What Would Jimmy Do?

You may know that I have a bit of history with ships and for a number of reasons, I’m not writing about most of them here. But today I thought I’d talk about a ship that I’ve been familiar with for a good number of years, but never directly involved in the story. 

The SS United States was historic right from her beginning. She was the fastest ocean liner in her day — and — is still the fastest. 
After World War II, the U.S. realized how valuable it would be to have luxury liners that could be converted into troop ships. The SS United States’ designer, William Francis Gibbs, did research for years about how to make the fastest ship possible. 
The SS United States was designed as a top-secret, convertible troop carrier and Cold War weapon that could transport 14,000 troops 10,000 miles without refueling.

The ship was built (in secrecy) at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company — it was the first major ocean liner to be built in dry dock — primarily to keep prying eyes away. The ship was built from keel-laying to delivery in just two years and three months. The job employed over 3,100 shipyard workers. 
The designer used all aluminum to keep the ship light. She was 100 feet longer than the Titanic, and all the furnishings were made fireproof — almost no wood was used on board. But what was used was flame-proof — even the wooden piano.

In her maiden voyage, the SS United States reached a speed of 36 knots. During sea trials, the ship topped out at 38 knots (44 mph.) The ship shattered the previous transatlantic speed record and that record has yet to be broken by another ocean liner. 

The ship was nicknamed America’s Flagship and carried many celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Judy Garland as well as four U.S. presidents. It turns out that even the commander of the ship was a celebrity — Commodore Harry Manning had been a co-pilot of Amelia Earhart. 

But as famous and record-breaking as she was, the ship has been sitting in Philadelphia for years. So why did she wind up out of use in Philadelphia? The answer is the jet-age arrived — and ship crossings fell in popularity. The ship was taken out of service and sealed in 1969. The U.S. Navy kept her ready until 1978. Over the years a series of private owners had big plans for the SS United States — like sea-going time-share condominiums. The Norwegian Cruise Line bought the ship in 2003 and planned to rehabilitate it for cruise service, but the recession put an end to that plan. Just recently, a contingent contract was approved to move the ship to Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where she will be intentionally sunk offshore and transformed into a diving mecca.
So if that happens, she’ll be able to add another record to her impressive list — the world’s largest artificial reef.
— 30 — 

I was watching the History Channel on TV the other night and there was a program about various “mysteries” that hadn’t been solved over the years. One story that got its fair share of the one hour program was about Amelia Earhart. She kind of became famous by becoming lost and never found, but she really had a pretty interesting life. Most of the stories I’ve read about her over the years indicated she was an outstanding pilot, and at the time, being female made her even more amazing. She did become an inspiration to women everywhere, although just how good a pilot she was is debatable. 

In 1928, a friend of the New York publisher George Palmer Putnam approached Amelia Earhart with an idea. Putnam wanted to finance a flight that would make Earhart the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. After the flight, she’d write a book about it and he’d publish it. 
Admittedly, she’d only be a passenger, but Putnam thought that, seeing as how it was only 1928, even that would be newsworthy. Earhart, who was 31 at the time, already had some experience as a pilot, but not enough — so the job of flying the plane, a trimotor Fokker called “Friendship,” was given to Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. Amelia was given the title “commander,” but there wasn’t really anything to command.

On June 18, the Friendship took off from Nova Scotia, heading for Ireland. On the other side of the ocean, bad weather forced them to land in South Wales — the fog had gotten bad and there wasn’t much fuel left, but they landed safely in Europe. Amelia had made a name for herself. She had also made a friend in Putnam — actually, more than a friend. And since Putnam was married, people started talking. In 1929, Putnam’s wife went to Reno to get a divorce. Putnam and Earhart were married in 1931. Soon afterwards, her book, 20 Hours, 40 Minutes, was published. Amelia’s new husband worked hard to keep her name in front of the public. At his urging, she flew solo from the East coast to the West coast where she attended the National Air Races in California, then returned to do a lecture tour to promote her book. 
Amelia organized the first air race for women pilots, which the papers dubbed a “powder puff derby.” That same year, Earhart and 98 other women pilots founded “the Ninety-Nines,” an organization of woman pilots. 

Five years to the day after Lindberg’s flight, on May 20, 1932, Earhart flew solo across the atlantic. When she landed in Londonderry in Northern Ireland she’d broken two records: not only was she the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, at the time she also was the only person to have crossed the Atlantic by plane twice.
With the Atlantic under her belt, she turned to the west. Her next solo flight crossed the Pacific, flying from Hawaii to California. After that, she wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. 

