Are the Lifeboats Seated According to Class?

Saturday in Easter Week

By now you are probably sick unto death of references to the R.M.S. Titanic as we approach the centennial of her sinking.  Actress Kate Winslet reportedly cringes when she hears "My Heart Must Go On" and every time a cruise ship encounters any kind of mishap, breathless passengers insist "it was just like the Titanic!"  Of course it was... except that it was 2,800 miles away, 90 years later, within sight of land and your inconvenience was limited to warm beer for an afternoon in the Anchors Aweigh Lounge til the lights came back on.

 

Simulated Size Comparison:
Titanic vs. Oasis of the Seas(Caution: Contains Music)

For those with no other references, the Titanic remains the "go-to" vessel, to which every new passenger ship is compared.  However, for ship geeks like me, the most interesting thing about her is that she almost immediately failed at her job: that is, to get her human cargo safely from one side of the Atlantic to the other.  Her speed and size statistics were almost immediately eclipsed by other vessels, and few can name her two sisters, both of which also met with disaster in varying degrees.  Since then, hundreds of liners -- ever larger, ever faster -- came and went, most of them long forgotten except by a nostalgic handful.  Today's plodding cruise behemoths bear little resemblance to the ships of that time, yet passengers who -- when asked what ship they spent their vacation -- answer, "Um, Carnival?" know Titanic.  People who have never seen the ocean know her name and remember her story.

To me the human dynamic of what happened that night, and what it says about the time in which it occurred, is far more interesting than the ship itself, or even the human errors and vices that made it happen.  We recently started watching the British "costume drama" Downton Abbey, which is set in England in the same time period, and seeing the characters interact with those in their own and in different social strata is helping to understand a little more about the way events unfolded. Just as scullery maid Daisy knows that she is never to set foot in the family dining room, some in third class seemed to accept as normal that their station in life meant that it was more important that a wealthier person should live while they would die.  Just as the Dowager Countess has no problem with the idea that the townspeople let her win the village rose competition every year regardless of merit, the mother of Winslet's fictitious character Rose is more concerned that nobody of lesser pedigree be seated next to her in the lifeboat than the fact that -- for the vast majority of souls on board -- there will be no seat at all.  While that remark was fictitious, it was probably not especially unlikely.

Fast-forward a century, the lines of class -- while not erased -- are certainly blurrier than they once were.  While it is taking an embarrassingly long time to get past the concept of race or ethnicity as a marker of your human worth, at least we've evolved to the point where making such crass remarks is considered bad manners in most circles.  And if someone on the Costa Concordia tried to assert that a balcony suite meant he was entitled to evacuate the tilting cruise ship first, he would have likely been thrown overboard.

The Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain
Washington DC

My friend Julio mentioned in his new pop culture blog recently that a novelist used simple statistics and known cultural facts to surmise that "the love that dare not speak its name" was most certainly in bloom aboard the ill-fated ship, and that -- unlike the preposterous inter-class romance in The Movie -- males from from various passage grades and even the crew were free to roam past barriers and interact.  While his assertions are mostly speculation, I learned recently that at least one pair of men on board were widely assumed to be a couple.  Major Archibald Butt, who served as chief military aide and close friend to Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, shared a home in Washington DC with a painter named Francis Davis Millet, and the two were traveling together aboard Titanic after Millet got Taft to convince Butt he needed a recuperative vacation.  Both died, and the fact that a fountain bearing both their names was constructed the following year near the White House signals that their relationship was both recognized and respected by the President is telling considering that -- 100 years later -- the Current Occupant is "still evolving" on the issue.

An Hour (And Halfway Around the World) Away

Last month, a Certain Party and I -- along with some friends and (briefly) my mom -- spent some time in Florida.  The beginning of the trip was our annual week on the beach on Captiva Island, and this year, for variety we drove across the state to visit a former co-worker and her husband near Palm Beach, then up to Orlando for a few days in the theme parks.

Our route, skirting the southern and eastern edges of Lake Okeechobee, took us through orange and sugar country, a part of Florida most visitors never see.  We had lunch in Clewiston, a busy if not thriving town with a big K-Mart and a Goodwill store, and shared the restaurant with a cluster of Mennonites, their traditional dress incongruous with the brightly colored Formica and florescent lights. 

We made a wrong turn in Pahokee, whose nickname "the muck" was aptly chosen; it is surrounded by thousands of acres of soggy fields.  Once a thriving center of commerce, big agribusiness has left Pahokee chewed up in its wake.  Most of the businesses have closed, and the 6,000-odd residents were left without much opportunity or hope, as President Obama learned when interviewed by town resident Damon Weaver, then 10.  Many residents seemed to be just hanging around, waiting for something -- anything -- to happen.  The only other ticket out seems to be football, as this tiny town has sent at least seven players to the NFL.

Pahokee 4, by Christopher Dick 2006.  Series on Flickr.
Used under Creative Commons License

From there, it was only about an hour to Hobe Sound, where our friends live.  The acres of fields and weathered shacks abruptly give way to gated driveways, manicured lawns, faux-Spanish patio homes and lush  non-native vegetation. An hour away, but it could have been halfway around the world as we chased alligators on golf carts and enjoyed drinks by the pool. 

As kids we visited Florida a number of times, always driving down.  I remember only snippets of those trips, but I'm old enough that overt signs of institutionalized racism were likely quite evident to someone who knew to look for them.  Now, as so many of America's towns have been pounded into corporate cookie-cutter sameness, it's harder to get a sense of what was, and easy to forget how badly we acted, not very long ago.  But you only have to look at the differences between places like Hobe Sound or even Clewiston and Pahokee to see that -- while some of us have been lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of progress -- there are still plenty of us who have been left behind. Those distinctions are not always drawn on racial lines, but the pattern of boxes you check still makes a big difference in how big your slice of American Pie will be.

