ZEPPELIN MAN1
For some time lately I have been taken with the notion of blimps. Zeppelins, dirigibles, blimps. I watch for them, note their appearance overhead, seek out their likeness, and collect them. I have collected photos, models, miniatures, magazine articles, books, toys, accessories, badges, buttons and blow-ups - inflatables.2
I wasn’t sure what lay behind the compulsion, what the compelling impetus was, but I derived something pleasant and perhaps even necessary each time I acquired anything…blimpish. It brought to mind a vague recollection, well buried, out of consciousness. One day I received a pamphlet I had won in an auction. I had never seen anything like it. It was a public relations brochure for Good Year hyping the company’s “Aerial Ambassadors.” The entire booklet was dedicated to the Good Year blimps. The gentleman from whom I obtained this little gem confessed to having kept it for the last several years because of a fascination he had as a boy in the 1950s watching the blimps take off and land near where he lived in Florida, before he moved to the Bronx, N.Y. We chatted and found we shared many experiences during that period. 3
When I received the piece, I discovered it to have been carefully wrapped and packaged with plastics and envelopes. The pamphlet itself was well preserved, for a paper item over thirty years old, picturing three Good Year blimps and a couple of hundred balloons on the blue cover. Inside, the illustrations were also blue, some of the borders silvery gray. I didn’t expect that much in the way of revelation when I perused the piece but I was overtaken by nostalgic reverie.4
Some years ago, during a lecture on broadcast communications to a college class I was attempting to teach, I found myself waxing dramatic over the reasons that the Hindenburg debacle was considered such a catastrophe through the years, in light of the fact there have been so many equally disastrous and more costly losses. I speculated that the event came on the heels of the great depression, at a time when few, if any, could afford to travel anywhere. It occurred when few had ever flown and could only dream about that great adventure in the air, floating high above earthly concerns. They imagined themselves not only floating joyously through the ecstasy inducing ether, but living the high life figuratively as well, dancing through the skies, dining on delicacies, immaculately clad, laughing, drinking champagne, on their cheerful ways to and from wonderful places. So, glancing skyward at this remarkable vessel, the size of a football field, so high above the gray street and the dim homes and the grim, colorless, hard lives, the ground people saw hope. They invested themselves, along with their hopes, in dreams of travel, destiny, wonder and enchantment, excellent foods, music and fine things, festivity and love. And, for a few moments they were there. They were up in the sky with the splendor and the beauty, the things that might be. And then…there was no more ‘might be.’ What did materialize was conflagration of hope, blasted dreams; the cruelest disappointment, so undeniably real for all to see. That which offered at least hope, momentary fantasy, was irreparably torn, burnt and destroyed; and with it those light and airy thoughts and excursions of wonder for millions. That was why, I offered, the Hindenburg disaster was so devastating, more so than the countless tragedies before or since. But as I glanced through the blimp pamphlet years later I recalled yet another incident perhaps pertinent to my collecting obsession. 5
On a cold November morning my parents took me to the New York Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It was extremely frosty and we found a place to view the parade deep in the crowd lined against the western wall of Central Park. From my father’s shoulders, I could see a man across the street, a street vendor, selling blown up Goodyear blimps on a wooden stick. I can still recall the price. It was fifty cents. Back in the 1940s this was a considerable sum for a street bought toy. But, I can almost feel the intense and burning desire I had for this item. I had never seen anything like it. It was so big, seriously shaped and seriously gray. It seemed to possess the capacity to lift you up…and up. Surely it could do something like that. It was filled with real helium and the envelope could have been of who-knew-what-kind of wonderful material. I not only wanted…I needed this thing. Zeppelin, the man called it…helium filled Zeppelin. The hordes, though, would not allow passage from one side of the street to the other, and besides, fifty cents seemed prohibitive. My parents assured me, however, that after the parade they would make the purchase. It was then all I could think of that morning. I would have my Zeppelin. The parade passed. The man and his helium filled Zeppelins vanished and were not to be found. We looked down several streets. Gone.6
Now, in the midst of everyday life, friends around me are falling ill and many are caught up in downward spirals. Time seems to be thrusting us on our way along a steep slope with its disconcerting peripheral vistas of life’s detritus strewn about. One feels the angst at knowing, or at the very least fearing, that we too, are soon to become just so much flotsam and jetsam. 7
I look at the Good Year booklet with its serene sky blue cover and its tranquilizing one color photos inside and I think of my students with benumbed expressions on their faces, completely incapable of understanding the enormity of the Hindenburg disaster.8
I recall the man who sent me the pamphlet, and how he stood at his vantage point down south, so many years ago, watching the launchings and landings of the great air ships of wonder, and how he carefully wrapped and sealed this magical packet of the past. It is only then I begin to know why I pursue these lofty air filled things, these dreams. And I remember, too, how the man with the helium-filled blimps, the Zeppelins, vanished forever.9
Author notes
The three elements in this story add up to a single theme. It is a story. It is not a trip down memory lane. The 3 elements are inextricably linked.Essentially this is a story about hopes, dreams and desires, those which are intangible, those which are fleeting! It is my personal feeling that everyone under 25-30 should read this piece.
