In tribute to President Gerald R. Ford ....1913-2006

I wanted to make a few statements about the 38th President. He was a man who gave the dignity back to the White House. He was loved and liked as he was a good man, and was real. He said to me once as he said to many people "All I wanted to be was Speaker of the House"...But Nixon chose him to replace Spiro Agnew as Vice President.

I was very aware of those days and kept a scrapbook of news articles of that time. It was one of the greatest moments of my life when I got to meet him and spend some time with him in 1999.

August 9, 1974, he became President. He said that he added the comment "Our long national nightmare is over" in his first speech as President.

He also said that if he had to do it again, he would pardon Richard Nixon. Every one said it was awful when Ford pardoned him. But now in hind site, we can all see the wisdom of that move. Yes it may have cost him the election, but in doing so he gave the Government back to the people. For that he is truly a hero.

Peter Jennings said that Ford had guts.

So today as I honor the memory of this great man, I think that many of us should reflect on what he did do.
Also for the many of you who were not around at the time of his Presidency...He gave the office its dignity.
He was truly a man who healed this nation. Facing a constitutional crisis unlike any seen by a President since perhaps Lincoln. He was very unlike what many of our other politicians are like today. He was real, he was good, and he had a sense of honor.

Thank you sir for what you did for this country.

In fairness to the rigid airship

The US airship Akron







The Macon..last airship made in America



The Hindenburg flying over New York.....The sad accident to the Hindenburg was the only accident to occur to a passenger airship in service. The German Airship service was 100% safer than the airplane service of the time. I will also kill the myth that the Hindenburg was on her maiden voyage. That is not true. She had already carried over a thousand passengers the year before safely. When she did crash in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 there were more survivors than victims.









The end of the airship...Just think if we killed off the airplane if there was one accident.....Even today the airline industry is hard pressed to have a safety record like the airship....1929-1937 no accidents










I am seeing that there plans a foot to build a massive airship of over 800 feet in length. The airship has really received had a bad rap for many years.
But to be truthful it was a very safe mode of transportation.

I know every mind turns to the Hindenburg when we think of airships. But, what other disaster comes to mind?
In the area of commercial airship service from 1929 till May of 1937. There was not one fatality on a commercial airship.
There were thousands of people transported in luxury. There was not one accident in those 8 years till the Hindenburg.

Between 1929 to 1937 there were hundreds of commercial and private airplane accidents. Killing hundreds of people.

In the accident of the Hindenburg there were less than 40 deaths. That was the only accident in the history of commercial airship service.

The American military Airship was not lucky, and was to have quite a few really dumb people in charge of them. Not all of them, there were some really sharp people, but many were not up too snuff.
There were 4 US rigid airships between 1922 till 1939. 3 of them crashed. Two were due to human error, and one was due to structural failure.

In England they tried it too, they built quite a few. Most of them crashed..Most due to human error. One was to fly to India, but that crashed just due to politics and stupidity..They over loaded it and it crashed....Amazing!!!

Italy tried it a bit, same luck....

The Germans did a great job of it. Because they knew what they were doing!!!!!

But due to political more than safety issues, the airship was doomed as a major player in transportation.

In 1935 an airplane could not cross the Atlantic, let alone the United States. They had to stop and refuel...People would be cramped inside...and a plane could carry at best 20 passengers. The airships could cross the Atlantic carrying 30 passengers. By the time of the Hindenburg, they could carry 70 passengers in amazing luxury, not to mention a large amount of cargo.

So it was all about Helium..WE had it and we did not want Germany to get it. So the loss was to the airship.

Today we have blimps..They are cute rather than functional.

So when I heard that in Germany they are going to give it a try again I was delighted. This would be for commercial freight purposes only, not for passengers...

We have become used to being put into planes like cattle...But maybe in our future we may see ocean going airships again. To take us all over the world in wonderful luxury.

Next time you get into a plane, and eat your peanuts, think of that!

The universe traveling Edison cylinder of Theodore Roosevelt has touched down with the crew of Discovery and commander Mark Polansky

The Edison cylinder of Theodore Roosevelt has made history. It is the first recording of a President sent to space and brought back. It was recorded in 1912, and 2006 it made history as the Rough Rider and first President to fly went to space. It was special that the cylinder was an Edison one, as Edison created organized research, which is what makes NASA possible.






