Had some wonderful conversations last night. Got to catch up with Bryan Mackinnon in person after having emailed and talked on the phone with him for several years now. He's just as nice a guy in real life as he is in email :^)
Turns out quite a few members of Edwina Morton's family lives in Cypress, Texas not far from me. We have even attended the same church for a time. What a small world!
Thoroughly enjoyed meeting the family of Oscar Finklestein. Oscar was a plumber in New York before the war. He was lost prior to meeting his son who is attending with his extended family. Was able to pass along an anecdote regarding Oscar written by Forest Sterling in the afterword of his "Wake of the Wahoo" reprint. Below, the Finklestein family views the memorabilia display.
The Bowfin Museum created a 6 x 3 foot wooden display case with photos of all the men lost in Wahoo. It was a wonderful display -- and very heavy. At the end of the night we hauled it up to our room for safe keeping.
Guest reporter Jeff Porteous checking in here with an overview of the proceedings: Several amazing things strike me about our interaction with this group, but chief among them is the newly felt "Paul and I are not alone" syndrome. Till now, I really had only Paul and pal Rick Cline ("Wake/Wahoo's" current publisher) with whom to share my Wahoo passion. Right now, right here, I'm suddenly surrounded by dozens of others who are just as informed and/or excitable about the subject -- though for obviously different and mostly tragic reasons. Still, I definitely feel I'm among "my own kind." But remember, all this keen interest is related to people involved in an event which took place 64 YEARS ago tomorrow -- truly a mind-blowing concept for me in and of itself.
1 comments:
Paul, Please pass on my Hello's, respects to Bryan, Rick Cline and all the others. I am sorry that I am unable to attend do to work constraints. I really wanted to be there. I met Bryan in Tokyo in 2001 while on tour with the Mantovani Orchestra.
On 11 October 2001, I returned to the Japanese Navy Band of Tokyo a WWII era Japanese Naval Trombone recovered by a US Marine somewhere in the Pacific during WWII. On hand were 7 members of my orchestra as well as 3 WWII Japanese Navy Musicians. It was an honor to be there especially on that date.
Sheldon Levy
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