Jewells of Thought

There are so many facets to my education of the Titanic in different fashions during my thirty some years. One of the early manifestations of learning about this ship wreck was a movie we watched up at the Alsman house. I specifically remember watching my Uncle Tony make one of my brilliant birthday cakes while watching the musical. I believe this birthday was my barbie-doll cake.

The musical starred Debbie Reynolds as the dirt to riches young wife of Johnny Brown. They were both uneducated poor country folk before he found he found them their nest egg riches. One night between the two of them they nearly burnt up some of their cash trying to hide it and warm up. I have seen the musically so much I can still see her trying to hide it and he comes in cold from his outside swim in a creek that he actually puts wood in the stove. This happened but not the way as it’s told in the musical. Even in the 1997 Titanic Kathy Bates tells this story even though it’s not completely the story.

They didn’t trust paper money IMBD says they had gold and silver. So the money in the stove would have had to be remelted in order to separate the melted riches from the stove. Isn’t it funny how you don’t think about some of the details when you are little you have to read the trivia from IMBD.com to find out some of the fun stuff about this musical.

The songs. Saying ‘uncle’ meant you gave up. Molly had survived a flood as a baby; she had fierceness, determination and frontier stock in her blood. She was a sight to behold and an experienced and tested veteran of life. I grew up listening and singing to these songs and watching her in a lifeboat while the Titanic eventually disappeared from their sight.

“The Unsinkable Molly Brown’ was probably my first introduction to the sinking of the Titanic. It would still take me years to find out more through school and my own wonder through my fascination of reading from my personal book collection to what is now my library. The Titanic is the topic of a few of my books whether fiction or nonfiction.

All of my life though the Titanic has been seen as an accident. What if it wasn’t? There are factors that are very convincing that this was no pure incident at all and in fact possibly very specifically a plot to assassinate passengers on this very ship.

My Grandpa Freddy loved talking about history and in the next week will be his birthday and one of my cousins. I always think of Grandpa and the Titanic because of the dates. Yes I know, there I go again with remembering dates. April is one of those months that is just crawling with dates for my mind to remember and constantly analyze. I think that’s kind of what Grandpa wanted me to do though.