What would we do without the blender? No more smoothies or fancy drinks and no easy way to create pureed foods for both variety in the kitchen and special diets in the hospital. There would even be limits on scientific research as the blender is an important tool in the laboratory, used by such scientists as Jonas Salk in his search for the answer to polio.

Fortunately Stephen Poplawski got the bright idea in 1922 to add a spinning blade to the bottom of a glass jar. He did it so he could make fancy drinks for soda fountain patrons. Of course, whenever someone has a good idea, someone else thinks of a better one and so it was with the blender. Fred Osius, one of the founders of the Hamilton Beach Manufacturing Company, took on Poplawski’s idea and made it better.

Back in 1910, Osius, along with L.H. Hamilton and Chester Beach, formed a company to make kitchen appliances, which they did successfully then, and still do very well. Then in 1933 Poplawski’s soda fountain tool caught Osius’ attention. He made significant improvements in Poplawski’s design and patented his version. But it is a long way from patent to successful marketing and Osius needed money to follow that road.

At that time Fred Waring’s big band, The Pennsylvanians, was very popular and financially successful. Waring didn’t start out to be a musician, however. He originally was a student in architecture and engineering at Penn State. He always retained his interest in new inventions and so seemed to Osius to be a good prospect. In fact, Waring was also searching for an easier way to make the special diet of liquefied vegetables that his doctor had prescribed to treat Waring’s nagging ulcers. Thus, in 1935 when Osius talked his way into Waring’s dressing room after a live broadcast at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York, Waring was all ears.

Waring put $25,000 into the development effort of Osius’ blender. Six months later the problems with the blender still weren’t solved. Waring, as the primary investor, fired Osius and hired someone else to redesign it. It took a bit more time, but finally the Miracle Mixer was complete in 1937. It sold for $29.75 and was an immediate hit when it was introduced at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago.

The next problem was getting people to hear about this wonderful new tool. Fred Waring took on the marketing himself. He began in 1938 by changing the name of the company manufacturing the blender to the Waring Company and the tool to the Waring Blender. Then he spread the word. As a musician Waring was on the road a lot, spending much time in hotels and restaurants. He pitched his Waring Blender to the chefs and bartenders wherever he went. Next he took on the big department stores such as Bloomingdales and B. Altman. And by 1954, 1 million Waring Blenders had been sold. They are still selling today in modern versions and even a vintage reproduction of the original machine.

Waring once bragged about his Waring Blender to a St. Louis reporter. He said “This mixer is going to revolutionize American drinks” and he was right.

Toast Dad and everything he’s done for you with a beer-inspired gift. Don’t know where to begin? You’ll be able to brew up something special this coming Father’s Day with these top tips for finding great gifts for beer lovers.

Of course the easiest way to indulge Dad’s love of beer is with a selection of his favorite bottles. That doesn’t mean you need to simply package up a six-pack, there are many sophisticated ways you can gift a few brews for a Father’s Day treat. Why not try a beer-of-the-month club? With so many online clubs to choose from, just make sure you pick the perfect fit for the beer lover in your life. Whether that’s a service that sends popular international beers, or one that favors smaller craft breweries, the choice is yours. Some clubs even include a newsletter so Dad will be able to expand his beer knowledge as he sips away.

Looking for something simpler? A one-off gift basket of beer can be equally as enjoyable, as is a gift certificate to a favorite brewpub or restaurant. For a fun day out, accompany him to a microbrewery and order up samplers. Or, if it’s possible, gift him a tour of his favorite brewery. From the Budweiser brewery in St Louis Missouri, complete with its Clydesdale stables, to the Coor’s brewery in picturesque Golden Colorado, you can see how America’s most popular beers are made. At a local level, small craft brewers often offer brewery tours and tastings. Simply visit the National Brewer’s Association website and you’ll find helpful links to events, beer news and happenings all across the country.

Alternatively, if Dad’s more of a hands-on kind of guy, get him a home brewing kit. For the beginner brewer, starter kits make it easy and fun to bring the brewing action into the home. Complete with ingredients, instructions and equipment, Dad can become a brew master in no time. And, for a fun Father’s Day activity why not apron up and join in on the beer-making fun?

For an exclusive beer accessory gift, get searching on auction sites for a unique, vintage piece of beer memorabilia. Whether it’s a cool and collectible advertisement poster you can get framed for Dad’s bar, or a one-of-a-kind beer opener, a gift that’s loaded with nostalgia is a surefire hit. Or, perhaps Dad’s collection of tired glasses needs bringing into the 21st century.

Day One:

Driving up to the Port of Southampton’s Mayflower Terminal and catching first glimpse of the white-and-black hulled Queen Mary 2, the largest, longest, tallest, heaviest, and most expensive ship ever built, evoked considerable excitement and awe. Docked to port at a 50-degree, 54.25′ north latitude and 001-degree, 25.70′ west longitude and facing a 116.4-degree compass heading, the 17-decked leviathan, with a 1,132-foot length and 148-foot width, featured a gross weight of 151,400 tons and towered above the buildings with its balcony-lined façade, eclipsing it with its 236.2-foot height. Its draft extended 33.10 feet beneath the water line. The floating metropolis, complete with its staterooms, restaurants, shopping arcades, libraries, theaters, and planetariums, would bridge, in six days, the European and North American continents, the equivalent in hours to the duration of the aerial crossing by 747-400, itself then the world’s largest commercial airliner. But the oceanic crossing would yield civility, refinement, rejuvenation, emotional repair, and return to the slower, but more elegant era of steam ship travel-a journey, I would soon find out, would lead to a search for the maritime history of the past which had created the technology of the present.

Unlike the proliferation of modern cruise ships with their comparatively lower speeds and greater-volume, square-geometry hulls, the Queen Mary 2 had been designed as a next-generation successor to the 35-year-old Queen Elizabeth 2 and, as such, would have to offer the same year-round, passenger-carrying capabilities, predominately in the rough North Atlantic, with a design which sacrificed revenue-producing volume and lower construction costs of the traditional cruise ship for the required safety, speed, and stability of the ocean liner. Resultantly, it featured the same v-shaped hull configuration characteristic of the long line of its Cunard predecessors, constructed of thicker steel which carried a 40-percent greater cost than those of conventional cruise ships. Designed by Stephen Payne, whose inspirations for the bow had come from the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the brake wall from the Normandie, it was the first quadruple-screw North Atlantic ocean liner since the France of 1962. Payne himself, a naval architect born and raised in London, had been involved with the Carnival Holiday, Carnival Fantasy, and Rotterdam VI projects. The latter, incorporating a modified Statendam hull, had featured a less “boxy” hull shape than the traditional cruise ship, but had still been considerably removed a full liner design.

Intended for the primary Southampton-New York route, it incorporated dimensional restrictions dictated by the United States port, including a funnel height which cleared the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge by only ten feet and an overall length which exceeded the 1,100-foot pier of the Port of New York by 34 feet.

Constructed by Alstom Chantiers de l’Atlantique in St. Nazaire, France, which had also built the Normandie, and designated hull G32 by the shipyard, it had been the first Cunard liner ever constructed outside of the United Kingdom and, like Concorde, the world’s fastest and hitherto only supersonic airliner, became the second British-French collaborative transportation project intended for trans-Atlantic service, although via vastly different, if not opposite, modes.

Its interior offered unparalleled space and comfort. Of the 17 decks, the first four were for machinery, storage, and the 1,254-strong crew; 13 were for the 2,620 passengers; and eight contained balcony staterooms. Notable features included a Grand Lobby, the Royal Court Theatre, the Illuminations Theatre and Planetarium, the ConneXions Internet Center, the Queen’s Ballroom, a Winter Garden, nine major restaurants, 11 bars and lounges, an 8,000-volume library and bookstore, an Oxford University lecture program, performances by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, five swimming pools, sports venues, a Canyon Ranch Spa, a pavilion of shops, and a discotheque. These appointments would constitute my “home” for the next six days.

Symbolically reflected by its smaller QE2 predecessor berthed a considerable distance from its bow at the Queen Elizabeth 2 Terminal, the Queen Mary 2 represented a two-fold gross weight increase over its earlier-generation counterpart and, indeed, traced its lineage back to a long path of Cunard vessels which had spanned a 165-year period. I somehow sensed that the imminent crossing would not only be a journey of distance, but a return in time.

Gently vibrating at its spine, the behemoth laterally separated itself beneath from its berth below the metallic overcast at 1810, local time.

Unlike the conventional engine-propeller shaft technology of older-generation ships, the Queen Mary 2 was powered instead by four aft, hull underside-mounted Rolls Royce Mermaid electric-motor pods, each weighing 260 tons and containing four fixed-pitch, 9,900-pound, stainless steel blades, and collectively producing 115,328 horsepower. The forward, outboard pair was fixed and provided forward and astern propulsion, while the aft, inboard pair featured 360-degree azimuth capability and provided both propulsion and steering, obviating the need for the rudder. The advanced-technology system reduced both complexity and weight and increased internal hull volume by eliminating the traditional engine configuration’s associated equipment.

Three Rolls Royce variable-pitch, transverse-propeller bow thrusters, collectively producing 15,000 horsepower, provided port and starboard bow maneuvering capability at speeds of up to five knots. At eight knots, when their effectiveness had been exceeded, they were covered by 90-degree rotating, fluid-dynamic doors.

