house? There was one that looked exactly like that near my home town. It was . . . weird inside.
Indiana.
I think it may speak poorly of me that the only things I know about that guy I learned from some sci-fi book. I was surprised much later to find out he was a real person.
He does have sort of made-up sounding name, doesn’t he.
And a made-up sounding life.
GrimNoir? That was actually quite an accurate portrayal of the man.
On the TV show Andromeda space ships were equipped with Bucky Cables.
I don’t remember. It had to do with space travel and those two things are the only things I remember about it.