2005-06-24 ~ 2:35 p.m.

A Titanically Good Time

There is a Titanic display at the Tropicana Resort Hotel and Casino here in Las Vegas. I mean that pronoun-ly not literally.

There is a display of artifacts from the Titanic. It's an interesting little museum style set-up. The one thing, though, is that they charge $5 for the use of the audio tour thingy, which I'm a big proponent of, as there is often extra information of displays in the audio tour, but the Titanic audio tour was little more than someone reading the information that was already posted on the walls near the displays. Fortunately, I had saved $4 on the entrance fee by bringing my library card. Yay, reading!

They had set up a room that looked like a first class room and one that looked like a third class room. And many artifacts of personal effects. I'm curious to know if you are a descendant of a Titanic passenger, and you recognize an artifact as a long lost family heirloom, could you claim it?

One interesting thing was that they had found money intact. Tanning leather makes it unpalatable for microorganisms, so wallets and such were left with money inside. Cash money used to be a lot bigger. Also, it wasn't regulated on the federal level, so the cash was printed by many different banks. Apparently, American money was often turned down in Europe since they didn't really know who was legit...that's why we started doing it on the federal level.

There was a champagne bottle that still had champagne in it. It didn't look anywhere near drinkable, but it was still kinda cool.

My favorite was a display of au gratin dishes. They were set neatly in a row on their side. Apparently, after the Titanic sank, the cabinet containing the dishes settled on the sea floor. As the wood rotted away, the dishes remained stacked as they were. I don't know why that was my favorite, it just was.

There was also a piece of the Titanic on display. A big chunk of the side with portholes and everything. The glass is broken with pieces missing. They also show the video in which this piece was recovered in the corner.

Also interesting, before the tour, they give you a boarding pass with someone's information on it, and at the end of the tour you can see if that person survived.

My lady was Mrs. Lily Alexenia Potter. She was vacationing with her daughter (Olive Earnshaw)and her daughter's friend (Miss Margaret Hays). Mrs. Potter was taking Olive's mind off of impending divorce proceedings. They had originally booked passage home on another ship, but after hearing about the Titanic, found it thrilling to participate in her maiden voyage.

They survived. They were one of the first ones off of the ship before anyone really knew there was a real disaster happening. After the ordeal, Mrs. Potter and her daughter pretty much devoted their lives to the Red Cross. (I found this all out on the internet.) They are buried in their family plot in Pennsylvania. Maybe I'll go and visit them someday.

Many, many of the passengers on the Titanic had been scheduled to take another ship, but because of the big coal strike at that time, were reassigned to the Titanic.

About 2/3 of the first class passengers survived, about half of the second class passengers survived, and just a tiny bit more than 1/4 of the third class passengers survived.

The musicians really did play as the Titanic went down. They had gone on deck to the safety boats, but as they were classified as neither crew nor passengers, they were not assigned a boat. So they played. It is said that the song they played was the song that the conductor had wanted played at his funeral. I don't remember the name of the song, but the name suggests that it was a song worthy of the circumstance.

And that's your lesson for today.

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