Led by dual water-sprout shooting tugboats, the behemoth oceanliner commenced its lumbering movement down the basin. Maintaining an 11.5-knot forward speed in the Solent, it commenced its starboard turn from 140 degrees at Calshots Reach at 1907, poised for the similar maneuver at Brambles.

Compressed into dark gray, the sun projected its glowing orange streaks outward through the thin, unobstructed strip on the western horizon. Assuming a 220-degree heading through the Thorn Channel, the Queen Mary 2 initiated its starboard turn to round the Isle of Wight.

The first dinner on board the elegant, maritime engineering triumph had been served in the 1,351-seat, three-story-high, dual-level Britannia Restaurant which had featured a grand, sweeping staircase, column supports, and a vaulted, back-lit, stained glass ceiling and was reminiscent of and inspired by the grand dining room salons of the 20th century French liners such as the Ile-de-France, the L’Atlantique, and the Normandie. The meal itself, served on Wedgwood bone china and in Waterford crystal, had included white zinfandel wine; cream of mixed mushroom soup with parmesan croutons; crusty rolls and butter; oak leaf and Boston salad with shaved carrots and sherry vinaigrette dressing; rack of pork with wild mushroom ragout, truffle mashed potatoes, morel sauce, and sauerkraut; warm apple strudel with brandy sauce; and coffee.

The thin line of orange lights outlining the coast traced itself behind the stern. Maintaining a 27-knot speed and a 250-degree heading, the rock-steady, 151,000-ton engineering mass plied the black channel and commenced its great circle course, from Bishop’s Rock in the Scilly Isles. Ahead lay the infinite Atlantic-and the path forged by every one of Cunard’s previous transatlantic liners. Tomorrow, I would begin tracing the historical one.

Day Two:

Dawn greeted the lengthy liner as a tunnel of indistinguishable, moist gray. Encased between the morose cloud dome above and the navy sea slate below, which spat periodic white caps, the black-and-red funneled vessel penetrated the moisture-saturated morning, the rain-emitting sky and the swirling, eddying sea merging into seamless, wind-blustery, ship-bombarded drench.

Any undesired movement, however, was quickly, and invisibly, dampened by the two pairs of 15.63-square-meter Brown Bros/Rolls Royce fin stabilizers which were controlled by gyroscopic vertical reference instruments and extended as far as 15 feet from the hull to counteract ship roll.

Plunging into 348-meter-deep waters 98 nautical miles off of Ireland at noon, the Queen Mary 2 had traversed 418 miles since its departure from Southampton yesterday.

Current weather entailed intermittent, light rain with a clockwise movement to the west, predicted to drop to force 4. The present force-5, fresh breeze out of the south, coupled with an 11.2-degree Celsius air temperature, carried a 994-millibar pressure. The sea, with a moderate 4 state, maintained a 10-degree Celsius temperature.

Afternoon tea, held in the Queen’s Room, had been a British tradition and a delightful intermittence between lunch and dinner served on every Cunard crossing, the last personal one of which had been the 2002 eastbound journey on the Queen Elizabeth 2. The Queen’s Room itself, the largest ballroom at sea, featured an arched ceiling, twin crystal chandeliers, a velvet blue and gold curtain over the orchestra stage, a 1,225-square-foot dance floor, a live harpist, and small, round tables seating up to 562. Today’s presentation included egg, ham and cheese, cucumber, tomato, beef, and seafood finger-sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and strawberry cream tarts.

Afternoon tea at sea could trace its lineage back some 165 years. Einstein’s theory of relativity somehow seemed to apply. Suspended between continent, landmass, and population, the ship seemed caught within a void, an arrested warp in which history seemed captured and in which the vessel reconnected with its past, as it once again replayed it, a separation from the present on land and an approach to its past on the sea. It was to this suspension of time, distance, and place that the threads of Cunard’s past indeed led. One man, who had lived some 200 years ago, had made the journey of today possible.

The name of that man, of course, had been the same as that which had graced a long line of ever-advancing Atlantic ocean liners, Samuel Cunard. Born on November 21, 1787 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as the son of Abraham Cunard, himself a carpenter at Halifax’s Royal Naval Dockyard, he had forged a maritime link upon physical entry into the world. His initial venture had entailed a Royal Mail contract award to transport mail over the Boston-Halifax-St. John’s route after cessation of the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States, while he later became involved with the first steam-powered vessel project intended for Atlantic crossings. Named the Royal William, the 160-foot-long, 1,370-ton ship had been inaugurated into service in August of 1931 between Quebec and Halifax, requiring 6.5 days for the journey.

The venture which had sparked his ultimate fame, however, occurred at the end of the decade when the British government had announced its intention to subsidize steam-powered mail service between England and the United States. In a formal proposal to fulfill the requirement, submitted on February 11, 1839, Cunard outlined a bimonthly, steam-powered service between England and Halifax operated by 300-hp ships making 48 annual crossings. Awarded a contract by the Admiralty in June for four 206-foot-long, 400-hp, 1,120-ton vessels ultimately to be designated the Acadia, the Caledonia, the Columbia, and the Britannia, he finalized plans to serve the Liverpool-Halifax-Boston route.

The latter ship, the Britannia, had actually been the first to be completed. The 207-foot-long, 34-foot-wide hybrid power ship, constructed of African oak and yellow pine at Robert Duncan’s Shipyard on the River Clyde in Scotland, had featured a clipper bow, three masts with square yards, and two mid-ship-located, black-and-gold paddle boxes which extended almost 12 feet from either side and contained 9-foot-wide, 28-foot-diameter paddles turning at 16 revolutions per minute and operating off of a 403-hp, two-cylinder, side-lever steam engine which burned 40 tons of coal per day exhausted through a single, aft smoke stack. The engine, requiring 70 feet of hull for installation, drew coal from a 640-ton bunker.

Of the four decks, the upper, or main deck, featured the captain and chief officer cabins, the pantry, the galley, the officers’ mess, the crew cabins, the raised, exposed bridge, and the dining saloon, which, at 36 feet long and 14 feet wide, had been the largest enclosed room on the ship. Two aft, circular staircases linked the dining hall with the second deck, which housed the gentlemen’s and ladies’ cabins, each with two bunk beds, a wash basin, a mirror, a day sofa, and a port hole or an oil lamp, with shared toilet facilities, equaling a 124-person capacity, of which 24 had been female. The cargo holds, located on either side of the engine yet another deck lower and capable of accommodating 225 tons, accompanied the sail locker, the mail room, the stores, the steward quarters, and the wine cellar in the stern. Coal had been stored on the fourth, or lowest, deck.

The 1,154-ton Britannia, inaugurated into scheduled service on July 4, 1840 from Liverpool to Boston with an intermediate stop in Halifax, operated the world’s first transatlantic steam ship service, carrying 63 passengers and taking 12 days, ten hours for the 2,534-nautical-mile crossing at an 8.5-knot speed, one third of the journey undertaken by pure-sail. After an eight-hour port suspension in Halifax, it continued to Boston in another 46 hours.

By January 5, 1841, all four Cunard ships had entered the fleet.

The Britannia itself made 40 round-trips before being sold to the Prussian Navy, which had converted it to a pure-sailing ship used for target purposes and renamed it Barbarossa. It was ultimately sunk in 1880. Nevertheless, it paved the way for a long line of Cunard liners to come.

Biting into the angry, dark-blue, white cap-spitting North Atlantic on a 272-degree heading at 1545 with its protruding, bulbous bow, the mighty Queen Mary 2 engineering triumph pitched on its axis at a 23.4-knot speed, the sun’s rays having been powerful enough to tear the singular cloud fabric into a puffy, white mosaic of aerial islands. The ship had reached a 50-degree, 12.036′ north latitude and 14-degree, 26.312′ west longitude coordinate.

That night’s dinner, served in the Britannia Restaurant, had included Merlot wine; smoked halibut mousse and jumbo shrimp on Russian salad; Lollo Rosso and apple salad with caramelized walnuts and cider vinaigrette; filet mignon and lobster tail with young roasted potatoes, polenta cake, and asparagus in hollandaise sauce; chocolate banana tart with mango sauce; coffee; and petit fours.

The Britannia, as a ship design, had been only the beginning, and would pale in comparison to the leviathan Cunard vessels produced in the 20th century.

Day Three:

Continually bowled significant sea swells, the Queen Mary 2 had pitched through the dark blue, star-glittering night at its center of gravity like a seesaw, its bow pounding the mountainous wave troughs and projecting avalanche-white reactions at 45 degrees from its centerline.

Breakfast, eaten in the King’s Court with its multiple stations, had included a ham and pepper omelet, bacon, hashbrowned potatoes, a grilled tomato, white toast, and cranberry juice.

Negotiating 25- to 30-foot seas over the mid-Atlantic ridge, which covers the Continental Divide, the ship had sailed 590 nautical miles in the 24-hour period since 1200 noon yesterday, now pursuing a 263-degree heading, with 2,075 miles remaining to the New York Pilot’s Station.

Light rain showers were forecast to dissipate, with gradual clearing. The force-5 wind, out of the northwest, had produced 9-degree Celsius temperatures, with a 996.5-millibar pressure. The sea, whose moderate state had been registered a “4,” maintained a 12-degree temperature.

