Conference quark::mennotes

    The filming of Amimal House! Toga! Toga! Toga!

    
    
    	to be with the U.S. forces as they hit the beaches of europe 
    	on D day..WWII
                          

    
    The more I think about it the harder it is to decide which _one_.

    It may not mean so much to those who live in Mass., but a few years
    ago I had a chance to visit Battle Square in Lexington and stand at
    the bridge in Concord.  It was a very weird experience.  One of the
    few times in my life that I could have sworn that there were ghosts.
    And a feeling of being "too late".

    or at Yorktown with Wasnington and the realization, after the 
    years of cold, starvation, disease, marching, fighting, that 
    "it's over, we won".

    D-Day comes to mind.  So does Waterloo.  And the Battle of New Orleans.

    But for a "show" and sweet revenge, I don't think you could beat
    Suriago Strait.  Everyone knows of Pearl Harbor, how the battle
    ships were sunk.  Not so many know that three years later six of them,
    refloated, reconditioned, radar controlled and gyro stabilized guns
    were waiting at the opening of Suriago Strait when the Japanese
    fleet emerged.  In the dreamed-of position of "Crossing their T"
    (your fleet is broadside and their fleet is in single file facing
    you one at a time).  It was 4 a.m., the dead of the night,  20 
    minutes, 270 fourteen and sixteen inch shells, and 4000 six and 
    eight inch shells later only one Japanese ship, a destroyer, survived.
    It would be the last battle purely between battleships.

    fred();

    
    
    	I believe one of those ships mentioned in .3 had the 5 sullivan
    	brothers on board..

        Some of the historical events that I _have_ watched were
    1) Alan Shepard launched into space.
    2) Cuban Missile Crisis--duck and cover drills in the school hallway.
    3) I was glued to the Tv as John Glenn orbited the earth.  My wife
       has a record album that contains all the radio messages.
    4) Apollo 13--the World stopped.
    5) I watched as "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
    6) The assassinations of John, Bobby, and Martin.
    7) Vietnam War.
    8) The "about face" of the American public in support of the military
       during the Iran Hostage Crisis.  My wife knew one of the hostages.
    9) The Gulf War.

    But one thing I shall always remember is the night "The Wall Fell". The
    Berlin Wall that is.  I still have some of it on tape.  (I can remember
    when the wall went  up.)  I remember sitting with my daughter and
    having her ask me in an almost whisper "Is it over?"  I told her,
    "Well, it's a good start."  She had never  known any World that did not
    live under the threat of going up in  Nuclear Holocaust in minutes
    notice.  I had a tremendous urge that night to ransack my savings, pack
    up  my 16 lb hammer and go help.  If my passport hadn't been out of
    date  I may well have.

    

    If I could only chose one event it would have to be the Constituional
    convention in Philadelphia that created one of the greatest documents
    in the history of the world.
    
    There has been so much said about what the meaning and intent of the
    framers of the Constitution were, that I would have loved to have been
    there ther to talk contemporaneously with the participants.  I also
    would like to tell them how their document is being used 200 years
    later and hear their responses.
    

    Damn... beat me to it.  So, my second choice is to have been around
    during the days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 
    Think of the energy and the excitement and the pride!

> If there was one event in history that you could attend, what would it
> be?

  When Zephram Cochrane cranks up that first warp drive.

  Seriously, it'd be fun to be there when we first find incon-
  trovertible proof of extra-terrestrial life. Or even better,
  extra-solar life. And I'm reasonably confident I'll live long
  enough for the first, and maybe the second.

                                   Atlant

        re .8

    >  When Zephram Cochrane cranks up that first warp drive.

    What if it is the Vogons that show up instead?  As Sephan Hawking said,
    "I am in no hurry to meet extraterrestrial life.  It may be like the 
    Indians meeting Columbus."

    fred();