When NASA engineer Homer Hickam Jr.'s memoir was made into a movie, the title was changed from
______ Boys to
_______ Sky, an anagram of the original title. Can you fill in the missing words? The first word refers to the hobby that became Hickam's career, while the second refers to the time of year that the Sputnik satellite was launched, an event that inspired Hickam.
Solution
The original title was Rocket Boys; it was changed to October Sky.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Tori, Summer, Anna J., Peter V., Caden, Jacob C., Inca, Alex Z., Ena, Peter M., Atticus, Yana, Charlie, Mr. Gregg, Graham, Dr. Yetman, and Dr. Hill. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!
Though he now teaches mathematics, Dr. (né Mr.) Shapiro's first job in a K–12 school was as a lunch monitor in Davis, CA. It was there that he originated the Puzzle of the Day, even rewarding correct answers with tickets in denominations like "15 points" (though without a clear idea of how he'd ultimately redeem these). Dr. Shapiro's favorite puzzle from this pre-professional era was "Tell me the location of the beehive on this campus."
Ten years later, Dr. Shapiro revived Puzzle of the Day at Proof School, writing each day's puzzle on a name tag. After 600 puzzles or so, he was just starting to feel normal about students reading his chest all the time when campus closed and the puzzle, like the rest of our lives, moved online. New puzzles are posted daily on school days.
Want to catch up on old PotDs? There's an archive currently containing puzzles from March to December 2020.