Gazing out toward the Atlantic’s infinity, I could not help but think that somewhere out there, if not in physical space, then in historical time, had been the first of the “huge” Cunard Atlantic liners which assuredly had passed this way during the beginning of the 20th century.

The design, the Lusitania, had had its origins as early as 1902 when J.P. Morgan had attempted to create a steamship conglomerate called the International Mercantile Marine by buying several existing companies, including the White Star Line. In order to ensure Cunard’s continued autonomy and dissuade its absorption into the ever-expanding corporation, the British Parliament had granted it a 20-year contract and subsidy to build two of the world’s then largest and fastest liners and, in the process, regain the speed record the Germans had captured with three of their twin-screw vessels.

Cunard, seeking tenders for the two ships from four shipyards, specified a 750-foot length, a 76-foot width, and a 59,000-hp capability attained by reciprocating engines driving triple screws. The contract, awarded to John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, resulted in a 790-foott length and an 88-foot width, eclipsing the 30,000-ton gross weight by 2,500 tons for the first time, and employing turbine engine technology, also for the first time, with a 68,000-hp combined capability, exhausted, in an effort to emulate the Germans, through four funnels.

Construction, commencing in the fall of 1904, produced two of the largest, fastest, and most powerful Atlantic liners ever built with long, sleek designs; straight sterns; rounded bridges; and four raked funnels sporting 787-foot lengths, 87-foot widths, and 31,550-ton gross weights propelled by steam turbines geared to quadruple screws.

Accommodating 563 first class passengers amidships, 464 aft second class passengers, and 1,138 third, or steerage, class passengers in the forward portion of the hull, the first of the two new liners featured opulent appointments. A Georgian-style lounge sported light green colors, a marble fireplace, stained glass panes, and a 20-foot-high dome. The Veranda Café had latticed wall patterns and rattan furniture. The dining room, of dual-deck configuration, had been the first of its kind on a Cunard ship. The main lounge had been decorated with mahogany paneling, while the smoking room featured dark Italian walnut. The second class dining saloon also sported Georgian appointments and the drawing room had been decorated in the Louis XVI style. Featuring electricity for the first time, the Lusitania provided modern conveniences to its passengers, including two elevators.

On its second westbound crossing, the liner beat all speed records, averaging 23.993 knots and covering a 617-mile, single-day distance, although it ultimately broke the 26-knot mark, reaching New York in four days, 20 hours.

Its fate, however, was not to remain so successful. Departing England on its 202nd voyage on May 1, 1915 with 1,257 passengers, 702 crew members, and three stowaways, the ship had approached Great Britain, sailing ten miles off of Old Head of Kinsale when it had been broadsided by a German torpedo, listing forward and to starboard. Slipping oceanward at a 45-degree, bow-first angle, it hit bottom 18 minutes later, exploding and killing 1,201 on board, the result of a deliberate act of war.

Because not an outcrop of land is sighted during the six-day Atlantic crossing, the Queen Mary 2 seemed suspended in a void between two continents, the journey about course, speed, weather, sea state, distance, and interior life, the temporary, although ever-moving civilization atop the sea.

Soldiering on, the ship burned 3.1 tons of heavy fuel oil per hour at a 100-percent load to operate its diesel engines, or 261 tons per day at a 29-knot steam speed, while it used 6 tons of marine gas oil per hour to run its gas turbines, or 237 tons per day, drawing off of a 1,412,977-US gallon tank for the former and a 966,553-gallon tank for the latter.

Its fresh water supply, produced from seawater by 3 Alfa Laval Multi Effect Plate Evaporators, replenished itself at the rate of 630 tons per day, satisfying its 1,100-ton daily consumption. The potable water tank capacity equaled 1,011,779 US gallons.

A German-themed lunch, served in the King’s Court, had included bratwurst, bacon sauerkraut, cheese spaetzel, roasted potatoes, schnitzel, and black forest cake.

Maintaining a 261-degree heading and a 23.1-knot steam speed, the city at sea had reached a 49-degree, 43.705′ north latitude and 28-degree, 25.458′ west longitude position by 1500.

The Queen Mary 2’s Winter Garden, designed after the skylighted verandah cafes of the Mauretania, had featured a 60-by-25-foot trompe l’oeil ceiling depicting a lush, verdant gardens, paneled walls which looked through cast iron gates to rolling hills, and wicker furniture, and had been created to counteract the cold, gray, turbulent winter of the North Atlantic.

The Mauretania itself, the ship which had provided the Winter Garden’s inspiration, had been the second of the two early-20th century Cunard designs after the Lusitania. The nine-decked liner, accommodating 563 first class passengers in 253 cabins, 464 second class passengers in 133 cabins, and 1,138 third class passengers in 278 cabins, had featured its own opulent appointments. The first class smoking room, for example, located in the stern, had featured polished wood wall panels and plaster friezes. The lounge, located on the Boat Deck and measuring 80 by 53 feet, had been adorned with mahogany wall panels, gold moldings, long ceiling beams, gilt bronze, and crystal chandeliers. The library, featuring bay windows, had been decorated with sycamore paneling. The first class dining room, seating 330, had been configured with long, white clothed tables and revolving chairs, and was decorated with polished ash, teak-molded paneling, and arched windows, while the second class dining room, with parquet floors, featured Georgian oak paneling and carved cornices. A grand staircase, installed between the second and third funnels, connected five decks with the public rooms.

Entering service on November 16, 1907 between Liverpool and New York, the Mauretania had been retrofitted with four-bladed propellers two years later, in 1909, at which time it could attain maximum speeds of 26.6 knots. It had been only the first of several modifications. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, for instance, it had been repainted gray and briefly served as a troop ship, reliveried and returned to commercial service five years later in 1919, at which time it operated in company with the Aquitania and Berengaria, offering weekly east- and westbound service on the Southampton-New York route. It remained the fastest of the three.

Yet another modification, necessitated by fire, resulted in conversion to oil-burning engine technology and cabin reconfiguration, reducing both the second and third class passenger capacities.

In its 27 years of operation, during 22 of which it had held the North Atlantic speed record until it had been recaptured by the Bremen in 1929, the Mauretania had sailed some 2.1 million miles in transatlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean service before being usurped by two larger, more advanced Cunard liners. Making its last crossing on September 26, 1934, it was scraped the following year in Scotland.

That evening’s dinner, served in the Queen Mary 2’s Britannia Restaurant, had featured white zinfandel wine; baby shrimp thermidor on walnut brioche; cob salad with smoked chicken and bleu cheese dressing; roasted seabass with Mediterranean vegetables and olive tapenade; banana foster flambee with rum raisin ice cream and whipped cream; and coffee.

The Lusitania and Mauretania replacements, although larger, would prove a motley pair: although one had been the third in the series, it had been slower, while the other had been transferred from the fleet of the enemy, the Germans.

Day Four:

Suspended in the middle of the Atlantic, the black-hulled leviathan pursed its Great Circle course on a 249-degree heading, eating the gray and foamy-white ocean with its bow with a 21.7-knot appetite. Four hundred seventy miles off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship negotiated 3,549-meter-deep waters, having covered 607 nautical miles in the 24-hour period since yesterday, now 1,615 miles from Southampton. At a current 47-degree, 34.066′ north latitude and 042-degree, 00.754′ west longitude position, it was 1,468 miles from its destination.

External conditions were mild: the air temperature, at 14 degrees Celsius, had been coupled with a force-4 moderate breeze out of the southwest and low level cloud, with a 989-millibar air pressure. The sea, whose state had been slight, had a 12.7-degree Celsius temperature.

If the triplet of early 20th-century Cunard liners could have sailed past the Queen Mary 2 in chronological order, the Aquitania would have trailed both the Lusitania and the Mauretania, the third of the long, sleek, quad-funneled vessels constructed by John, Brown and Company of Clydebank.

The 45,647-ton ship, with a 901-foot length and a 97-foot width, had been both larger and heavier than its two predecessors, resulting in a 3,200-passenger capacity. Launched on April 21, 1913, it had commenced trial runs 13 months later, achieving a 24-knot maximum speed, and entered commercial service on May 30, 1914 on the Liverpool-New York route.

Opulently appointed, it featured a long gallery which connected the main lounge with the smoking room decorated with a series of garden lounges; a carpeted, Louis XVI-style first class restaurant; a columned Palladian lounge, which spanned two decks; and the first pool ever installed on a Cunard ship.

Late to the North Atlantic, the Aquitania had sailed on the fringes of World War I and had been requisitioned by the government for military service as an armed merchant cruiser in August of 1914; but, because of its excessive size, had been recommissioned as a troop ship the following year. Reconfigured for ocean liner service after the war, the ship resumed its civil role in August of 1920, amending its capacity six years later, in 1916, when a major reconfiguration decreased the first class passenger complement from 618 to 610, increased the second class capacity from 614 to 950, and dramatically decreased the third class complement by some three-forths, from 1,998 to 640, in order to more accurately match passenger class demand.

Once again reconfigured to a 7,724-person troop ship during World War II, the Aquitania provided eight years of military service during which it had sailed 500,000 miles and carried more than 300,000 troops.

Arriving in Southampton on December 1, 1949, the multiple-role vessel ended 35 years of service, having sailed some 3 million miles on 443 voyages. It had been Cunard’s last quad-funneled design.

Lunch, back in the present on the Queen Mary 2, had been served in The Carvery, itself one of the King’s Court stations, and had included beef tikka masala, white rice, cauliflower in cheese sauce, and double chocolate fudge cake.

