It has been a challenging few weeks, with uncertain and, in some cases, concerning implications of pending governmental changes on the work we do, let alone the lives we lead. Yet, I have hope that we will find a way forward. I have never been more hopeful about GUMC, and anybody who attended the GUMC Town Hall on Thursday afternoon will surely understand why. Norman Beauchamp inspires optimism and radiates authenticity and capability. Whatever comes our way, I am confident that we’ll find a way to excel and succeed. With that in mind, I thought I would share a personal reflection that you might find interesting and illuminating.
In the next few days, the mighty SS United States will embark on her last voyage, as she is being towed from her current berth in Philadelphia, the hometown of the man who built her, to her final resting place in Florida, where she will be sunk to become an aquatic skeleton for a coral reef. It is an environmentally noble but ignominious end for such a magnificent creation.
The SS United States was built after World War II, designed to be fireproof and suitable as a troop carrier in the event of World War III. It was the fastest passenger liner ever built, and it could cross the Atlantic in just under four days. It was the glamorous, high-tech 53,300-ton American alternative to the mighty Cunard Lines flagships, the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. Celebrities clamored to make the trip, and many did. Our family did too (but certainly not in First Class!). We traveled to Belgium when I was 6 years old so my brother and I could meet my grandparents. We spent the better part of one summer there. When we returned, I was known in my school as the little boy who had been to Europe. I was an exotic world traveler at a time when international travel was rare and terribly expensive.
It was a heady time; America was a colossus astride the world, and the SS United States was its aquatic manifestation. I remember getting into a debate with my much older Belgian cousin about the relative populations of China and the United States. I found it inconceivable that America was not the biggest, best and at the top of everything that mattered in the world. I guess that my boasting made me a classic Ugly American, but in my defense, I was only a child.
The SS United States became a bit of an obsession for me over the next few years. I memorized its key specifications. I would spend hours drawing painstaking versions of the ship, and I built model ship replicas as well. But over time, the glamour of ocean liners yielded to the irresistible convenience of intercontinental jet travel, and ocean liners, including my beloved boat, were replaced by the floating bacchanalias that are modern cruise ships. The SS United States was not suitable as a cruise ship, and eventually limped into a dry dock in Philadelphia in 1996. I nearly drove off the road on I-95 on my way to the Philadelphia International Airport the first time I drove past it back then. It was my “Remembrance of Things Past,” and that ship was my very own enormous madeleine. Since that time, various champions and foundations have attempted to repurpose and save her. No dice. So down she goes.
The metaphorical irony is not lost on me. This mighty symbol — indeed the namesake — of the zenith of the American century, and all it represented — power, freedom, progress, science, the arts, democracy itself — is being sunk. Only a few people will notice or care. But I do. I care about my ship, my country and the values I hold dear. I can’t stop that boat from sinking, but there is still time for our country to rediscover its best self. I know that I will do my part as best I can. Certainly I will do the best work I can to reduce the burden of human cancer here and everywhere.
Make the world a better place this week, and keep your head above water.
Lou
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