Louis Jacques Mande' Daguerre... Inventor of the Daguerreotype .(The first successful photograph system)..But who would believe what he did not like!

This photograph of Daguerre was taken by Charles R. Meade of New York City in 1848. The Photo was taken in Brie-Sur-Maine, which is where Daguerre's chateau was located.

Meade and several other photographers were there with the intent to capture the inventor on film...

But a strange fact emerges...Louis Daguerre was camera shy! He did not like to be photographed!! They were all sent away with their cameras.

However Meade, who was president of Meade Brothers studio in NYC was not to be outdone. He returned to the Daguerre home later and persuaded Daguerre's niece and wife to intercede for him.

Finally the camera shy Daguerre posed for this picture. One of the few of the man who changed the world tremendously, by his wonderful invention.

The dedication of the Washington Monument in 1885...It took 37 years to finish and build... Also it's capstone was a most unusual metal ...

The Washington Monument as it looked after work was stopped on it in the early 1850's. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848 by Dolly Madison and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. It was planned to be a very great monument..But funding was not available just a few years after work was started. During the bitter Civil War, Lincoln would often gaze at the stump of what was planned to be the Washington Monument. It was in plain view to him in the White House. The dedication of the massive monument on February 21, 1885..This day was very windy, cold and nearly unbearable. It was the final completion of a monument that had been started by last of the Revolutionary generation. Sadly when work was started again, the same kind of granite was not available. So there would always be a the line where work was resumed on the monument. You can see it plainly today. The laying of the capstone on December 6, 1884..This photo was taken from the ground, nearly 550 feet below ........Here below is a photo of the crew with the impressive capstone. Amazingly the capstone was made of a very rare metal in 1884..One that would in their minds show the importance of such a capstone. What was that substance??????
It was a three thousand, three hundred pound capstone of aluminum! One of the rarest metals on earth at the time!

Not gold, silver, copper....Just aluminum.

Mark Twain sounds just like Hal Holbrook? One would think it would be the other way around.

Mark Twain ..(1835-1910)...Below ..Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain

Mark Twain has been gone for nearly a century. Yet he is still very much alive for us in the many imitators who portray him.
Perhaps the most famous is Hal Holbrook. When I was a boy, I had an album of his. It said in the liner notes, he learned to speak like Twain by listening to some of the great mans recordings.......Let's screech the brakes here!!!!

There is not one recording existent in this world of Mark Twain!!! Not a one!!!!

So where did Mr Holbrook get the voice he uses...He made it up to fit the person he was portraying. It is quite good.....But is it like Twain???? Who the hell knows?

Mark Twain never made a commercial recording. Mark Twain did make a few personal recordings but they have long since been destroyed. He even made a recording for recording pioneer Bettini. But that has long since been destroyed.
There is nothing to know what he sounded like. Only good guesses. But our image of Mark Twain will always be as Hal Holbrook.
Now there are imitators imitating Holbrook! I have a feeling that Twain may have had a voice like Holbrooks, but he may have sounded like Col. Sanders too...No one knows..

So the next time you see someone imitating Mark Twain , tell them they did a great Hal Holbrook!

So I thought it would be good to note that it makes sense today to say that Mark Twain sounds just like Hal Holbrook.

Amazingly so!

Today I always wear bow ties...I have found I wore them even when I was very young

Here I am with Santa Claus in December 1961. I was amazed when I found this picture I was in a bow tie. I have found a few pictures from the early 1960's in which I am in bow ties. I guess it was a cool thing to do for kids...Or what parents thought was a good idea. Bow ties have never quite been cool...But always a statement...I am real happy to know I was wearing them back then. I wonder what I asked Santa for??

The amazing elastic woman Rose Mary Woods. She gave it all for Nixon.

Here is a cartoon so much in line with the thoughts of the day.

Here she shows how she did it.


I was in high school during the Watergate mess. It brought out some wonderful dark comedy. Most of it was not planned or designed to be such. I watched the TV all the time...I watched all the meetings....When you went shopping, all the stores would have it playing..It was everywhere.

One of the great moments came when the issue of tapes was brought up. Rose Mary Woods was Nixon's private Secretary. When Nixon's tapes were given to the courts...One of the ones that seemed to have much really wonderful stuff on it suddenly went blank.

The person who gave themselves the blame was no one other than Ms. Woods. She said she quite accidentally erased the tape by answering the phone, typing a letter, and working with the tape machine at the same time...

However, the stretch she said she did would have been difficult for a gymnast.....Well we knew it was not true then..and now we really know it was not true.

She even posed for a picture..showing how she did it!!!!!

Eighteen minutes in that position???? Give me a break!! Even if it was a short moment it was a very difficult thing to explain. But my how she tried. It is truly wonderful to have such a loyal and wonderful person on your staff. I am sure she was adored by Nixon.

But she was loyal to the last. Just like Evelyn Lincoln..President Kennedy's personal secretary. She never saw anything...Had Kennedy asked her too, I am sure she would have gone to the gallows just like Rose Mary Woods did for Nixon. They were both of the same quality

But one of the great moments of Watergate was of Woods trying to make others believe what she said she did. One of the great moments of comedy in the dark days of Watergate.

