The golf shots were my sister,Janie's idea. She accompanied me last October and noticed that there were a lot of golfers at the show. I really didn't see them, but I trusted her and last winter and spring I started taking millions of shots with different old clubs. Tom and I even went to a local golf course early on a Sunday morning where I spent an hour or so on all fours taking shots of golf tees. Most of these shots have been made into note cards. Very cute if I do say so myself. In the picture below you can see the general design of the tent. I thought the colored panels would add a little "ump" to my tent. Every time I go, I have a different design. In the bottom left you can see the large image of the Brooklyn Bridge that I took Labor Day. (See post dated September 10)
I like to write about visitors to my tent. For this post, I thought I would write about three different groups of people who visited and actually BOUGHT matted prints. They all had one thing in common, they were all from West Virginia. I just love people from West Virginia, mainly because that's where I was born and raised. So here goes.
Early Saturday morning as I was unpacking my wares, before the show opened, (okay I lie, I was late), a couple walked right by my tent with absolutely no intention of stopping. Lucky for them I saw the WVU logo on the man's baseball cap and said "Go Herd." Most of the time that totally pisses off WVU fans. That got his attention. One thing led to another and I must have held them hostage for at least thirty minutes. We talked about Marshall and WVU. We talked about coal and they told me that Haliburton was drilling in the mountains. I didn't know there was oil in West Virginia, but apparently there is. Scott and Judy H were from Martinsburg, a fair distance from Huntington, where I'm from. Eventually, they broke down and bought a print. They didn't have the heart to leave without buying something. I just love people from West Virginia.
If you don't take someone with you to give you a break, you just have to leave your tent unattended and just take your chances that a bunch of thugs won't steal your cute little notecards with the plaid ribbons. I really wanted to visit my friend Liz's tent. She lives near Litchfield, south of Myrtle Beach and she always has great shots. Fortunately, her tent wasn't far from mine so I could see if anyone was going into my tent, so I moseyed over for a quick visit. This was Sunday afternoon, and the crowds were thinning out, but I still kept one eye in the direction of my tent. As I glanced in the direction of my tent, I saw a group of women walking towards it, so I scampered back without looking desperate. One of the women had a, you guessed it, Marshall University blouse. We started the, "where are you from," and "who do you know", and discovered that we attended the same high school at the same time. She is two years younger. Her brother was in my class, but I remember that he was in the smart group (Harvard bound), so I didn't have any classes with him. She and her friend moved to the beach a year or so earlier. Her friend teaches at Coastal Carolina and she plays golf. They bought three, yes three, of my matted prints. Like I said before, I just love people from West Virginia...especially golfers.
Next came Maggie. At first I didn't know she was Maggie. She was a hoot. Her skin still had a deep, deep tan and her hair was short and greyish blond. She had that old lifeguard look... very outdoorsey. During our conversation I discovered that she was originally from Huntington, but has been living in Myrtle Beach for a number of years. She told me that when she was young, her family vacationed at Myrtle Beach and she loved it. She told me that her mother worked for Butler Furniture in Huntington and I told her that my aunt used to do Mrs. Butler's hair. Small world. As she talked I learned that she was a former teacher and had spent some time after graduating from Marshall teaching in Annapolis. When she introduced herself as Maggie S., I thought to myself, "this is the girl who my sister, Janie, knew when she taught in Annapolis." This was too weird. Then I blundly asked her, "Are you Maggie S who dated a midshipman from the Naval Academy who was killed in a submarine accident in the sixties?" She said, "Yes, how did you know?" I told her about me overhearing a conversation between Janie and my mother forty-five years ago. I remember thinking at the time how awful it would be to die like that. We kept talking and talking as she looked at my prints. I called Janie to tell her who was in my tent and she talked with Maggie. It seems that they would ride home at holidays together in Maggie's car. Those were long trips from Annapolis to Huntington. Before she left that afternoon, she bought a print, only to return the next day to buy another one! If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, I just love people from West Virginia.
When I returned to Atlanta after the show, I googled the submarine accident and included it in this post. Sad, but interesting reading.
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARDWASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
History of USS Thresher (SSN-593)
Related Resources:
List of Personnel Who Perished in the Loss of Thresher on 10 April 1963Online Photography of USS Thresher
Thresher
The second Thresher (SSN-593) was laid down on 28 May 1958 by the Portsmouth (N.H.) Naval Shipyard; launched on 9 July 1960; sponsored by Mrs. Frederick B. Warder; and commissioned on 3 August 1961, Comdr. Dean W. Axene in command.Following trials the nuclear attack submarine took part in Nuclear submarine Exercise (NUSUBEX) 3-61 off the northeastern coast of the United States from 18 to 24 September.On 18 October; the submarine headed south along the east coast. After calling at San Juan, Puerto Rico, she conducted further trials and test-fired her torpedo system before returning to Portsmouth on 29 November. The ship remained in port through the end of the year and spent the first two months of 1962 evaluating her sonar system and her Submarine Rocket (SUBROC) system. In March, the submarine participated in NUSUBEX 2-62, an exercise designed to improve the tactical capabilities of nuclear submarines , and in antisubmarine warfare training with Task Group ALPHA.Off Charleston, the ship undertook operations observed by the Naval Antisubmarine Warfare Council, before she returned briefly to New England waters from whence she proceeded to Florida for SUBROC tests. However, while mooring at Port Canaveral, the submarine was accidentally struck by a tug which damaged one of her ballast tanks. After repairs at Groton, Conn., by the Electric Boat Company, the ship returned south for more tests and trials off Key West. Thresher then returned northward and remained in dockyard hands through the early spring of 1963.In company with Skylark (ASR-20), Thresher put to sea on 10 April 1963 for deep-diving exercises. In addition to her 16 officers and 96 enlisted men, the submarine carried 17 civilian technicians to observe her performance during the deep-diving tests.Fifteen minutes after reaching her assigned test depth, the submarine communicated with Skylark by underwater telephone, apprizing the submarine rescue ship of difficulties. Garbled transmissions indicated that--far below the surface--things were going wrong. Suddenly, listeners in Skylark heard a noise "like air rushing into an air tank"--then, silence.Efforts to reestablish contact with Thresher failed, and a search group was formed in an attempt to locate the submarine. Rescue ship Recovery (ASR-43) subsequently recovered bits of debris, including gloves and bits of internal insulation. Photographs taken by bathyscaph Trieste proved that the submarine had broken up, taking all hands on board to their deaths in 5,500 of water, some 220 miles east of Boston. Thresher was officially declared lost in April 1963.Subsequently, a Court of Inquiry was convened and, after studying pictures and other data, opined that the loss of Thresher was in all probability due to a casting, piping, or welding failure that flooded the engine room with water. This water probably caused electrical failures that automatically shutdown the nuclear reactor, causing an initial power loss and the eventual loss of the boat.Thresher is in six major sections on the ocean floor, with the majority in a single debris field about 400 yards square. The major sections are the sail, sonar dome, bow section, engineering spaces, operations spaces, and the tail section.Owing to the pressurized-water nuclear reactor in the engine room, deep ocean radiological monitoring operations were conducted in August 1983 and August 1986. The site had been previously monitored in 1965 and 1977 and none of the samples obtained showed any evidence of release of radioactivity from the reactor fuel elements. Fission products were not detected above concentrations typical of worldwide background levels in sediment, water, or marine life samples.
30 July 2001
There were many more interesting folks who visited my tent. So many were from the New York and New England area. One lady who bought my framed pavilion image was from Alaska. She didn't know Sarah, but she liked her. What's not to like?
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