On her first attempt at an around the world flight, as she and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, were taking off, Amelia made an error in judgement, and overcompensated for a dipping wing. The plane crashed, but Earhart and Noonan survived. They tried again two months later.

After 22,000 miles — with only 7.000 miles to go — they  landed at Lae, New Guinea. When they took off again, it was the last time anyone ever saw them. 
Nineteen hours and 30 minutes after leaving Lae, broadcasting on a strong signal, Amelia radioed, “We must be on you but cannot see you… gas is running low.” One final voice transmission followed, the last position report. Then nothing.

The Coast Guard began the search. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered nine Navy ships and 66 aircraft to join the effort, but no trace of the flyers or their plane was found. After the official search was called off, George Putnam instigated a further search, but no luck. 

There are lots of theories — some of them wacky — about Earhart’s intimate fate. The most reasonable, but unlikely, is that she was on a spy mission for the U.S. Another just as unlikely scenario is that she purposely committed suicide. One popular rumor even claimed that Earhart was the voice of the infamous “Tokyo Rose,”
Some physical evidence recovered on an uninhabited Pacific reef points to a possible landing there, but even if true, it doesn’t account for the remains of the pilot and her navigator.

The tabloids still report the uncovered “truth” of Earhart’s fate. Until the real truth comes to light, I imagine they’ll go on claiming that she was on a secret mission or is still alive on a remote Pacific Island — probably living with Elvis.
— 30 —

Years ago there was a TV show that we used to watch called “Six Feet Under.” And there’s always the line in some cheesy movie that goes like: “One more move, and I’ll put you six feet under.” No matter if the phrase is spouted by a cowboy in a back hat or a mobster wearing pinstripes, everyone knows that six feet under represents the depth where coffins reside after burial. In fact it’s widely believed that the standard graveyard procedure is to put a coffin six feet under. But, actually, that’s not the case.

The final resting place of someone in a coffin varies depending on the site of the burial. The depths can range from 18 inches to 12 feet. There is no rule or regulation that decrees that a person must be put to rest exactly six feet below ground level. I guess if you think about it, that makes sense. Digging a six-foot grave someplace like New Orleans, that is below sea level, might get pretty soggy.

Most grave depths are determined by local, state, or national governments. In New Orleans, most of its dead are placed above ground in crypts. In that area, gravesite in the ground are almost always less than two feet deep — and even then, occasionally the coffin will pop out of the ground. 
The California requirement is a mere 18 inches. In Quebec, Canada, the law states that coffins “shall be deposited in a grave and covered with at least one meter of earth.” New South Wales in Australia, calls for 900 millimeters (slightly less than three feet.)
And the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management in London says that “no body shall be buried in such a manner that any part of the coffin is less than three feet below the level of any ground adjoining the grave.”

So — if burial depths vary from place to place, how did the phrase “six feet under” come to life? Historians believe it originated in England. London’s Great Plague of 1665 killed 75,000 to 100,00 people. In the book, A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe, the author writes that the city’s lord mayor issued an edict that all graves had to be dug six feet deep to limit the spread of the plague outbreak.

But today we don’t have a uniform burial depth — I doubt that it really matters — but I’m glad six feet under became popular…. can you imagine a good cowboy or gangster movie without that line?
— 30 —

Still cleaning out some of the stuff that’s accumulated around here over the years. Yesterday I ran across a program from “The King and I.” We saw the performance at the Kennedy Center a number of years ago. I remember that “The King and I” movie was banned in Thailand when I was there — probably still is, but I’m not sure.

I imagine most of you have seen either the movie or the stage presentation, but in case you’re not familiar or have forgotten… The movie and musical is a performance version of a semi-fictional novel that was in turn based on the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, in which she presents her version of events that supposedly took place while she was an English teacher at the court of King Mongkut (also known as King Rama IV) of Siam (present-day Thailand.) Mrs. Leonowens was hired to teach English, and maybe some other subjects, to the king’s many wives/mistresses and children.

There’s a lot of reasons that “The King and I” was banned in Thailand. In the movie/play, Anna was portrayed as the head-strong governess that tamed the king of Siam, but is that who she really was, or was she just a low-down dirty liar? 
I did some extensive research and here’s what I found…..

Anna’s autobiography says she was born Anna Crawford in 1834 in Wales, but the truth is her maiden name was Anna Edwards and she was born in India in 1831.
Her father was reported to be an army captain who died during a Sikh uprising in India when she was six years old — the truth is her father was a cabinetmaker who died three months before she was born. 

