I was 8 years old with unfettered access to my father's National Geographic subscription.
Ours was a love made for the ages.
The Titanic and I met for the first time in the fall of 3rd grade, when anyone who was anyone in Mrs. Bohlen's class was filching their father's Nat Geo's as they arrived, to oooooh and ahhhhh over the pictures that came from a little submarine named Alvin and an even smaller swimming robot named Jason. Now the photos would be considered almost crude, but in 1985, the world's first glimpse of Titanic was at the very least, exciting.
I fell hard for the ship and for maritime disaster in general. I watched the Nat Geo movie on the "Secrets of the Titantic" with religious devotion; Chronicling the entire course of events on my mother's kitchen calendar. (Which caused some major confusion in the household until my mother realized who "Carpathia" was and where she was arriving.) The ship and it's fabled trans-Atlantic crossing became my first love, long before James Cameron ever made it a real love story.
And what a love story we have had! My ocean liner has never let me down. Through countless book reports, class speeches and research projects, my public school education provided me with a number of opportunities to renew my devotion and share it with others. Even in college...I gave three different "Titanic" related speeches.
And then there was the one time where Dr. Ballard was speaking to the Indianapolis Economist's Club, which my father was a member of and he asked me to come and attend with him. I was so excited I narrowly avoided a speeding ticket on the voyage from Bloomington. (One of the exceedingly few times I was able to avoid such a fate) and when we ran into Dr. Ballard in the hallway of the convention center, I couldn't even speak.
I'm not sure I even could today, as an adult. I think I'd end up blurting out verbal waterfall of his career accomplishments, to which he'd reply "yes, i know, i was there."
So, each April, I anxiously await the middle of middle of the month, when I can re-count the timeline of the great ship going down, from it's launch, it's voyage, the iceberg and several days later when the Carpathia arrived in the New York Port.
And while there have been other disasters which have fascinated me...the Andrea Doria, the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Bismarck, the Lusitania (the last two also being great moments in Dr. Ballards career) It will never be my first love, my first maritime disaster.
Because you only get to love one ship-wreck in a lifetime.
And then there was the one time where Dr. Ballard was speaking to the Indianapolis Economist's Club, which my father was a member of and he asked me to come and attend with him. I was so excited I narrowly avoided a speeding ticket on the voyage from Bloomington. (One of the exceedingly few times I was able to avoid such a fate) and when we ran into Dr. Ballard in the hallway of the convention center, I couldn't even speak.
I'm not sure I even could today, as an adult. I think I'd end up blurting out verbal waterfall of his career accomplishments, to which he'd reply "yes, i know, i was there."
So, each April, I anxiously await the middle of middle of the month, when I can re-count the timeline of the great ship going down, from it's launch, it's voyage, the iceberg and several days later when the Carpathia arrived in the New York Port.
And while there have been other disasters which have fascinated me...the Andrea Doria, the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Bismarck, the Lusitania (the last two also being great moments in Dr. Ballards career) It will never be my first love, my first maritime disaster.
Because you only get to love one ship-wreck in a lifetime.
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