Mark Polansky, the Commander of the Mission who graciously took the cylinder to space with him...What a great thing for him to do. Thank you very much Mark!
The Discovery lifting off on its latest mission, which was a most successful one at that.





The Discovery as it sailed back onto earth..with her crew and the cylinder.





I had written before about the famous Edison cylinder of Theodore Roosevelt that would go to space. It has been up there for quite a while and is the first recording of a President to go to space and return. It has been really cool to watch the crew of Discovery at work and seeing what a great and successful mission it has been. While doing this I thought I would give you some info on the Discovery.


Space Shuttle Discovery has flown 33 flights, spent 241.95 days in space, completed 3,808 orbits, and flown 98,710,673 statute miles (158,859,429 km) in total, as of December 2006. It has flown the most flights of all Space Shuttles so far (a title it is likely to keep). Discovery has also flown on more individual flights than any other spacecraft in history and is likely to retain this honor for some time as no planned launch vehicles (neither American nor International) have a designed lifespan of more than 10 flights. Discovery has flown both "return to flight" missions after the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters: STS-26 in 1988 and STS-114 in 2005.

So the most historic Shuttle took a most historic recording on a most historic flight. Congratulation to the crew of Discovery, NASA, and lastly thank you to Commander Mark Polansky, Edie Polansky, Chris Polansky for making this all happen.

Look to the stars!

Body preservation and arsenic. It was an amazing preservative but led to a major problem

Today in the funeral industry we have embalming fluid. It is mainly a formaldehyde mixture with coloring agents to give a dead body the look of life.

The earliest types of embalming fluids used arsenic as its preservation agent. It worked wonderfully. In fact it worked much better than the agents used today.

Today, bodies do not last long in their coffins, and the use of embalming today is to make the dead look good for a few days after death and also for controlling decease. In a dead body it compounds 100 fold every day.

In the 19th century the public funeral for the average man or woman started to become the norm. Before that time it was more reserved for the famous or the elite.

By the time of the American Civil War embalming became much more wide spread as the dead were being shipped home from the battlefield.
Lincoln pushed for the embalming and even when his son Willie died he had his son embalmed.
The agent they used was arsenic..It worked wonderfully and lasted. Lincoln several times went to his son's tomb. Which was borrowed at the time and would open the coffin to gaze on the body of Willie. He did that several times. It showed the lasting factors of arsenic.
When Lincoln himself was assassinated, he was embalmed and went on public display for nearly a month!! Arsenic was used. When Lincoln was exhumed in 1901, he was perfectly preserved. This was a fantastic way to preserve bodies. But we do not use it anymore for 2 reasons.

1. It is a very dangerous chemical, and it can easily kill all those who work with it.

2. It made the perfect crime so easy to commit. Kill them with arsenic and have them embalmed...No one would ever be the wiser.

That is why today we use formaldehyde.....

The man who shook the food industry down to its foundations...Upton Sinclair 1878-1968

Upton Sinclair




It was a book that came out in 1906, called "The Jungle". It was all about immigrants and working in the stock yards and meat processing plants...It brought to the attention of the United States of some of the appalling conditions that existed. It brought about some amazing changes...It prompted the US government and Theodore Roosevelt to push for the Pure Food and Drug Act...Few books have had such an impact in our world. Sinclair was only 28 when he wrote that book. He lived to the ripe old age of 90 and saw such sweeping changes in food processing. But sadly much of the other issues of his book still are very much here and seem to not be going anywhere. The blight of hunger, poverty, and class warfare....

I won't go into too much detail...READ THE BOOK

It was only a century ago...But what changes it made....

Meeting Cab Calloway in 1986..He was a genius, musically, artistically, and verbally.....Hi de ho!

Cab Calloway as I knew him when I met him at the Meadowlands Racetrack in 1986. He loved horse racing and was always at the track when ever he could be.









Calloway signed this for me as I was working at the Racetrack as an entertainer. He said to me "hey we all have to make a living" He was a nice guy and posed with us as we performed there...He was a class act.




Here he is as a young bandleader, He led his band at the Cotton Club in Harlem...Music and entertainment would never be the same. He changed the style, words, and power of music....He was way ahead of everyone.



