12-29-11
Another year winds down. I have the day off, and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. The first thing I did was update the excel file that I started a while back of people who have emailed me about the website or the book or both. Naturally, this file is for my eyes (or Bill’s eyes) only. It does help me to keep things straight.
The emails are gratifying and sometimes intriguing — especially ones from folks whose dad or grandfather or uncle served aboard the Boston and who say they’re going to send in pictures and stories, etc. etc. Sometimes this does happen, and when it does, we publish the pictures! I swear, however, that I could have published another book about the Boston filled with the pictures and stories and souvenirs from family members that have not yet materialized!.. I now refer to this as A Bird’s Eye Two — the Virtual and Unseen Collection!
Okay, just joking, folks. Keep those emails and pictures coming! We love ‘em!
A couple of amazing things happened this year that I’d like to point out or remember.
The first is that several months ago, within a couple of weeks of each other, I heard from Ms. Lola Heiler-Stillman from the Emerald Conservancy in Boston, and original crewmember Bob Knight. They were asking whether we knew anything about a Temple Bell that the Boston had brought back from Japan after the War. Naturally, we did not.
Ms. Heiler-Stillman is preparing a lecture about the Bell slated for March of 2012. The Bell and its fascinating story is still fresh on our minds.
I was hoping that when Bill went to Washington and spent a week at the National Archives, some thread of info might appear somewhere on say, the decklogs of December 1945 and January 1946. There is so much material to go through – but a quick peek at all the files does not look promising . . .
Which leads me to the second amazing thing: My brother Bill (and his daughter Rivka) spent an entire week photographing files and documents and records and photos from the Boston. I’m not talking about a couple of hundred things . . . I’m talking about nearly filling a whole hard drive with images! Some of the material was at my request – as I work on yet another book about the Boston, I needed more source materials about specific battles and specific events. Most of what Bill did was for his own painstaking research on the crew records. If you have not looked at the crew records tabs on this website – you owe it to yourself to do so. He has created this entire thing from his own research. It is truly amazing.
Bill has plans for making his research available to readers of the website. He also has plans for making other crucial info available. I will not take away his thunder and reveal anything more than what I have already mentioned.
Thanks, Bill!
Happy New Year to all our friends and readers.
Steve