Eleven years ago, my mother died. She was in hospice for a few weeks, which provided me with ample time to think up stuff to research on the nascent 'net.
One of those things was great big transatlantic ocean liners, which led to the very late night question "What ever happened to the SS United States?"
Turns out, it's in Philadelphia. It's been in Philadelphia for nearly fourteen years. It's been stripped out, auctioned off, abused, whipped, ignored and allowed to rust since 1969.
It is one of only four preserved (in a manner of speaking) former ocean liners, and the only one still with its entire power plant (engine room) intact.
The fastest ocean liner in history, the ship had a storied career until it was suddenly and unexpectedly pulled from service fifty years ago last week.
I have long been one who pined for a past I never lived. I have studied it (the past), read about it, thought about how it could be put to service (those elements which survive).
I even cooked up a (in my view, quite decent) plan to restore the SS United States to service. However, what is the POINT?
I have driven cars from my youth that were unattainable and incredible, only to realize that they are poor substitutes for what is available today. Everything is better and everyone's expectations are different; why does it make sense to pour a huge volume of resources into preserving something that has no more use?
As an example, I have a simple lovely chafing dish that belonged to my great-grandmother. It has a working double boiler, and a working oil lamp. As a device for heating and serving food, it's unworkable as compared to other solutions. It takes up space, consumes resources and does nothing but sit there.
As does the SS United States.
In the thirteen years since it came to roost in Philadelphia, there have been numerous efforts to turn it into a museum, into a hotel, into a convention space, into a working ocean liner - and no one has had the money or inclination to execute on that. It's not suited for a cruise ship, it's not efficient enough to use as a steamship without a half billion dollars of renovations, it's a project that would cost easily $50 million just to make the ship sound enough for long term display, and then it's just a vast, empty space that isn't safe for people to move around.
Few ship museums support themselves. Even fighting ships with a rich history don't support themselves.
We have aircraft rotting away in dozens and dozens of museums. We have six or seven aircraft carriers, and five or six battleships moldering and rotting away in various stages of decay in this country. We have battlefields that are falling apart, cemeteries of people dead more than a hundred years that are ignored - why do we struggle so hard to revere the past and then ignore it?
I realize that most of the people seeking to salvage the SS United States are people who have traveled on her, or urgently desired to do so when she was in service. Very few have a currently developed affinity - certainly not enough to support the ship.
Without having done any kind of organized research, I assert that nearly all of these tombs and relics are preserved by those who served on and in them, worked on and in them, used them, knew them in their youth. In their later years, they are seeking something - validation? Reliving when they were young and vigorous and doing the newest, highest, best thing possible?
We can't save every machine to benefit the ego and id of a bunch of people who will be dead as the machine again wears and rusts out.
Why cannot we reclaim our vigor and our glory by sharing our talents with those in need, with those who need education or comfort, or guidance?
As I have written in this blog, I had an idea in 1973 that a metallic green Chrysler Imperial was THE manifestation of success, and of acceptance into the world that was desirable. For more than thirty years, I thought that having one would bring me that feeling of success and acceptance - and mistakenly thought I had an affection for that car - that it was somehow unique and special.
And then, I had one - listing and leaking black oil into my driveway. And I ignored it for a month.
Reliving my past and my feelings occurs inside of me, and doesn't require the rehabilitation of a non-functional leviathan.
We have nearly 1/5th of our population without health care, nearly a tenth without adequate food, over half without decent education - and we're going to raise money to restore the Battleship Texas? To scrape, paint, moor, insure, power, rehabilitate the SS United States? To repair the USS Lexington in a few more years when the hull has predictably deteriorated to a point that she's no longer structurally sound?
Just how many freaking preserved aircraft carriers does a world need, anyway?
We're fighting each other tooth and nail about whether we should have health care for everyone and we (as a race) have invested thousands upon thousands of hours and billions of dollars enshrining the past for future generations that will not care one whit.
Please notice that I am not evaluating the incredible waste that went into building fleets of battleships and aircraft carriers and bombers and moving them around like so many chess pieces for hundreds of years. I am only speaking to the waste we currently indulge - it is insane, it is inhumane, it is morally offensive.
One of the solutions proposed for the SS United States is to sink her as a barrier reef.
Let her rest in peace. Let those resources go to feed, clothe and educate our children. Just say "no" to throwing money after the glory days of youth that youth today utterly ignore.