Another falsehood is that she married Major Thomas Leonowens when she was 17. He died of sunstroke during a tiger hunt in Singapore. But the truth is she did marry young, at age 18, but her husband’s name was Thomas Leon Owens. Thomas had difficulty keeping a job and the couple moved around a lot. He died of apoplexy in Penang, Malaya in 1859.

The story is that she was a highly respected British governess, But she was not a governess — a position with a broad range of duties in the royal household of Siam — she was simply a teacher of English. That was what King Mongkut hired her for. 

In her book The Romance of the Harem, she claimed that King Mongkut was a tyrant and threw his wives into underground dungeons if they failed to please him — there were no underground dungeons in Siam.
As famously portrayed in Anna’s story, King Mongkut ordered the public torture and beheading of one of his mistresses who had fallen in love with a monk. That whole episode appears to be nothing more than an invention. There were many foreign correspondents in Siam at the time and none of them mention much an incident.

The movie hints at a romance between Anna and the king, and the movie and play both suggest Anna became very close to the king. The truth is that King Mongkut hardly knew Anna Leonowens. The king kept detailed diaries and in the five years that she worked in the royal court, he mentions her only once, and then only briefly. 

It appears that Anna came to respect King Mongkut and praised him for his visionary outlook. But — in her writings Anna presented the king as a conservative, intolerant, reactionary bigot who was stuck in a time warp. She did not give him any credit for his modern policies and his embracing of Western knowledge. 

In “The King and I,” Anna was opposed to the British imperialist attitude toward Siam and courageously stood up to the British hierarchy on behalf of her adopted people. Not so — Anna was, in fact, an imperialist defender and a great supporter of the British colonial ventures in the Far East.  She purposefully portrayed the people of Siam as childlike and backward to strengthen public support for British intervention and “enlightenment.”

One major fabrication in all this is that Anna became known as an authority on all things Siamese and lived her later years in respected retirement, but the truth is as soon as first book was published, Anna was sued for plagiarism and the dissemination of false information. The more books she wrote, the more court cases she generated. The academic world refused to acknowledge her writings, and she was roundly condemned as a sensationalist writer of fiction.

So….. “The King and I” was not only loosely based on Anna Leonowens’ accounts, but historians believe many of Anna’s own recollections were exaggerated or totally made-up. “The King and I” may be an interesting movie that contains elements of Thai history and culture, but it is severely lacking when it comes to being factually correct. About the only thing about the Anna legend that appears to be true is that she did serve for five years in the royal court of Siam. 
— 30 —

We were talking the other day and someone said that most people never use mathematics beyond the regular adding and subtracting and occasionally multiplying and dividing. The discussion drug on and a couple of the guys said that only basic math should be taught — higher math courses, for most people, were probably pretty much useless. Well I disagreed with that opinion — math wasn’t my favorite subject, but I didn’t mind it. In fact I still remember some of it.
So as a public service, I offer you something I learned in a mathematics class many years ago…
Tree crickets sing in exact mathematic ratio to the temperature of the air. You don’t need a thermometer on a summer night. Just count the number of chirps a cricket makes in 15 seconds, add 40 and the result will be the current air temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
— 30 —

I was watching Dateline or one of those shows that talk about real crimes that have been committed, and a couple of the criminals received multiple life sentences for their crimes. I was thinking that seems kind of silly. given that if you don’t believe in reincarnation, there’s only one life…. so why multiple sentences? Well, I decided to look into that a little bit more.

Judges often hand down multiple sentences to punish multiple criminal offenses. Multiple charges may be decided in the same trial, but they are still considered separate crimes and often call for separate punishments. Even in cases of life imprisonment, multiple sentences can be very important in instances in which convictions are overturned on appeal.
Let’s say that a jury finds a man guilty of killing five people. The judge might sentence him to five life sentences. If one, or even four of the convictions is overturned, the murderer still has to serve a life sentence. He would have to be exonerated of all five murders for him to walk free.

And in the judicial system, “life” doesn’t always mean an entire lifetime. Depending on the sentencing guidelines of the state, the judge may sentence someone to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. In a case like that, life is the maximum length of the sentence — meaning that the defendant could conceivably go free if a parole board releases them after they’ve served the minimum time.
But — if a defendant is convicted on multiple charges, the judge may hand down multiple life sentences with the possibility of parole . And the judge can also specify that those sentences are to be served consecutively rather than concurrently. This means that the prisoner won’t get a parole hearing until the minimum time for all the sentences put together has been served.