Although the Aquitania’s very long, mulitple-role, and fruitful career had ended in 1949, it had, for the most part, continued to operate in tandem, as originally conceived, with two other Cunard transatlantic liners, despite the fact that the Lusitania had been destroyed almost immediately after entering service. The third ship, however, emanated not from a Cunard blueprint given life by a ship builder on the Clyde, but instead by the very enemy which had necessitated its replacement.

Endeavoring to compete with the Cunard and White Star Line designs which now regularly plied the Atlantic, the Hamburg-America Line had laid the keel of a new breed of transatlantic liners on June 18, 1910, intended to be the largest-capacity, highest gross weight passenger ship ever built. The specifications were, for the time, staggering: measuring 919 feet long and 98 feet wide, the elongated, tri-funneled, 52,117-ton ship, designated the Imperator, had been powered by steam engines geared to four-bladed propellers feeding off of 8,500-tons of coal nourishing two 69- and 95-foot-long engine rooms, respectively. Accommodating 908 first class, 972 second class, 942 third class, and 1,772 steerage class passengers, the behemoth, steered by a 90-ton rudder, was christened on May 23, 1912 and entered commercial service 13 months later, on June 10, from Cuxhaven to New York with an intermediate stop in Southampton.

The Imperator featured a First Class winter garden with potted palm trees and a dual-deck indoor swimming pool.

Because initial service had demonstrated top-heavy conditions, its three funnels were shortened by nine feet during an autumn retrofit.

Ultimately banned from sailing because of World War I German atrocities, the ship had been moored in Hamburg for four years until a war reparation agreement resulted in its transfer to Cunard in 1919 as compensation for the German-sunk Lusitania. Rebased in Southampton two years later, in April of 1921, it had been subjected to an initial retrofit during which its coal-burning engine technology had been replaced with oil and it had been reconfigured with 972, 630, 606, and 515 first, second, third, and tourist passengers, respectively. Redesignated Berengaria, the ship joined the Mauretania and Aquitania, operating Cunard’s weekly transatlantic service. Although it had been originally planned to continue operating it until 1940, its antiquated wiring system, which resulted in persistent on-board fires, had precluded its anticipated service longevity, temporarily leaving only the Mauretania and Aquitania until a new breed of Cunard liners, to offer double the tonnage of the existing designs, could enter service. That ship, of course, bore the name of the current one: Queen Mary.

Dinner, served in La Piazza Restaurant on board the (present-day) Queen Mary 2, had included a mixed green salad with ranch dressing; artichoke hearts; vegetable moussaka; pasta with onions, mushrooms, black olives, garlic, and red tomato sauce; tiramisu; and coffee.

Dusk could be more accurately gauged by looking beyond the wooden deck with its Queen Mary I-reminiscent line of deck chairs and down toward the sea, rather than up toward the sky. The former, a reflection of the latter, had appeared a deep blue, mirroring the temporary brightness of the sky during the early-evening when the mountainous white cumulous formations had parted, creating a blue rift. It then rapidly metamorphosed into a dark blue and, momentarily, a cold, morose, winter gray, the prevalent environmental conditions of so many earlier transatlantic crossings, as the dark, billowing clouds reassembled into a tight, cohesive quilt, hindering even a momentary glimpse of the sun. Merging dimensionally with the ocean, the amorphous, referenceless void cacooned the floating city until visibility extended no further than ten feet from either of its sides. Two souls, well dressed, braved the fierce, blustering wind as they attempted, buttressed by the force, to circle the deck. Thus was life on a transatlantic crossing.

As the day bordered the midnight demarcation line, the ship crossed from the Newfoundland Basin to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and, effectively, reached the North American continent. Two days of steaming remained before it arrived at its terminus, the Port of New York.

~Continued from Part 1~

There was also another story behind Della Griffin’s longevity at the Blue Book club. For some reason her integrity was tested when a sizeable sum of cash was left in the women’s bathroom that she used before and/or after performances. She did not take it. Afterwards, having earned the highest level of trust, she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted, which turned out to be more than a decade. Ultimately with mutual feelings of respect and love, the Blue Book became one of Della’s all-time favorite venues.

Following the dissolution of her second marriage, Della Griffin, married unsuccessfully one last time (Jimmy Walker whose name she refused to take feeling that it was not worth the time) and resumed her career, which lasted into the 21st century.

After opening at Harlem’s Blue Book club in 1973, Della Griffin performed there for the next 14 years, until 1987 when she was seriously injured after being hit by a car in Mt. Vernon, NY. In addition, starting in the 1980s, Della resumed working with Etta Jones and joined with Irene Reid. Their efforts led to two albums – “I’ll Get By” and “Travlin’ Light,” both produced by Houston Person (b.1934) and Muse Records. When Muse Records folded, Della Griffin “followed many of” its performers “to [the] newly-formed HighNote-Savant” label where Person produced “The Very Thought of You” which came out in 1998. Shortly afterwards, due to her high level of achievement, Della “Griffin was invited to Finland to appear at one of that country’s major jazz festivals.”[1]

Following her recovery, Della Griffin along with Frances Kelly and Shirley “Bunny” Foy appeared on “Dan Romanello’s Rhythm & Blues Group Harmony Review” on Fordham University’s WFUV-FM show in New York in 1994 after being “rediscovered by group harmony enthusiast Louie Silvani.”[2] After taking inquiries about the Enchanters and Dell-Tones, Della Griffin put another “Dell-Tones” group together, consisting of Frances Kelly, Annette St. John and Gwen Michael, the latter two new members. They then made numerous appearances including at “The Heroines of R&B” concert in October 1995, which also included the famed Chantels, The Jewels and Vikki Burgess, who just missed being selected to replace Sherry Gary of the Dell-Tones forty years earlier, among others.

In addition to her performances for the new Dell-Tones and recording acts for Muse Records and HighNote-Savant, Della Griffin took part in many solo acts in clubs across the tri-state region during the 1990s. Some of these performances include:

Della Griffin and “her All-Stars” in Croton Falls and Yonkers, NY in May and June 1992, respectively; a solo performance at Blue Note Jazz Club and Restaurant at 131 West 3rd Street in New York City in April 1991, solo New Year’s Eve performances at DeFemio’s Restaurant in Yonkers, NY in December 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1997, a December 1994 performance “A Very Merry Holiday Jazz Party” with Etta Jones and Houston Person at the Schoolhouse in Croton Falls, a show titled “Standards & Blues by Della Griffin” in Scarsdale, NY in June 1998, and a performance at the White Plains Public Library in White Plains, NY in March 1999, among others. She was also a frequent performer at Scottie’s club in Yonkers, NY, a member of the Jimmy Hill Quartet (with jazz musicians Jimmy Hill (1928-2004), Joe Puma (1927-2000), and Etta Jones) that “frequented jazz haunts through the [New York metro] region,”[3] a member of Fred Smith’s “Harlem Renaissance Swing Band (performing at Hartford, CT’s Bushnell Park in July 1999), and a drummer for The Melba Joyce Group in a 1998 Nicki Mathis “The Many Colors of a Woman”[4] concert also in Hartford, CT, as well as a participant in benefit concerts for musicians in need. She also performed in Hartford CT’s Bushnell Park in July 1995 and 1996 as “one of the most valuable showstoppers…” singing “‘Tain’t Nobody’s Business” and “All of Me,”[5] and at Rich Forum in Stamford, CT in February 1998. During the July 1995 concert, it was written, “Singer Della Griffin, decked out in shades, a hot pink sweat suit and matching hat, almost stole the show when she scurried to the front of the stage and began singing ‘All of Me’ in a wonderfully grainy, lived-in kind of voice…”[6]

Della Griffin continued her music career into the 21st century making appearances in New York City, Westchester County, and Newark, NJ, one of which included a 3 hour-long performance at the Renaissance Jazz Café on 195 Mulberry Street in May 2003, among others.

Even though Della Griffin never had children of her own and had a demanding career, she found time to be a philanthropist. Despite her fame and 50+-year career, she took in more than 40 foster children, raising many from infancy. As a result she was known as “Aunt Della” and described as having a voice ‘gorgeous enough to evoke Billie Holiday, (a jazz legend and close friend) and [a] heart big enough to take in more than a dozen foster children.”[7]

When her Mt. Vernon, NY house suffered severe fire damage from a pre-Christmas 2004 fire that had been started by a 6-year-older foster child who accidentally knocked over a candle, a benefit concert featuring Irene Reid and Houston Person, among others, was held by the Jazz Foundation to cover the $15,000 rebuilding costs. Della and some of her foster children ultimately returned to the rebuilt house just before the summer of 2005.

During her remarkable pioneering career, Della Griffin has performed in venues all around the world, including some of the most famous jazz clubs. She had also created two female groups – the Enchanters and the Dell-Tones, sang for William “Count” Basie’s band as well as the Modells, and shared the stage with many legends – “a who’s who of jazz and blues singers, including Etta Jones”[8] and Gloria Coleman, a Soul singer, among others.

