Maggie's Farm

So shuffleboard was canceled, then?

As far as ability to comfortably ride a gale is concerned, I wonder if a wide beam with respect to length, a broad, flat stern and a high superstructure is an improvement over a more traditional, slimmer, lower design.

Well, up until the 1960's or so, the hull would have been flat bottomed but deep and the ratio of length to beam would have been greater. Five or six to one or even more, instead of maybe 4.5 to 1. And the superstructure would have been much lower. Look at an older ocean liner and see how much lower the superstructure was in comparison.

Yes, the sea is invincible, but had they been modern cruise ships, I wonder if the toll would have been worse.

Any book recommendations?

I have several things going at once - mainly Vol. 9 of the journals of Lewis & Clark. The preceding volumes were the journals of the two captains and vol. 9 is that of Sergeant Ordway and Sergeant Floyd (who dies early on). Very interesting. Lots of little throwaway tidbits. Horses with Spanish brands in northern Idaho. An Indian guy on the upper Columbia in a canoe, wearing a sailors' jacket. They asked the Indians about where they got their Western goods and most said from trading ships though they were also told of a white guy living by himself in an old house near the mouth of the river. There was an Indian with red hair, who appeared to understand, but could not speak, English. He is thought to be the same guy who was encountered by the Astor party a few years later, who had the name "Jack Ramsay" tattooed on his arm. Et cetera.

Then there is the rebuttal of James Bellesiles' infamous book that purported to show that colonial America had few guns. The rebuttal is by Clayton E. Cramer, called "Armed America" and is quite good.

I kinda shuttle between the two...

Then on the on-deck circle is Alistair Cooke's "The American Home Front" about his travels around the US for the BBC right after Pearl Harbor.

And after that is one of about six or seven titles - certainly Amity Shlaes book about the Depression and Irene Nemirovsky's book about the fall of France in WW2, called "Suite Francaise." It begins with the exodus from Paris and shows the class snobbery and bickering among all these people thrown together as they flee. It reminded me so much of contemporary America that I had to take up something cheerful like Lewis and Clark.

Oh yeah - upriver from St. Louis there were Frenchmen everywhere. I never knew they tied their canoes together like catamarans when floating down the big rivers, loaded with furs. Lots of little nuggets like that.

And thanks for the P-38 suggestion. I need one or more such books. My Dad made a little model of one when I was a kid, which I still have.

So time for some P-38 books, I'm thinkin'.

As I've said before, I am contributing enough to allow Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos to buy a new mega-yacht on my purchases alone.

My dad knew a guy who had a steam calliope in his back yard. I can't imagine what the neighbors must have thought. Almost as good as a P-38.

It may have been converted to work on compressed air, now that I think about it. But it was the genuine article, with wooden wagon wheels and a trestle tree and a tongue to be pulled by a team. He actually had the thing in his side yard, if I remember right. He fired it up once and played some Ringling Bros. circus march. I got to sit at the keyboard. Good stuff when you're seven.

They restored a P-38 near here - all those Boeing guys and their hobbies. I think it is now at the Seattle Museum of Flight.

Well, you must have been a proud (though nervous) Pop.