Remembering Millie

​Boy, sometimes timing really is everything.

The clock just passed midnight to Wednesday as I post this, but I began writing it late Tuesday night.  So that means it was just this morning that I wrote about a wonderful GE commercial that uses a renowned scientist, Millie Dresselhaus -- the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering -- as its centerpiece.  The point of the ad being what if we treated scientists like we do other celebrities.  It's an absolutely lovely spot that has the real Millie Dresselhaus, a gray-haired, hunched, sweet-looking elderly lady, seen in all manner of celebrity settings -- covered on the news eating lunch, stopped for autographs, on t-shirts, walking slowly on stage to cheering crowds and more.

It turns out that Millie Dresselhaus passed away the day before, at the age of 86.

I discovered this by accident.  I have a friend who's on the writing staff of a talk show, and I was sending him a note to suggest that they book Millie Dresselhaus as a guest.  I wanted to check first to see her age, so that I could include it in my note.  When I saw it listed as Monday, I did a double-take and quadruple-checked to make sure I was looking at the right line or that wrong information wasn't included in the wrong space.  Unfortunately, it was all accurate.

I'm sorry to learn about it.  But I'm so glad that the TV ad had already begun to air and brought her some national notoriety while she was still here to see it.

If you haven't seen the ad yet, do scroll down to yesterday morning's first posting and check it out.