Having been a “singer you can count on for moving performances…” with a “voice [that] fills the songs she sings, weaving their way into your heart…”[9] in the class of Billie Holiday (for a while Holiday’s husband stopped by every week after Billie’s passing to hear Griffin’s rendition of “Some Other Spring” because she reminded him of his deceased wife) and Etta Jones, Della Griffin is a jazz legend in her own right, mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Jazz for having taken “a daring step forward [when the Enchanters and Dell-Tones], pioneering female ensembles of vocal group music… decided to compete on a circuit usually reserved for men.” When others chose to marry and tend to families and despite the adversities and setbacks she faced, Della Griffin’s heart remained with music. In her words, “Music brings me great joy. It always makes me smile.”[10]

Aside from music, Della Griffin also had other passions. She loved sewing and crochet since she was a child and she enjoyed dining at Sizzler’s restaurant (now defunct) at Cross County Center in Yonkers, NY and supermarket shopping, especially for different kinds of foods, soda, and candy. At the same time her favorite colors are purple and black, the latter, which she adopted during her later years.

At the same time, despite her success and fame, as well as the difficult trials she faced, Della Griffin’s faith has remained strong. As a result she serves as an inspirational Christian role-model – clothing, feeding, sheltering, and caring for children in need, demonstrated through the years by all the foster children she cared for and loved as if they were her own blood. Accordingly because of Della’s love for God, one of her favorite pastimes when she was able and fit to, was taking her foster children on frequent visits to Lourdes of America at St. Lucy’s Church in the Bronx, NY to enrich the family’s spirituality and receive blessings from the grotto’s holy water “which is said to have miraculous healing powers.”[11]

A tribute to honor Della Griffin and her contributions to R&B and jazz was recently held by the Eleanor Scott Center at the Creole club in New York City on June 21, 2006 in recognition of the lasting and indelible imprint she has left on the jazz world. This came five years after a “Summer Breeze” concert on the steps of Mt. Vernon, NY City Hall in which Della Griffin was awarded a plaque by the City’s mayor, Ernest Davis in “recognition and gratitude” of her 30+ years of contributions to music and Mt. Vernon. Afterwards she (with a big smile) and Etta Jones performed a duet, singing “East of the sun and west of the moon, we’re going to build a dream house of love” followed by “a standing ovation, even from their fellow musicians.”[12] Ironically it was one of Etta Jones’ last performances before she succumbed to cancer less than three months later.

Furthermore in recognition of Della Griffin’s achievements, the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger wrote when discussing an upcoming jazz concert in Ivy Hill, NJ, in which Dave Braham and his jazz group, the Latin Jazz Quartet was the key attraction – “Actually, Braham is a master organist, having backed singers like Irene Reid, Arthur Prysock (b. 1929) and Della Griffin.” [13] At the same time, the Fairfield (CT) Citizen News wrote when talking about Antoinette Montague, a local singer who sang jazz and R&B for a while and who was celebrating the life of jazz great Louis Armstrong in a play – “She has been focusing on pursuing her craft, aiming for excellence, by meeting long-time performers such as Etta Jones and Della Griffin… and making contacts with musicians.”[14] In addition, the Hartford (CT) Courant when writing about Fred Smith, a traveling “workaholic” jazz trumpeter stated, “Aside from Smith’s swing savvy, his band’s key assets are saxophonist David ‘Bubba’ Smith, a fat-toned tenor saxophonist, and Della Griffin, a vocalist… Petite and grandmotherly looking, Griffin is graced with an evocative, soul-wrenching voice that can all but channel the long departed spirit of Billie Holiday. Her grainy, lived-in sound is delightful. Especially when she plunges into a Holiday signature song like ‘Fine and Mellow,’ with its wry, melancholic lyrics…”[15] and “The guitarist also has played on other forthcoming albums led by McDuff, Hampton, Della Griffin and Larry O’Neill”[16] when discussing Randy Johnston, a jazz and blues artist.

Today Della Griffin resides in New Rochelle, NY. She is still loved as much as ever and visited daily by one foster child or another. Most importantly her voice still sings lifting and enriching lives.

Discography:

§Today is Your Birthday/How Could You. January 1952. The Enchanters. Jubilee Records. (5072)

§I’ve Lost/Housewife Blues. April 1952. The Enchanters. Jubilee Records. (5080)

§Yours Alone/My Heart’s On Fire. July 1953. The Dell-Tones. Brunswick Records. (84015)

§I’m Not In Love With You/Little Short Daddy. April 1954. The Dell-Tones. Rainbow Records. (244)

§Baby Say You Love Me/Don’t Be Too Long. July 1955. The Dell-Tones. Baton Records. (212)

§My Special Love/Believe It. March 1956. The Dell-Tones. Baton Records. (223)

§Voices Of Love/I’m So Lonely. June 1957. The Kings And Queens (combined Dell-Tones and Orioles). Everlast Records. (5003)

§Duke Ellington Collection, 1927-1988, #301

§Subseries 3F: Other Music Company Records, 1938-1965 (boxes 106-111) Box 107. Expense Records. The Enchanters 1956-1958.

§Della Griffin Sings. (Vinyl LP featuring I’ll Be Seeing You, Lover Man, Don’t Explain, Standing There, But Beautiful, You’ve Changed, Travelin’ Light, and Gloomy Sunday) Della Griffin. Dobre Records. (1009)

§Travelin’ Light. (CD featuring Smile, Travelin’ Light, Out of Nowhere, Some Other Spring, The Second Time Around, Easy Living, Trouble In Mind, Trust In Me, Blue Gardenia). June 1992. Della Griffin. Muse Records. (5496)

§I’ll Get By. (CD featuring If You Were The Only Boy In The World, But Beautiful, I’m Getting’ Sentimental Over You, Fools Rush In, You and Me Against The World, I’ll Get By (As Long As I Have You), Two Different Worlds, and East of the Sun). July 1996. Della Griffin. Muse Records (B000008REL).

§The Very Thought of You. (CD featuring My Melancholy Baby, The Very Thought of You, All of Me, Misty, This Bitter Earth, Yesterdays, It Could Happen To You, You Go To My Head, and Sunday). September 1998. Della Griffin. Savant Records. (1180011)

Unreleased:

§You Know I’m Not In Love With You. Recorded November 1951. The Enchanters. Jubilee Records.

§Boogie Woogie Daddy. The Enchanters. Jubilee Records.

§Why Make A Fool Out Of Me. The Dell-Tones. Brunswick Records.

§After All I’ve Been To You. The Dell-Tones. Brunswick Records.

Also Appears On:

§Darling Please Save Your Love For Me. March 1994. Dakota Staton. Muse Records. (5462). Featured on tracks 2 and 7 – “You’ve Changed,” and “East of the Sun.”

§Jazz Ballads With a Blue Feeling. February 2003. HighNote. (B00008AY5I). Featured on track 7 – “This Bitter Earth.”

§Jazz for a Christmas Present. July 2003. Savoy Jazz. (B0000AGWKQ). Featured on Vol. 2 track 2 – “Jingle Bells.”

§Jazz in an R&B Groove. March 2004. HighNote. (B0001I2C7A). Featured on track 6 – “This Bitter Earth.”

§Jazz That’s Soulfully Blue. February 2005. HighNote. (B0007N19J6). Featured on track 9 – “Sunday.”

§Jazz for the Wee Small Hours. April 2006. HighNote. (B000F1HGAG). Featured on track 6 – “You Go To My Head.”

______________

[1] Della Griffin. Musicmatch®, Inc. 2004. 3 August 2006. [http://www.mmguide.musicmatch.com/artist.cgi?ARTISTID=886881&TMPL=LONG]

[2] John Clemente. Girl Groups. (Krause Publications. Iola, WI., USA. 2000) 89.

[3] Joseph Ax. Jimmy Hill dies at 76; was well-known jazz musician. The Journal News. Gannett Co., Inc. 15 June 2004. 3B.

[4] Owen McNally. Local Jazz Artist Keeps Celebrating Many Talents of Women. The Hartford Courant. 3 September 1998. 8.

[5] Owen McNally. Harlem Legends Put Life In Park. The Hartford Courant. 23 July 1996. A4.

[6] Owen McNally. Veterans Revive Harlem Jazz And Blues. The Hartford Courant. 11 July 1995. A4.

[7] A Benefit for Della Griffin. all about Jazz.com. 14 January 2005. 3 August 2006. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news_print.php?id=5026

[8] A Benefit for Della Griffin. all about Jazz.com. 14 January 2005. 3 August 2006. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news_print.php?id=5026

[9] Ismael Rangel. Della Griffin. 3 August 2006. [http://www.ddg.com/LIS/InfoDesignF96/Ismael/jazz/1980/Griffith.html]

[10] A Benefit for Della Griffin. all about Jazz.com. 14 January 2005. 3 August 2006. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news_print.php?id=5026

[11] Historic Attractions: Lourdes of America. i love the bronx.com. 14 August 2006. [http://www.ilovethebronx.com/thingstodo.cfm?prmCategoryIDs=17]

[12] Greg Clary. Jazz lovers enjoy the Summer Breeze. The Journal News. Gannett Co., Inc. 24 July 2001. 3K.

[13] Barbara Kukla. Feast of music and food comes to Ivy Hill – Jazz musician is star attraction. Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ). 5 August 1999. 1.

[14] Local Singer Celebrates the Life of Louis Armstrong in Musical Play. Fairfield Citizen News. 17 June 2005. Living section.

[15] Owen McNally. Traveling Trumpeter Brings Harlem Jazz to Bushnell Park. The Hartford Courant. 14 July 2000. D3.

