The Trail Trash drove to Phoenix yesterday to see the Titanic Artifact Exhibition at the Arizona Science Center. Which was eerie, sad, and fascinating. But was it the high point of the day?
It was a high point, certainly. But so was being with friends. So was eating out with friends. And eat we did: twice in Phoenix and once in Tucson. I think we should change our name to the Trail Trash Trenchermen.
Arriving in Phoenix, we stopped for lunch at Chompie’s in Tempe, a great New York-style Jewish deli that serves home made pickles and enormous pastrami sandwiches. After the Titanic exhibit, we had wine (okay, I had iced tea) and bruschetta outdoors at Postino’s in downtown Phoenix. Later that evening, we had dinner at Cocoyaya’s in Tucson, where I took a gamble on the Rajitas en Crema con Pollo (sliced green peppers and onions in cream sauce with chicken). ¡Mucho sabroso!
But back to the Titanic . . . at the start of the tour everyone got a boarding pass. Each of us was assigned the name of an actual Titanic passenger, and at the end of the tour we learned whether we drowned or survived. I was Adolphe Saalfeld, who embarked for New York with a case of perfume samples. I’m happy to say Adolphe survived, although his samples went down with the ship (and were eventually fished up by . . . not to put too fine a point on it . . . the grave robbers who put together the Titanic Artifact Exhibition).
But I saw my survival coming the minute I studied the boarding pass and learned that Adolphe was a first-class passenger. He probably knocked some second- or third-class female passenger on the head, swiped her robes and scarf, poured on some of his own perfume, and disguised himself as a damsel in order to get on one of the lifeboats (dear Adolphe, if I slander your memory, it’s only because so many brave men did exactly that the night the Titanic went down).
Of our group, surprisingly, four of the six of us survived. Maybe the organizers of the exhibition stack the decks so that the experience isn’t too depressing to bear. Because otherwise it surely would have been.
Driving back down I-10 to Tucson, an old campfire song kept going through my mind:
Oh they built the ship Titanic,
To sail the ocean blue,
And they thought they had a ship,
That the water would never go through,
But the Lord’s Almighty hand,
Said that ship would never land,
It was sad when that great ship went down.Chorus: It was sad. It was sad.
It was sad when the great ship went down,
To the bottom of the,
Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives!
It was sad when the great ship went down.They were off from England,
And not very far from shore,
When the rich refused,
To associate with the poor.
So they sent them down below,
Where they’d be the first to go,
It was sad when that great ship went down.Chorus
The boat was about to sink,
And the sides about to burst,
When the captain shouted, “All
Women and children first!”
Oh, the captain tried to wire,
But the wires was on fire,
It was sad when the great ship went down.Chorus
Oh, they swung the lifeboats out,
O’er the deep and ragin’ sea,
When the band struck up with,
“Nearer My God to Thee.”
Little children wept and cried,
As the waves swept o’er the side,
It was sad when the great ship went down.