The was most probably an award. But to whom, or for what I cannot be sure. One very unique piece of nautical history..Can anyone tell me what this is?

I bought this most unique piece around 1980, in Boonton, New Jersey. It was bought from a person who did estate sales and the like. I took a fancy to it and bought it. It has been with me ever since and I often look at and say.."I wish you could talk"..I bet it would have quite a tale to tell. .......
From what I have understood so far about it. ........It represents victory over the earth. It has the famous statue of Winged Victory standing over the earth. On this globe is little dots marking what I would gather to be trade routes, travels, or passenger routes over the globe. On the base are ships. ..mainly four stacker's...Which tells me it is from around the 1897 to perhaps1914.

But what was it for? An award? Or perhaps was it a small piece that went to all the captains of ships, copying one monster sized piece that looked like this. If that is so, where is the main piece? For that would be quite tremedous!


It is really quite a striking piece, and I enjoy looking at it..But maybe someone of you out there may know what this is.....I have made my guesses.

A closer look at the whole piece and a better shot of the flag on the bottom Blue with a K in its center.

Here you can see the four stacked ship on the base. Also you can see the markings along the globe as to routes taken. This could very well have been German.

I had a funny idea, that The Kaiser of Germany was quite a traveling sailor on his many different ships. I wonder if this could have been an award to members of his ships crew and covering the many trips that they had taken. Hence the K in the center of the flag, and also the somewhat grandiose nature of this piece. It would seem fitting as something the Kaiser would do. But who knows...Perhaps it would not just a K on it if it was for the Kaiser.

So what is it???????

It could have just as well been an award a boat show, or a yacht club...Who knows?? But I for one would like too.

If you have an idea I would love to hear from you. Maybe you have seen something like this before...I for one have not. But I welcome all ideas and thoughts on this whatever it is!

Then I can write a history on it...But for now it is just an odd little piece of nautical history......

Meeting one of the early aviators of World War One.. Ennis Nagle ..1897-1971..He gave me pictures of himself in a Curtis Jenny he flew in late 1917

These photographs were given to me by Mr Nagle in 1970. He was a World War One aviator and was keeping company so to speak with my grandmother at the time.
I asked a number of questions about what it was like to fly a very fragile craft such as this Curtis Jenny, which is what they were called. I had about 500 questions I wanted to ask, and I guess I must have annoyed the hell out of him as he had other plans in mind.
So he gave me the photographs and told me study up on the subject. I went to the library and read all about the Curtis plane.
Mr. Nagle told me he never went overseas but just trained on these planes which incidentally never went overseas either! These photos are of Ennis Nagles plane in 1917. In the first one above he is ready to fly.
In the picture below his plane is at rest

It was interesting to talk to someone who had done such a thing when flying was still such a novel idea and scoffed at by most of the military.
Today as I write there are perhaps less than 10 survivors left of World War One. All of them are well over 100. As I think of it, if Mr. Nagle was alive today he would be 110.

But it was part of a noble beginning the of the Air Force, before it was anything at all. Billy Mitchell was in charge of a lot of this and he always felt that air power was and would be the end all. Today we know that to be true...

In 1917 the powers that be felt it was cute toy..not much else. That would lead to a great showdown between the Army, Navy, and the Air Corps....It would leave many a career in ruins and change the entire worlds concepts. But that is another story when I get around to it.

The return of the victims of the SS. Vestris by RMS Celtic. The Celtic brought back to Europe suvivors of the Vestris and then crashed.

RMS Celtic on the rocks at Roche's Point Queenstown, (now Cobh) Ireland...
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My grandfather saved many newspaper clippings in scrap books. They go from the 1920's till the early 1930's.
One of the pages of his scrap book deals with the sinking of the Vestris. So here are some of the original pictures from the sinking that were in the papers in 1928.






The ship was ready to capsize. These remarkable pictures caught the public's imagination. Several survivors of this disaster sailed back to Europe on the RMS. Celtic.

One of the several other shots of the Vestris sinking

Water is coming over the side of the ship in this news photo..

The news clipping showing the Vestris before her sinking

The Celtic's career came to an end like the Vestris in 1928. However rarely does the story go beyond the Vestris. Here is a rare late menu cover from the Celtic in 1928

The food in this dinner was a simple fair...

The SS. Vestris was built in 1912 and had a most successful career. In November 1928 the Vestris was sailing near the Delaware coast in rough weather and her cargo shifted..He balance was compromised, and she started to list strongly. Soon it was evident that she was going to sink. An SOS was sent and many ships came to her rescue. The disaster was one of the first in which photographs were taken. It was in all the papers...It was the stuff of high drama.

Several of the survivors took the White Star Line's RMS Celtic home from New York in December of 1928. This ship was famous for once being the largest ship in the world when she had been built in 1901.

The crossing went well till the ship reached Ireland when she was hit by a violent gust of wind and crashed heavily into the rocks at Roche's Point in what is now Cobh, Ireland....The ship was holed and settled onto the rocks. All the passengers were sent to the boats and the ship was evacuated.

For the survivors of the Vestris, this was just a little too much for them. I wonder how many of them ever sailed again?