[16] Owen McNally. Randy Johnston brings jazz-blues mix to 880 with DePalma trio. The Hartford Courant. 28 May 1992. 5.

Additional Sources:

Newark This Week: Coming Events. Star-Ledger, The (Newark, NJ). 15 May 2003. 2.

Della Griffin – Lead singer of the Dell-Tones 1955-56. liveDaily. 3 August 2006. http://www.livedaily.com/artists/bio/195412.html

Tribute for Della Griffin. all about Jazz.com. 2006. 3 August 2006. http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/calendar.php?do=getinfo&e=37&day=2006-6-21&c=1

W5: This Week – Who What When Where Why. The Hartford Courant. 4 July 1999. G1.

Note: Article with photos, including exclusives, can be found at my website at: http://aaliyahremembered2.homestead.com/files/Della_Griffin_Biography.pdf

Sparsely populated, as evidenced by the once thin scatter of farmhouses, Long Island, still in its nascent state, had been carpeted by forests, but a single, central clearing, the largest east of the Mississippi River, stood like an oasis in the desert, and served as a spawning ground for aerial life. It was called the “Hempstead Plains.” Almost predestined as the threshold to air, its flat, unobstructed expanses called to flight, providing a venue for aircraft experimentation, flying fields, and piloting schools, an area where vehicles spread wings and rose from the womb which had incubated them, pursuing an ascending path which would one day eclipse the atmosphere and connect the planet with its moon.

Located on the eastern edge of the country, a dividing line which only pointed transcontinentally toward the west or transatlantically to the European continent, the area, in close proximity to New York, the world’s most populous city, only served to geographically cement this aviation foundation.

Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the first to aerially triumph over Long Island with his Golden Flyer biplane, won the Scientific American trophy after making a 25-kilometer, 30-circuit flight round Mineola Airfield on July 17, 1909, attracting other aeronautically-inspired people and the first commercial buyer of an airplane.

The burgeoning aviation interest and experimentation, quickly eclipsing the boundaries of the tiny field, resulted in the establishment of the nearby Hempstead Plaines Aerodrome whose almost 1,000-acre expanse had sprouted 25 wooden hangars and grandstands by the summer of 1911. The Moissant School, the country’s first such civilian institution, had opened with a fleet of seven Bleriot monoplanes operating out of five structures. It subsequently issued the first female pilot license, to Harriet Quimby.

Long Island’s soil, nurturing aviation as much as grass, had provided the stage for the first International Aviation Meet the prior year at Belmont Park in Elmont, attracting both US and European pilots who raced and established speed and performance records with an ever-increasing collection of early designs, while Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn had served as the origin of the first transcontinental flight piloted by Calbraith Rogers in a Wright Brothers’ designed EX Vin Fiz biplane on September 17, 1911. It terminated in San Diego, California, 49 days later, despite a dizzying array of enroute stops and airframe reconstruction-necessitating crashes.

The first US airmail route, albeit the short, temporary, six-mile stretch from Garden City to Mineola in a Bleriot aircraft, also occurred that year.

Hempstead Plains Airfield, assuming a military role, provided the location for New York National Guard pilot training in 1915, and two years later, it had become one of only two Army fields in the United States with a fleet of four Curtiss JN-4 Jenny aircraft. It had also been the year when it had been redesignated “Hazelhurst Field,” in honor of an Army pilot who had lost his life in an airplane accident.

In order to cater to increased Army pilot training demand, Field #2 had been established south of the existing Hazelhurst Airport in 1917 and was subsequently renamed “Mitchel Field” in July of the following year after then-New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.

The first regularly scheduled air mail service, occurring in May of 1918 from Washington to Belmont Park with Curtiss Jennys, yielded to the first heavier-than-air craft transatlantic crossing from Long Island to Portugal the following year with a trio of Navy-operated, quad-engined, amphibious Curtiss NC flying boats, only one of which ultimately reached the European continent after two intermediate stops in Newfoundland and the Azores.

The roots of many Long Island aircraft manufacturers were planted during World War I.

The “Golden Age of Aviation,” associated with numerous speed, distance, and altitude records, resulted in two famous nonstop flights. The first of these, entailing a single-engine Fokker T-2, had resulted in a 26-hour, 50-minute transcontinental crossing from Roosevelt Field to San Francisco in 1923, while the second had been Charles Lindbergh’s world-renowned, solo, nonstop, transatlantic flight four years later, on May 20, 1927, in the Spirit of St. Louis.

Following its almost symbolic roll-out into the fog-shrouded dawn prior to departure, the silver monoplane was plunged into the darkness, doubt, and obscurity of consensus belief concerning the attempt, yet the tiny orange glow piercing the sky on the horizon somehow reflected promise and hope–a target for which to aim. From the present standpoint, however, France seemed just as infinitesimal in size. Yet, the precarious, mud- and water-impeding take off, which barely cleared the trees, served as the threshold to the successfully-covered 3,610 miles across the Atlantic to Paris.

By 1929, Roosevelt Field, having integrated with its former half known as “Curtiss Field,” had been considered the “World’s Premier Airport” because of its paved runways and taxiways, instrument flying equipment, hangars, restaurants, and hotels, and by the early-1930s, had been the largest such facility in the country with 450 based aircraft and some 400 hourly movements. It had also been home to the Roosevelt Aviation School, one of the largest civilian pilot training facilities in the US.

During a three-year, post-World War I expansion phase, occurring between 1929 and 1932, Mitchel Field developed into one of the United States’ largest military facilities, with eight steel-and-concrete hangars, barracks, operations buildings, and warehouses, and served as home to many fighter, bomber, and observation squadrons. The first nonstop transcontinental bomber flight, operated by a B-18 in 1938, departed here, while two P-40 Warhawk squadrons had been based at the field during the Second World War.

Indeed, war-necessitated demand only served to deepen Long Island’s aviation core, resulting in an explosive peak of military aircraft design and manufacture by 1945, at which time some 100,000 local residents had been engaged in aviation-related employment, primarily with the Republic Aircraft Corporation and the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, in a man-and-machine merge which had ultimately triumphed in war.

The first of these, founded in 1931 as Seversky Aircraft Corporation, relocated to larger facilities, redesignating itself Republic Aviation Corporation seven years later and becoming the second-largest supplier of fighters to the Army Air Corps because of the copious quantities of superior-performance P-47 Thunderbolts sold to them.

The second of these, founded in 1930 by Leroy Grumman, became the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and had been synonymous with Navy and amphibious aircraft, the former including the two-seat FF-1, the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat, the TBM/TBF Avenger, the F7F Tigercat, and the F8F Bearcat, and the latter encompassing the Grumman Goose, Widgeon, Mallard, and Albatross.

Changing, post-war conditions, however, began to pull at Long Island’s aviation roots, as no-longer needed military aircraft contracts were canceled and encroaching suburbs choked Roosevelt and Mitchel Fields into closure. Nevertheless, more than 64,000 civilian and military aircraft had been hatched by its manufacturers by this time.

Transcending the atmosphere, aviation transformed itself into aerospace.

Dr. Robert Goddard, who had successfully designed the world’s first liquid-fueled rockets in Massachusetts, received a $50,000 grant from Harry Guggenheim on Long Island to pursue related research and testing, and he ultimately designed a liquid fuel rocket engine, a turbine fuel pump, and a gyroscopic-controlled steering device.

Eleven aerospace companies subsequently bid to design and produce the needed Lunar Module transfer component of the Project Apollo Moon Mission, enabling crew members to travel between the orbiting Command Module and the lunar surface, and NASA awarded Grumman the contract in 1962. Two simulators, ten test modules, and 13 operational Lunar Modules had been built during the Apollo Program, the most famous of which had been the LM-5 “Eagle,” which had disappendaged itself from the Apollo 11 spacecraft on July 20, 1969 and connected the first human being with the moon, leaving his footprint and the base of the Lunar Module itself as eternal evidence of this feat.

The aviation seed planted on Long Island’s Hempstead Plains had thus sprouted and grown, connecting its own soil with that of its moon.

Can anything good be said about the St. Louis Rams? Any football fan would be hard pressed to find something positive about the miserable situation of the St. Louis Rams. I suppose one could point to their 9-7 loss at Washington as a sign that things are on the verge of improving, one fact remains.

The St. Louis Rams have only scored 7 total points through the first two weeks of the 2009 football season. Having been blanked by the Seahawks in Seattle (28-0, couldn’t get much worse), the team traveled to Washington in week 2, carrying higher hopes.

While nearly winning, the fact that the team only scored 7 points doesn’t bode well for the Rams’ offense. Defense is not known to be their strong point, and without an effective offensive present, it’ll be extremely difficult for this team to win many games.

Perhaps it’s time for the Rams to assess the value of Marc Bulger, as he simply doesn’t seem to be the quarterback he once was. Steven Jackson is a great running back when healthy, but the lack of a passing game in St. Louis makes it extremely difficult for the team to put some points on the board.

Bulger has been a long stay in the NFL world, and just a few short years ago, was considered one of the best quarterbacks in the game. While he’s not old, he may have lost his touch with the Rams.

With nothing to lose, the Rams should draft a top quarterback in 2010, as their future may hinge on this position.