Thus I was glad to hear that the Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul in Washington DC (known by most as the National Cathedral) is in the process of installing a bust of Rosa Parks above a doorway.  I learned recently that it was at the pulpit in this same church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered the last Sunday sermon, entitled "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution"  before his assassination in 1968.

Stewardess, is There Something You're Not Telling Us?

Laurence - Deacon and Martyr (258)

Of course I could not pass up the opportunity to write about yesterday's most bizarre news story.  In case you just emerged from seclusion and therefore missed it, a jetBlue flight attendant named Steven Slater yesterday attempted to prevent a passenger from retrieving her carry-on suitcase from an overhead bin while the plane was still taxiing towards the gate.  In a string of circumstances the details of which are not 100% clear, the passenger apparently swore at Slater and the bag in question hit him in the face.  At which point Slater snapped.

The general summary seems to be that Slater grabbed the microphone and excoriated the offending passenger over the public address system, then grabbed his own carry-on bag and exited the plane via a still-armed door and thus deploying the escape slide.  

"But what makes him an instant legend, of course, is the beer. He grabs the beer on the way out. That's the Animal House meets Airplane! note. No wonder he's an instant Internet icon. His name will become a verb, just watch."  

- WASHINGTON POST BLOGGER JOEL ACHENBACH

And it's true.  On Facebook, which has become the bench in front of the general store, the waiting area of the beauty parlor and the corner bar all at the same time, my "wall" was abuzz this morning with people weighing in on Slater's stunt.  Hero, some said.  Silly queen, opined others (the Daily News seemingly went out of its way to play up Slater's homosexuality as if that caused his behavior).

But reading the news today it seems as if the overwhelming majority of the population -- even in the airline industry -- sympathizes with Slater, especially as It emerged that the same passenger hit Slater in the forehead with the door to the luggage bin before the plane left Pittsburgh.  Bartenders, hairdressers and office drones have weighed in on their own inclinations to "pull a Slater" when a customer or boss pushed them too far.   And the customers, stressed about their jobs, their tax bills and the general malaise that still seems to hang over our country, are easily riled too. Leaves you to wonder how far behind Slater on the chute many of us are.  Just tonight, a friend and I were in a store and witnessed an out-and-out screaming match between two employees and a customer.  We did not hear what triggered it but we hightailed it out of there before the cops arrived.

It really makes me wonder whether everybody ought to take a deep breath and reset their priorities.  As cliched as it sounds, we're all in this together. Would it kill you to wait another 30 seconds to get your bag?  I'm guessing not.

You Have Reached...

Herman of Alaska - Missionary to the Aleut (1837)

A recent article in the Washington Post confirmed what I had long suspected:  people don't like to talk on the phone anymore.

When I was a kid, my parents sent me to Catholic school in the next county. I had no real problem with that except that it put a cramp on my social activities because getting a ride did not mean around the corner: it was a good 25 minutes from home.  Also, it was outside our local calling area so I had to be judicious with how much time I spent chatting.

Like most families at that time, we did not have a telephone in every room, nor did we kids have the luxury of our own number.  Conversations were restricted to the olive-green Western Electric wall phone in the kitchen, and -- as we grew to be teenagers -- we learned that the  handset cord could be stretched into either the laundry room or the top of the basement stairs so we could discuss our plans for world domination or eternal wedded bliss to the crush of the moment in relative privacy.

The summers before and after my senior year were spent living with my grandparents and doing construction work with my grandfather.  Telephone time with the gang on the Delaware was even more restricted then, as the Great Depression survivor would be sure to let me know just how much I had cost him each month.

Flash forward to the days of unlimited calling plans and cell phones that go with you everywhere, and when I look at my personal bill I see pretty much what the article described:  hundreds of text messages but few phone calls, and the ones that do appear are generally a few minutes.

Part of this is because of my job. I have to host conference calls with customers, vendors and co-workers on a regular basis.  Sometimes the calls become contentious as we try to juggle priorities and hash out a plan that everyone can live with.  I am guilty of returning voice mails with email because a.) it gives me a record of what was said and b.) it keeps the conversation from wandering onto other topics I was not ready to discuss.

Also, since my surgery I have been working at home most of the time, usually alone.  Thus at the end of the day, I really don't want to sit on the phone anymore.  I'd rather be either out somewhere or at least having face-time with another humanoid, not plopped in a chair with the phone to my ear.

I feel bad for those who do take it personally that their phone doesn't jingle with the frequency it used to.  Mine doesn't either, by the way; I sense my friends, many of whom are younger than I am, are experiencing the same ambivalence about phone time that the article describes.  The very omnipresence of the device in your pocket renders it both a convenience and an intruder, since the person "at the other end" does not know where or when you'll be in an appropriate setting to take a call.

However, I do take great pleasure in the ability to interact with so many people on Facebook.  I have been able to reconnect with friends from all stages of my life as well as create networks of folks with similar interests I might not have ever encountered.  If anything I feel more connected to those around me than in those Western Electric days, not less.

That said, on Friday I did call an old friend, whose family and career responsibilities have -- like mine -- limited her ability to socialize.  We indulged in a 123-minute conversation, and it was quite nice.  We both agreed not to let so much time go by before we did so again.

What about you, readers?  Has your phone activity changed?  Do you feel differently about getting calls and returning them than you did in the bygone wirebound, pre-email days?