So like just about everything these days, multiple life sentences are somewhat controversial, but they are a safeguard to ensure bad guys don’t see the light of day…..
— 30 —

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’ve been cleaning out our collection of books. The other day I ran across one that was given to me a few years ago because “it should be right down my alley.” I’m not sure about that, but I did find the book very interesting and I recommend it. The book is The Catcher was a Spy by Nicholas Dawidoff. It’s a biography of Moe Berg — a baseball player and a WWII spy.
The back cover of the book says Moe Berg was one of the most confounding men that ever donned a glove in Major League Baseball. I’d say that’s probably true….

Morris “Moe” Berg was born in New York City in 1902. He was the son of Russian immigrants and graduated from high school with honors and was accepted to Princeton University. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, so he eventually got a law degree. 

Moe studied languages at Princeton, including ancient Indian Sanskrit and Egyptian hieroglyphics, along with other “ordinary” ones. While at Princeton, Berg played shortstop for the Princeton baseball team. It immediately became obvious that he was a different kind of ballplayer — instead of the usual hand signals, he communicated with his second baseman in Latin. 

After he graduated in 1923 — to his father’s horror — Moe joined the Brooklyn Robins (the team that later became the Brooklyn Dodgers) as a backup catcher. The salary he made playing baseball paid for linguistics study at the Sorbonne in Paris and put him through the law program at Columbia University.

Moe Berg played for five different major league teams during his 16-year baseball career. When he played for the Washington Senators, he broke an American League record in the 1932-33 season by playing 117 consecutive full games without an error. But his lifetime batting average was .243 — so bad that it inspired the line: “Moe Berg can speak 12 languages, and he can’t hit in any of them.”

In 1934, an American League all-star team was put together for a tour of Japan. There were some pretty impressive players picked for the team — including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The team also included Moe Berg. Some say that Berg was put on the team because he spoke Japanese, and he also understood Japan’s culture better than the average American did. That made him very popular with the Japanese. 

Moe used some of his time in Japan to take movies of Tokyo from the rooftops of buildings — including the harbor and shipyards, industrial sites, and military installations. In later years, some sources claimed that Berg was working for U.S. intelligence, but others say he did the filming on his own. His home movies, even to this day, generate disagreements. According to a popular story, they were used in 1942 to help plan General Jimmy Doolittle’s bombing raids on Japan. Other historians don’t believe the pictures would have been of much use. 

But no matter — making those movies steered Berg toward a new career. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the forerunner of the CIA and was run by William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, and he thought Moe Berg would make a good spy. Berg spoke a number of languages, was exceptionally intelligent, and he had a knack for getting people to talk to him — all good spy qualities. 

When Moe’s baseball career was over in 1939, the OSS offered him a job. He didn’t get off to a particularly good start — he couldn’t even figure out where to carry his gun. He apparently tried to tuck it into his jacket, his belt, and his sock — but it kept falling out. According to the book, one time he just had a friend hold it for him. He traveled the world — to Casablanca, Rome Algiers, Yugoslavia, and Norway. And he always wore that traditional spy-wear — the trench coat.

In 1944, the Manhattan Project (the effort to build an atomic bomb before the Germans) was underway. Berg was sent to Zurich, Switzerland, to attend a conference of scientists. His job was to find out how far along the Germans were in building their bomb. His instructions were if he determined the Germans were close, to kill Werner Heisenberg, Germany’s leading atomic physicist, right then and there. Moe, posing as a Swiss physics student and caring his trusty gun (that he had finally learned how to carry) and a suicide pill (just in case) listened as Heisenberg gave a lecture on basic physics — a ho-hum kind of talk. Berg would have to do more digging. After the lecture the opportunity presented itself. At a dinner party later that night, Moe had a chance to chat with Heisenberg. The physicist spilled the beans — he complained that the German project was lagging behind the Allies. He supposedly told Berg, “It’s a shame, Germany has already lost the war.”

So Moe didn’t have to use his gun or his suicide pill. He sent a message with the good news to the OSS in Washington, who passed it on to President Roosevelt. The President responded with “My regards to the catcher.”
Obviously Moe Berg did other work for the OSS but a lot of it isn’t detailed in the book. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, but he refused it. He said he respected “the spirit in which it was offered.”

After the war, Moe apparently became something of a vagabond. But he still went to baseball games as often as he could and he was an entertaining storyteller who sometimes expanded on the facts. 
Because of that, it made it hard for historians to sort out the actual events of his life. He died in 1972 and left no estate — only his legend — and a few mysteries……
— 30 —

My neighbor came over yesterday and as he often does, asked if I was having a good day. I told him it was an ok day (my usual response lately) but I hadn’t really accomplished much. Well, that got me to thinking about accomplishments. I’ve always kind of measured my days by whether or not I felt like I had accomplished something. But I’m beginning to realize that those things that I thought I needed to accomplish were physical things, or kind of “external” things to my life. 