If you’re looking for a great baseball road trip idea, consider the quintessential American baseball city, St. Louis. It is easy to reach from just about anywhere in the country and there is plenty to see and do. Let’s take a closer look…

St. Louis And Baseball

St. Louis has long been a baseball town. There is an ongoing love affair with the Cardinals, who have rewarded the hometown faithful with numerous championships, most recently in 2006. During the summer on game days, downtown St. Louis is bursting with fans wearing red, preparing to cheer on their team.

The new Busch Stadium is on the southern edge of downtown, adjacent to original Busch Stadium, which was torn down after the 2005 season. The new stadium has already witnessed a world championship team and an All Star game in its short existence. It is a great place to watch a ballgame, with wide concourses and a great view of downtown St. Louis.

Since St. Louisans are passionate about the Cardinals, it’s a good idea to secure tickets in advance if you’re planning a baseball road trip. The same is true for hotel accommodations. Baseball weekends are quite popular, so it’s best to reserve a few months ahead of time.

St. Louis Neighborhoods And Diversions

About a mile south of the ballpark is our favorite neighborhood in the city, Soulard. Soulard has a French influence from early settlers, from the architecture to the lively atmosphere that can be reminiscent of New Orleans.

Soulard is a dining and nightlife destination, and if you’re going to a game, numerous shuttles take you to the ballpark and back. There are literally dozens of bars and restaurants dotting the streets, making Soulard an ideal pre and post game destination. Two of our favorites are John D. McGurk’s and Norton’s Cafe, both popular gathering spots for locals and out of town visitors alike.

Another can’t miss neighborhood to visit is The Hill, and Italian influenced conclave about ten minutes west of downtown. The Hill is brimming with great Italian restaurants, like Giovanni’s and Rigazzi’s. The neighborhood is built on a hill that rises above Shaw Boulevard, adjacent to Interstate 40. Baseball legend Yogi Berra was born and raised in this neighborhood and locals can point out the house where he grew up.

For the younger crowd, there’s Lacledes Landing, a nightlife area walking distance north from downtown. This neighborhood is adjacent to the Mississippi River, and has an old rivertown feel. There are several restaurants and nightclubs here, and the area gets lively later on in the evening.

The Arch And The Brewery

If you drive into St. Louis, you wont’ miss the famous Arch. Completed in 1966, it signifies the gateway to the western United States. There’s a museum at its base, literally steps from the river. You can take a cable car ride to the top for a view of the surrounding area from over 600 feet above ground. If you’re claustrophobic, we don’t recommend it. The cars taking you to the top are small!

About five minutes south of downtown just off Interstate 55 is the original Anheuser-Busch brewery. It is a cultural gem and tours are offered continuously. Even if a cold beer isn’t your style, walking through the plant is a real treat. You’ll even be taken to the horse stables to catch a glimpse of the famous Clydesdale horses, an Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser beer trademark.

Summary

We highly recommend St. Louis as a baseball trip destination. The fans are great and there is plenty to see and do in the city. It is best to get your tickets and hotel accommodations in advance. Once you’re there, explore the many great neighborhoods and enjoy!

Traveling in Mexico by RV led us to wonderful experiences we could only have had that way. Camping by a remote ferry landing on the Gulf of Mexico, deepening our immersion in the ancient ruins of El Tajín by spending the night in the parking lot, having brunch in our motorhome with a taxi driver in Xalapa, watching an informal rodeo by a restaurant in Chihuahua – these are some of our treasured memories. Many other small moments of beauty or interest came from this way of traveling too.

There were drawbacks, though. Getting lost, having to maneuver the motorhome out of tight spots, the ever-present need to find a place for the RV for the night, the challenge of visiting cities while in an RV… it was rather like having a third person along with my husband and me, one who needed regular meals of gasoline, water, and electricity and needed to dump the water frequently.

In the U.S., it’s easy. You just take off in your motorhome of any size or shape, and everywhere you go, you can find public or private campgrounds. There are huge national directories listing them. You can have a general idea what to expect wherever you go.

Mexico isn’t like that. Some parts of the country are more developed, most notably the Pacific coast beach towns where American and Canadian RVers have been going for years. But if you get off the beaten path, RV travel in Mexico is bound to be an adventure.

Why travel by RV? We found it enjoyable, flexible, economical, and convenient.

Enjoyable

We greatly enjoyed having a mini-home with us wherever we went. Having our own bed, kitchen, and bathroom gave the trip a kind of simplicity and stability that we liked. We were both writing a lot during the trip, and having a table for our two laptops was another benefit. We liked cooking most of our meals, only eating out when we wanted to rather than because it was the only choice other than snacking. It was worth something not to be living out of a suitcase – and for us, since the laptops and Kelly’s video equipment were necessary parts of our business reasons for the trip, it would have been several suitcases!

Flexible

We treasured the flexibility too. Without plane tickets, we could go when and where we wanted spontaneously. And while it’s true that the outstanding bus system in Mexico does go everywhere, I doubt we would have gone to many of the more remote places we explored if we had had to do it by bus.

Economical

RVing is an economical way of traveling, unless you are going long distances in a rig that gets poor gasoline mileage. Our Toyota Dolphin averaged 17 miles per gallon – we kept track. So even though gas prices were higher in Mexico than in the U.S., our transportation costs were not bad at all. You do have to buy Mexican car insurance – American insurance is not honored there.

We averaged well under $10 a night for campgrounds, specially since many nights were free. With grocery costs maybe 60% of U.S. prices, we ate avocados and mangos galore. I’m not a big beef-eater at home, but I loved the flavorful (though generally tougher) Mexican beef. Fresh bread and bakery goods were inexpensive, and I was pleased to see whole grain breads from time to time.

Convenient

Taking care of the basics was generally convenient. Bottled water is sold in even the tiniest villages, and you can buy a large container full and then exchange the plastic bottle for another one elsewhere when you’re done. I was really pleased to see how widely available clean water was. It’s a terrific step forward in public health for Mexico. At just over a dollar for roughly five gallons, the cost was inconsequential for us though still a challenge for poor Mexicans.

Groceries and housewares are easy to come by – all the cities have chain-store supermarkets which also carry housewares and pharmacy items. The public markets offer a wide selection of produce and meats. Even in small towns, there are “mini-supers” (that’s what they call them) of varying sizes.

Of course, all this cost money, and we were pleased that the Mexican ATMs accepted both our credit cards and the debit card from our checking account at home. The receipts often told us how many pesos we had in the account, which made me feel rich indeed until I remembered the exchange rate. We did take more than one card with us, as we heard stories of ATM machines sometimes not giving back people’s cards. This was our first long trip outside the U.S. without travelers’ checks, and it worked fine. We did have a couple hundred dollars, in twenties and smaller bills, tucked into a secret place in the motor home, just in case.

Staying in touch with family, friends, and our business was easy with the internet. Everywhere in Mexico, we found nice little internet cafes. Once in a while the connect speed was prehistoric, but usually it was okay and sometimes very good. It tended to cost between one and two dollars an hour. We were online about twice a week. A couple of times, we left idyllic spots because they didn’t have connections there, but we never had far to go to find them. Mexicans are embracing the internet, and few of them can afford computers at home – and many of them have cellphones because the regular phone service can be hard to get and expensive – so the cafes meet a real need and are far more numerous than in the U.S.

How much Spanish should you know?

The further off the beaten tourist path you go, the fewer Mexicans who speak English will you meet – though we did notice that in the northern states, far more people spoke English than further south. However, we found that even when Mexicans spoke English, we often relied on our Spanish to verify that we had understood them correctly. In many cases, their accents are quite thick (which I find charming). Like us with Spanish, they had learned more in school about reading and writing than about speaking clearly.

It’s really a personal thing. If your Spanish is minimal or nonexistent, are you comfortable communicating with gestures and a few words, even if you should have some health or vehicle problems? Despite being able to handle daily chores with ease, Kelly and I found ourselves constantly challenged by the limits of our Spanish. With my chatty personality, I found it frustrating to think of some little thing I wanted to say to someone and not quite know how to do it. If we end up spending a considerable amount of time south of the border, I will probably take an immersion Spanish course somewhere, to move to a higher level.

What’s it like to drive in Mexico?

Kelly did all the Mexican driving on our trip, as I tend to be a klutz with motorhomes. He realized immediately, and I did a bit later, that even though Mexicans drive quite differently from Americans, they are no less interested in staying alive. We noticed that just as Mexicans make more eye contact and relate to each other more in public places than Americans do, so too in their driving habits, they expect each other to be alert to what they are doing. Someone may pass in a situation that would be madness in the U.S., knowing that both the people that they are passing and any oncoming traffic will be alert if things get tight.

Once, after a hair-raising taxi ride in Guadalajara, I came to the conclusion that our driver had mastered the underlying principle of the universe, that matter and energy are the same. I decided he had changed our taxi into energy at several crucial moments!

Mexican accident rates are reported to be somewhat higher than American. The evidence of my eyes bore this out. In about 3000 miles in Mexico, we saw one totaled small car, two different places where accidents had happened and huge trucks were burning, and one flipped pickup where the ambulances were on their way. That seemed like a lot to me – I am grateful that we didn’t see any accidents occur. These were all daytime events; the standard advice for traveling at night is DON’T. Livestock like to sleep on the warm pavements, all the busyness that you see during the day is still going on but you can’t see it so well, and there is probably a higher risk of being robbed. (Though not as high as most Americans seem to imagine.) In my reading on Mexico, I did take comfort that Carl Franz and John Howell – who have both traveled extensively in Mexico and written a lot about the country – have gone many thousands of miles. Each can tell some hair-raising tales, but neither has ever suffered a serious accident.

