Rain Man
11-24-2007, 11:09 PM
Please, no genitalia jokes. Or wait, maybe they're fine.
I went to a museum exhibit tonight that featured recovered artifacts from the Titanic. They kindly had a piece of the hull that people could touch, so I laid hands upon the actual ship. It was cool that we could do that.
They had lots of artifacts, and also some reconstructed hallways and staterooms. Other than being too crowded, it was a nice exhibit. The artifact that probably most touched me was the frame of a bench that sat on the deck. The sign mentioned that people most likely were sitting on the bench waiting for lifeboats, and it was interesting to imagine that scene, then 80 years at the bottom of the ocean, and then back up again.
Interestingly, they had lots of paper goods like money and letters and stuff. Apparently a lot of stuff in leather bags was protected from microorganisms, and was in unbelievably good shape. You could still read the writing on them.
A lot of the stuff was identifiable by passenger too, since you could still read it. They had several exhibits that parts of the suitcase contents of individuals. The most interesting story was that of a guy whose suitcases got on board, but the night before the launch, he was kidnapped and shanghaied to be a forced laborer on a ship headed to the Far East. He eventually escaped and got back to the U.S., but his belongings went down with the ship.
Another interesting thing that the museum did was to hand each person a boarding pass for a random passenger as they arrived. It had information about that person, and then at the end of the exhibit they had a big board up that showed the fates of everybody so you could see if "you" lived or died.
I figured that I was probably out of luck. I drew the boarding pass of Thomas William Solomon Brown, a hotel owner from Cape Town, South Africa who was headed to Seattle to start a new hotel. http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/355/ He was 60 years old, and was a second-class passenger traveling with his 40 year-old wife and 15 year-old daughter.
Sure enough, he didn't make it, and his body was never found (or identified). However, his wife and daughter made it, and the daughter actually went back to the site at the age of 99 and dropped a rose in the water for him, and was given a watch that was recovered in 1987 that was believed to belong to Thomas. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06EED91F3BF930A15752C0A961958260
My wife drew the name of Bess Allison, a 25 year-old first-class passenger, so we figured she was safe. The woman married a 26 year-old millionaire, and they had a maid, chauffeur, cook, and nanny on board with them to help with their two children, along with other friends.http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/3/. Alas, the nanny got on another lifeboat with the youngest and no one knew where they were, so Bess pulled her young daughter of the lifeboat she was in and went looking for them. After a lot of confusion, she then got in another lifeboat at the end, but fell out of it as it was being lowered, and died.
It was quite interesting, especially since I could've gone down on that cruise ship yesterday that hit the iceberg if I had purchased a ticket and sailed on it.
I went to a museum exhibit tonight that featured recovered artifacts from the Titanic. They kindly had a piece of the hull that people could touch, so I laid hands upon the actual ship. It was cool that we could do that.
They had lots of artifacts, and also some reconstructed hallways and staterooms. Other than being too crowded, it was a nice exhibit. The artifact that probably most touched me was the frame of a bench that sat on the deck. The sign mentioned that people most likely were sitting on the bench waiting for lifeboats, and it was interesting to imagine that scene, then 80 years at the bottom of the ocean, and then back up again.
Interestingly, they had lots of paper goods like money and letters and stuff. Apparently a lot of stuff in leather bags was protected from microorganisms, and was in unbelievably good shape. You could still read the writing on them.
A lot of the stuff was identifiable by passenger too, since you could still read it. They had several exhibits that parts of the suitcase contents of individuals. The most interesting story was that of a guy whose suitcases got on board, but the night before the launch, he was kidnapped and shanghaied to be a forced laborer on a ship headed to the Far East. He eventually escaped and got back to the U.S., but his belongings went down with the ship.
Another interesting thing that the museum did was to hand each person a boarding pass for a random passenger as they arrived. It had information about that person, and then at the end of the exhibit they had a big board up that showed the fates of everybody so you could see if "you" lived or died.
I figured that I was probably out of luck. I drew the boarding pass of Thomas William Solomon Brown, a hotel owner from Cape Town, South Africa who was headed to Seattle to start a new hotel. http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/355/ He was 60 years old, and was a second-class passenger traveling with his 40 year-old wife and 15 year-old daughter.
Sure enough, he didn't make it, and his body was never found (or identified). However, his wife and daughter made it, and the daughter actually went back to the site at the age of 99 and dropped a rose in the water for him, and was given a watch that was recovered in 1987 that was believed to belong to Thomas. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06EED91F3BF930A15752C0A961958260
My wife drew the name of Bess Allison, a 25 year-old first-class passenger, so we figured she was safe. The woman married a 26 year-old millionaire, and they had a maid, chauffeur, cook, and nanny on board with them to help with their two children, along with other friends.http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/3/. Alas, the nanny got on another lifeboat with the youngest and no one knew where they were, so Bess pulled her young daughter of the lifeboat she was in and went looking for them. After a lot of confusion, she then got in another lifeboat at the end, but fell out of it as it was being lowered, and died.
It was quite interesting, especially since I could've gone down on that cruise ship yesterday that hit the iceberg if I had purchased a ticket and sailed on it.