Here he is in a zoot suit.....Singing Minnie the Moocher, which was his theme song...Oh Hi-de-ho!!! He created Jive....He was a Salvador Dali among musicians




He was an artist among artists...He changed our language, our styles, our music. He was one of the greats. I really feel honored to have met him. He shook my hand and smiled and said to me "hey we all have to make a living" I remember I sang for him there at the raceway...Back in the days when I could sing...Now I make noise.

He was all alone I remember ...We came to his table and reconized him and he was charming...We sat around and chatted for a bit and he signed this autograph for me.

The New York Times Building in New York..Once the home of the NY Times now it has a most interesting function

This is the NY Times building on an early post card.












Here is a great photo of the original building shortly after it was completed in 1905









Times Square....in a simpler age. circa 1910


The Times building was one of the first skyscrapers in New York....It has always been the building from where the ball drops on New Years Eve. Ever since 1906.

The Times Company moved from the building in the 1960's.
After that the building went through some major changes and today it is one of the largest billboards in the world. No one lives or works in the building..It is one big piece of advertising...Some of the most expensive ads are on the Times building.

So the next time you go through Times Square and see all that advertising in the center of Times Square...You are looking at what remains of a very historic building!








This is what is left



It still holds a commanding place in Times Square...Perhaps some of the most valuable real estate in NYC... and no one lives there!

RMS Aquitania..The last of the four stackers....Called the Ship beautiful...1914--1950 (photos at the end of article)

In this day and age when all of the ships I see look like boxcars, it is nice to look at some of the beautiful ships of the past. The Aquitania was truly in a class by herself. She was the final 4 stacker made.

She made her maiden voyage weeks before the onset of World War One. It was often said she looked like a larger Lusitania, and she had many of the features of the Lusitania, but had better lines.

She grew out of the great race that was taking place between the English, French and the Germans.
Each country produced it version of 4 stacked liners...The English produced the most..with names like the Olympic, Titanic, Britannic, Mauritania, Lusitania.

There were some 4 funneled ships produced in the 1920's but were not of the class and style of these floating palaces....The Aquitania was the last of the great floating palaces of the pre war age for England.

My Grandfather went to WWI on the Olympic and returned here on the France..Both were 4 stackers..

By the mid 1930's she was the last of the English 4 stackers still sailing. By 1942 she was the last period of any 4 stacker.

When the 4 stack craze started in Germany with the Kaiser Wilhelm De Gross in 1897, it was thought that immigrants would be impressed by the number of funnels. In fact, it was stated by many that the more funnels the safer the ship!

That went out the window with the Titanic!!

She served under one house flag for 35 years...Very few ships have ever had a career and a following by the world as this wonderful ship had. She was removed from the world 7 years before I joined it, so I never got to see her...

However, I did get to see both the Queens sailing..The Queen Mary in New York in 1965, and the Queen Elizabeth in Port Everglades, Florida in 1969.

I have found some photos of this great ship and introduce you to her, and for a few of you reintroduce you to her...The one and only Aquatania.












A Cunard poster of the ship beautiful. In its early design. Do note that the bridge and wheelhouse is incorporated into the top deck in front. Sadly, that was just not high enough and soon after a top bridge was added and it did spoil the look of the ship a bit. But she was still beautiful.







Here she is as a hospital ship during the early part of World war One. Note that the bridge of the ship had not yet been altered. She had such beautiful lines. This photograph is very becoming .




A rare color photo of the Aquitania coming into New York in the late 1930's








A very late photograph of the ship. This photo dates to around 1948. Does not look bad for a 34 year old ship.







The ship did a great deal of troop transporting during World War Two. She was one of the first ships that went into Pearl Harbor after the attack. She traveled hundreds of thousands of miles and carried hundreds of thousands of troops during the war. She was the only big major liner that served successfully in both world wars. In this picture you see her in 1945-46 returning servicemen..By the end of the war the company colors were added to the funnels of the ships. She was affectionately called by the sevicemen "Granny" She was older than most of the people on her in World War Two.








The end of the road....The venerable ship sails for the breakers in 1950. You will see they kept adding onto the wheelhouse during WW2 and it was starting to look stupid. But here she sails to immortality...She will forever be known as the ship beautiful