So — at this point, maybe those types of accomplishments shouldn’t be my goal. Maybe my goal now should be trying to find happiness and maybe some inner peace. If my goal now is not so much to “get things done,” maybe I should redefine my “accomplishments” as those that support and measure my progress in returning to “normal.”

It might be a good idea for all of us to try putting more emphasis on what’s really important rather than  concentrating on those “external” accomplishments and should redefine what it means to achieve a meaningful accomplishment….
— 30 —

There’s  lots of things I don’t understand. One thing I’ve never understood was why some people find it difficult, or refuse, to say “hi.” I grew up in Maysville, Oklahoma — a small town where everyone knew each other and everyone spoke to each other. As soon as I moved away from Maysville, I noticed that very often people would just stare at me when I greeted them — or — just ignore me completely. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now. Seems to me that’s just common courtesy. 

And I never thought about it until more recently, but we really don’t have much eye contact with strangers — or some people that aren’t even strangers. 
How come? Are they afraid of us, or are we afraid of them? Why would you not look at someone and exchange greetings?

Obviously, I don’t know the answer to those questions. I used to go to work in the morning, get in the elevator, and if there was someone already in the elevator, I’d say, “good morning,” or “how ya doing” or something like that. A very high percentage of the time, they’d grumble, or say nothing and would invariably look at the floor or turn away from me. 

I will readily admit I have my own set of problems right now and probably shouldn’t be analyzing other people, but I’d be willing to bet that people’s attitude toward strangers is somehow related to their overall level of happiness. I can’t believe that someone that keeps their head down, frowns, or looks away from people would fall into the “joyful person” category. 

Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m giving advice, but whether someone is an introvert or extrovert, it doesn’t take much energy to look at someone and even say hello. That’s just being kind and respectful to others. I realize everyone has troubles, concerns, likes, dislikes, fears, etc. but making eye contact and speaking takes so little effort — and I’d bet that one little act would make most people feel better. 
Someone once said (or at least should have) that eye contact is the best way of communication. Who knows — it might even be the best way to happiness…..
— 30 —

A lot of cultures have folklore, or stories passed down through time that have a moral. When we were in the Philippines, there was an old guy that worked for me — keeping track of items in one of our warehouses. His name was Gus. Gus was full of stories and he was fascinating to listen to — the only problem was that Gus couldn’t tell stories and work at the same time…. so finding a balance was sometimes difficult. 
Anyhow, I’m not sure why, but I recently remembered a story that he told me one day that I’ve always liked…I hope I remember enough of it to do it justice….

There once was a village in the Philippines that had as one of its residents a very wise old man. All the villagers trusted the old man to provide them answers to their questions and concerns. One day a farmer in the village went to the wise man for help. “Wise man, help me. A terrible thing has happened — my ox died and I won’t be able to plow my field. Isn’t this the worst thing that could have happened?” The wise old man said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” The farmer went into the village and told his neighbors that the wise man had lost his mind. His ox dying surely was the worst thing that could have happened — and the wise man couldn’t see it.

The very next day, a strong, young horse was seen near the man’s farm. The farmer had the idea to catch the horse to replace his ox — and he did. The farmer was very happy. Plowing the field had never been easier. He felt bad, so he went back to the old wise man to apologize. “You were right, wise man. Losing my ox wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened — it was a blessing. I never would have caught the horse if it didn’t happen.” The old wide man again said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” By now the farmer was sure the wise man had gone off his rocker.

A few days later, the farmer’s son was riding the horse and was thrown off. He broke his leg and wouldn’t be able to help with the crop. The farmer thought, oh no, now we’ll starve to death. 
So back to the old wise man the farmer went. “How did you know that catching that horse was not a good thing? You were right again — my son is injured and won’t be able to help with the crops. This must be the worst thing that could possibly have happened.” The old wise man once again said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” The farmer was really ticked this time and stormed back to the village. 
The next day troops arrived to take every able-bodied man to the war that had just broken out. The farmer’s son was the only young man in the village who didn’t have to go. His son would live, while the others would surely die. 

The moral of this story is that we don’t know what’s going to happen — we just think we do. We sometimes let our minds make things worse than they actually turn out. A lot of the time, we’re wrong. If we just stay calm and open to possibilities, we can be reasonably sure, eventually, all will be well — or — maybe not.
— 30 —