When I was in grade school, circa 1952-60, I owned the proud knowledge of the names of the planets in orbital sequence, Mercury to Pluto, which was discovered the year I was in first grade in the single-room school a mile up the road from the farm.
I remember the morning that Mrs. Henrietta Henchik announced to the classes, all eight of us, a new planet had been discovered in the solar system. This required an explanation of the solar system, the planets, the moon and Jupiter with moons you could see through a pair of binoculars. I remember that rare spectacle when a pair of binoculars delivered Jupiter and its moons to our front porch.
I do not know what accident of circumstances sets a child off for a love affair with science but I credit Mrs. Henrietta for the ignition that began in a one-room school with a jack-handle water pump on the back wall behind four rows of desks screwed durably to the floor, a Red Wing crock for a “bubbler.”
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