Another feature of driving in Mexico is getting lost. Kelly and I don’t get lost at home, but we frequently found ourselves missing poorly marked turnoffs or having to guess at intersections. We had the best maps available, but they were not always correct either. It seems to me that since relatively few Mexicans travel long distances by car to unfamiliar destinations, putting up good road signs for travelers hasn’t been a governmental priority. We found that when we were on the main touristic routes, the road signs were better. For example, the northbound bypass road around the city of Chihuahua could not have been better. Well, except for that one corner where we did guess right!

Throughout Mexico, especially at state lines, you will come up to army checkpoints. They are looking for drugs and guns. We were pulled over and checked several times, and it was never a problem. The young men were unfailingly courteous, and the searches were minimal. One soldier did find some white powder among our nutritional supplements, but he had no problem believing us that it was vitamin C. We did not crack inappropriate jokes that might have triggered more searching, nor were we transporting anything questionable. We did think that we were pulled over more often than other vehicles, but chalked it up to their being curious about us and our rig.

What size RV to take?

If you handle your large rig like you were born to it, if narrow curvy roads without shoulders don’t faze you, if you can stop on a dime, if you can go with the flow in city traffic like a New York taxi driver, and if you don’t mind spending a small fortune on gasoline, then a larger rig might be just fine.

It would also be fine if you were just going a little way into Mexico, to one of the campgrounds on the West coast that are popular with tourists.

It must be obvious that I have a bias here. For several years, Kelly and I full-timed in a bus conversion motorhome, a former Gray Line tour bus the size of a Greyhound. Kelly did handle it almost as deftly as described above, but we chose never to take it into Mexico. It was just too big a thing to enjoy there, with the way we like to explore back roads.

In talking with other Americans in the campgrounds, we found that the people in the smaller RVs were generally having more fun and going to more remote places. Our small Toyota did quite well.

I think that the ideal vehicle for versatile Mexican driving is some form of van. It could be one of the nice van conversions with all the trimmings or even just a regular passenger van to which you added some basic camping supplies or built in a bed, table, kitchen, and maybe a bit of a bathroom. This would allow you to use it for sleeping and eating when you wanted to, but you would still be able to stay in hotels and get the vehicle under the common short entry gates.

Choosing your route and finding campgrounds

On our recent trip, we were able to boondock more than most RVers because Kelly had added a couple of extra batteries that charged when we drove. (We haven’t put solar panels on our RV, but may well in the future.) Also, we were at times willing to conserve water in order to boondock, even if it meant shorter showers, or no showers for a bit. But even so, we couldn’t go more than 3 or 4 days without wanting hookups. This was partly because we were both writing a lot and needed to keep our laptops charged. On our 1979 trip, we didn’t need hookups and had correspondingly more freedom.

The essential key to finding Mexican campgrounds is a book called “Traveler’s Guide to Mexican Camping, by Mike and Terri Church.” Don’t leave home without it, to coin a phrase!

As a librarian, I know that no one book has everything, and we did find additional information on campgrounds in Lonely Planet and other guidebooks aimed at the budget traveler. These books were also invaluable in choosing our routes, as I pored over their descriptions of various places. I thought I had a lot of guidebooks with me, but I would take even more another time!

In choosing your route, consider the availability of campgrounds, the weather at that time of year, how much driving it would be, and what your interests are. Be aware that Mexican highways vary considerably in the speeds you can go. We averaged about 35 mph in the state of Veracruz but a lot faster on the four-lane highways in Chihuahua. We rarely went over 55 – that’s part of how we managed to get excellent gas mileage.

We chose our route as we went along, but we did set out with some general ideas. We had never been along the Gulf coast and wanted to see some of it. We wanted to go to some archaeological sites. We were curious to see if we could find places we might want to return and live for some months. Well aware that the more miles you travel, the more the trip costs and the less time you have not driving, we planned to only cover part of Mexico this time. Once there, I found it hard to give up some of the places I wanted to see that were further away, but we didn’t give in to those impulses. It was much more fun to have a relaxing journey.

When there is no campground

Whenever we were going to stop for the night and there was no campground, we started talking to local people and asking their advice about a place to stay. We had done that all over Mexico in 1979. Travelers say that it is more risky now. If that’s so, I don’t know by how much, but on this trip we did always ask, where on the earlier trip, we didn’t always bother.

By asking, we were directed to one of our favorite spots, the ferry landing near Tampico. By asking, we were welcome to stay in the parking lot at the ruins of El Tajín, where there are two night guards. By asking, we were warned away from a small town where a couple of young girls had disappeared ten days before. As we drove away from that one, I remembered the persistent Latin American rumor that Americans steal babies for their body parts. A chill ran down my spine, and I was grateful for the kind local woman who had warned us we should leave. That night, we soon found another spot behind a café, intended for truck drivers to pull in and sleep.

When we spoke with the people where we stayed, we felt included in their network. Mexicans are so hospitable that it was a lovely feeling. Sometimes children would bring us warm tortillas their mother had just made, and we would scramble around to find some tiny gift we could reciprocate with.

I must admit that I slept somewhat better when we were in campgrounds. In some of the other places, I would wake in the night, wondering what that sound had just been. Rural Mexico is not a quiet place, and it took a while to get used to sounds at all hours. Kelly generally felt safer than I did, and that is true of us no matter where we are. One night in a rare Mexican government campground, the only other visitors were a jolly group of Mexican men drinking, singing, and conversing all night. I was uneasy, though there wasn’t any danger really.

I discovered that if we had a little dry dog food for the local street dogs, they would immediately adopt us for the night. I liked it that they would bark if someone came close, though of course when that happened once, it did wake me up.

In a nutshell, it’s a matter of using common sense and finding your comfort zone.

Danger and crime

We heard scary tales of guns and crimes in Mexico, though the scariest came from a librarian in Texas whose ex-husband carried guns around Mexico himself! Like attracts like, they say.

We had one experience of petty theft. One Sunday afternoon, we were camped at a popular balneario or hot spring, and we put our bathing suits and towels on the back of the RV to dry before taking a walk. I had an old pair of sandals with me, and they were quite wet. I set them on the hood of the Toyota to dry, where they were more visible to people going by. I thought to myself that if someone did take them, it really wouldn’t matter much. I had a better pair with me.

Sure enough, when we got back from our walk, my sandals were gone. Kelly noticed that a rather rowdy group of young men were also gone.

End of story? Not quite. When we left that spot a couple of days later, my sandals were tied to a tree by the front gate, at just about the height someone in the back of a pickup could easily reach. The sandal straps were undone. It seemed that someone had tried them on but had been no Cinderella!

Of course, there are risks greater than that of losing a pair of sandals. But there is also a risk of staying at home and missing out on wonderful experiences. I have a sign over my computer: “If you don’t do it, you’ll never know what would have happened if you had done it.”

We always pulled the curtains and locked the doors of the RV when we were gone. With both our current vehicle and the van we took on an earlier trip, Kelly installed simple sliding door latches on the driver’s and passenger’s doors, which we used in addition to the regular door locks. We came and went through the side door of the vehicle, which had an extra lock as well. In this motorhome, we decided not to use the oven but to make it our electronics center. We kept our laptops and cameras in there, and Kelly created an arrangement which locked the oven without showing. It involved removing a drawer next to the oven and poking a small screwdriver into a hole. Also, he installed an extra electrical box right beside our other one, in the closet. We kept our extra money in it, along with photocopies of our credit cards, passports, and Mexican tourist cards.

Beyond that, we just kept our spirits up. I’ve noticed many times that the better mood I am in, the more likely things will go well. Hey, I won’t claim 100% for this philosophy, but overall it works.

In my opinion, RVs are well suited for certain kinds of trips: if you want to explore various regions, as we were doing, or where you drive to a destination and stay there, perhaps at a beach. If you want to spend most of your time in cities, you might be happier staying in hotels in the heart of town. If the driving would make you too nervous, go some other way instead.

So – for yourself, what do you think? Whatever you decide, may you enjoy it!

The builder you would hire to build your home and the builder you hire to construct your office building are two very different positions. The first deals only with the building codes and regulations required for residential building. And the builder you would hire to construct your office building is experienced in the processes of commercial construction. As the name would suggest, commercial construction deals with construction of commercial buildings like office buildings, shopping malls, sports arenas, restaurants, hotels, etc. Listed below are a few essential positions in commercial construction.

Commercial Real Estate Agent

A commercial real estate agent is responsible for commercial properties. In many cases, owners of commercial real estate will hire a commercial real estate agent to lease the property or land on their behalf. And in other cases, it can work the other way around with a tenant using the agent to help them find a property or land to lease so they can begin construction of a commercial building.

Commercial General Contractor

General contractors coordinate and supervise the construction of the commercial building. The general contractor is in charge of the hiring of subcontractors who will take on the different parts of the construction process, like framing, plumbing, foundation, electrical, etc. The general contractor works directly with the owner or developer during the construction process to ensure that everything is done as directed.

Commercial Subcontractor

A subcontractor is the contractor in charge of a specific division of the commercial construction process. The subcontractor works directly under the general contractor and is responsible for coordinating the schedule and labor of his or her particular area of expertise.