Titanic
On Tuesday when the subway was running late- there was a 1 hour wait just to stand in the metro line- I decided to “wait” up the street at Borders for a while. This is my new favorite bookstore. Mostly because it is only one block from my office. I love bookstores. I love reading. I have read more in the month since I have been here than I have in ages. I don’t just like a particular type of book either, I like all books. That’s not true actually, nonfiction are ok, but I rarely read them. I like books that teach me something- about humans, their emotions, history, math, science, etc. Most of the books on my summer reading list were about God, math, or economics. On this particular day there was a large clearance section. I had over an hour to kill so I thought this would be a good time to dig through it all… and that’s where I found it. A large heavy beautiful book, you know the kind no one can ever afford so you just look at it in the store, Adventures in Ocean Exploration by Robert D. Ballard. You know, Bob Ballard?
Well for those of you who don’t, this is how I came to know him… I was in Gifted Education when I was growing up. I had the best teacher, and one of the most influential role models in my life, Mrs. H. She always took us to new, interesting, and sometimes strange places… imagine Ms. Frizzle (The Magic School Bus) but with the looks of Julia Roberts. She still hasn’t aged a day- inside or out. She really is one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever known. Anyway, in our neighboring metropolis of Springfield we had a Discovery Center Museum (which I recently read Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to “anonymously” but it didn’t stay a secret long- and yes it is his home town). Well, one day we had a field trip and the location du jour was this particular Discovery Center to watch, and possibly interact with (they let a few remote locations steer the robot for a few feet) The Jason Project (http://www.jason.org/Public/AboutUS/aboutUS.aspx?pos=6). Back then we were on Jason IV an exploration off the coast of Baja, California (which is also how I learned Baja existed), today they are on Jason XV. Anyway, Jason (named for the Greek explorer) was an unmanned, camera laden, tech-bot that could do and see everything! This was before the days of widespread internet, think more like Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and 5.25 floppy disks. Bob Ballard is the leader of these expeditions… he’s also the discoverer of the Titanic. At the end of my new book (I had to purchase it, it was marked down to $3.99) Bob looks back over his years of exploration and talks about what sticks with him… he recalls his final voyage to Titanic in 1986 (he’s been back since but we’ll get to that) as the pod began to float away and he could see the erie hull being left in the depths of the ocean. Bob always talks about how he viewed Titanic as a grave, only took a single piece to claim it as a “find” and left the remains untouched.
This brings us to the title of today’s piece… so I got curious about all of his explorations (and the amazing pictures I was certain Google could help me find) because Bob has also seen the Lucitania and is working in the Black Sea right now on some ruins they hope/think are from “Noah’s” flood (I say “Noah” because it is actually God’s flood). As I’m reading his National Geographic site, I find an article titled “Why is Titanic Vanishing” (you can’t read the whole article online so I didn’t include the link- sorry!) So I think to myself, wait? what? hasn’t it been sitting there since 1912 and NOW it’s vanishing??? So I press on, I do more research and this is what I find… brace yourselves…
Bob Ballard: “It had been 19 years since I’d discovered Titanic as part of a French-American team. I’d come back to see how she’d changed. I knew that a private salvage company, RMS Titanic, Inc., had dived on her many times, legally removing thousands of objects from what I consider a sacred grave. Russian submarines had taken Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron and others to the wreck, also breaking no laws but reportedly colliding with the hull. Cruise ships had circled the site while RMS Titanic, Inc. tried to raise a 20-ton piece of the ship. A beer company had sponsored sweepstakes to watch the salvagers recover bottles of ale. And a New York couple had even plunked down onTitanic’s bow in a submersible to be married. It was all such a comedy—exactly what I had hoped would not happen. I’d urged others to treatTitanic’s remains with dignity, like that shown the battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor. Instead they’d turned her into a freak show at the county fair. “
Did you read the part where Cameron’s crew hit the hull? OR someone decided it was ok to get married there? Ok, so for the sake of Kate & Leo I’ll give you the fact that Cameron accidentally bumped it– BUT the other people knew what they were doing. Would you have gotten married in a cemetery?? No! Well this is no different. I certainly understand the curiosity surrounding the shipwrecks- I’m curious! I understand wanting to see it- I googled the pictures! I understand finding the artifacts and learning from them -those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it, right??? (Although saying “not even God Himself could sink it” might have done it in without an ice burg). What I don’t understand is the lack of respect, and here’s why…
Bob Ballard: “The debris field hit me hardest. Here in that ghostly expanse of seafloor 350 miles (560 kilometers) off Newfoundland, the people who died during the frigid early hours of April 15, 1912, spoke to me again. A case of champagne lay on the bottom, its bottles still corked—a reminder of Titanic’s role as a floating palace of the rich and powerful. The box holding the bottles had long ago disappeared, consumed by wood-eating mollusks. Next to them were tiles decorated with a red-and-white design, possibly from a public room. Suddenly my eye was drawn to a woman’s shoe, lying on its side. Nearby were three large combs and a pair of smaller shoes that may have belonged to a child. And beside them was a hand mirror. How did these objects find themselves together on the bottom? Did the larger shoe belong to a mother, who combed her daughter’s beautiful long hair? What did the girl’s face look like that may once have been reflected in this mirror? A short distance away were more shoes, a pair from a young girl, and another pair near what looked to me like a sailor’s black slicker. A pair of shoes cannot fall 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) by themselves and land like this. Their journey was together.“
Those shoes belonged to humans, living persons who died in a horrible manner… thus making it a less than suitable wedding locale… so next time you or someone you know suggests getting married at a grave site, try to talk them out of it.