In a list
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Comments
1 - 43 of 43
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I've come to this story rather late and really there is nothing I can add to what previous commentators have already said.
I think your appreciation of the Hindenburg disaster is valid. As I read I wondered if the same could be said about the Titanic.
Anaya Roma
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Verily, I was carried away, serenely and upliftingly, Gary. Another marvelous tale, and well-entwined with itself. Your mastery of imagery leaves me caught, earthbound, gazing wonderingly above me as your images soar peaceably on their way through the sky of my imagination. Surely your collecting of zeppelin-abilia is, in itself, something that the fabulous time-travelers do up yonder, aboard such lovely image-skyships.
I'm awestruck, yet contentedly so. Bravo.
. Rewarded 8
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I liked it
It wasn't like anything i have ever heard before, which is what make it so intreaging. I like things that arent lie all of the other stuff out there
It was really cool
. Rewarded 4
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Well done. I enjoyed this, the language in particular struck me, the flow was very nice. As someone below me commented, what I particularly liked about this story was that its something I'd never write... and beyond that, from reading the title and the intro, the kind of story I would probably never read, but after a few paragraphs, found myself enjoying.
One question: did you write that authors note? (I don't know this site too well yet, dunno if editors add things in)... That last line struck me as a little arrogant
. Rewarded 8
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ARROGANT?
Yes, I wrote the Author's Notes. Sorry if the last line seemed "arrogant" to you. It wasn't meant at all to be disparaging to anyone or any age-group. Why are you being so sensitive? It is merely an allusion to the fact that MOST young people between the referenced ages really do not have the kind of grasp on the 1930's or "feel" for the material alluded to in this piece. You yourself suggested that you would not have thought to read this or write this kind of piece, I assume because you are not all that conversant with its subject matter. Again, take no offense. We can only hold so much information. And today, with so much at hand, I think it is safe to maintain that MOST people under 25 know little (through no fault of their own) about this material. No "arrogance" at all here...and none intended.
GA -
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I apologize for offending you with my use of the word arrogant. Its just a personal flaw of my own I guess; I'm never confident in my work, and to say "everyone" should read something I had wrote would seem bold to me. But hey, power to you. I should have chosen my words better
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Far from being just gas!
Gary
I so enjoy reading your work - not just because they are so well written, but also because it isn't anything that I would write - sounds perhaps a little funny, but I do enjoy reading genres and styles that I don't write (Umberto Ecco is my favourite author, as an example).
This is one of the best stories of yours I have read yet because it is a story that masterfully balances nostalgia with message. We are all as ephemeral as blimps (or even sellers of blimps).
Your most explicit paragraph is number 6, and I think it is important. The only observation, and it is nit-picking to the nth degree, is that it is the only paragraph that doesn't talk about or in any way relate to blimps - which was (sort of) a shame. I don't know how one would get around it, but I think if there was some set of metaphors that replaced the "detritus", "flotsum and jetsum" set - which somehow can relate to blimps, or balloons, or perhaps something related to the time of Hindenburg (I really don't know what), then I think it would add an extra gloss to what is already a wonderful piece.
Here are a few other observations etc:
para 2 - I think the paragraph is too long - there are definitely two distinct components - a statement about the narrator's infatuation with blimps, and the story about how it started. I know that one flows to the other, so as a compromise, I suggest starting the new para at "I wasn't sure..." Minor point: "blow-ups...inflatables." - stylistically, my preference is to use a hyphen in this case - again this is me, I think ellipsis, apart from the standard function of implied removal of text, is used to provide a literary pregnant pause. Now this in fact might be your purpose, but it looks more like a clarification, which is best handled by a colons or a hyphen.
para 3 - "reasons that the Hindenburg" could perhaps be better written as "reasons why the Hindenburg". Possibly commas after "disastrous" and "costly"?
para 4 - "That which offered at least hope, momentary fantasy, was irreparably torn, burnt and destroyed;" - suggest "That which offered at least hope and momentary fantasy, was irreparably torn, burnt and destroyed;" For effect, as well as breaking up the long paragraph, "And then…there was no more ‘might be.’" could be the beginning of another paragraph.
para 5 - could "blown up" be "blown-up"? Stylistic again, should "on a wooden stick" be pluralised?
Well done; I enjoyed it immensely.
. Rewarded 8
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I found this story quite hypnotic.
Most people have seen the footage of the Hindenburg disaster and heard the radio broadcast. I wonder if you had considered writing a piece from the perspective of that reporter?
I find the 'blimps' quite menacing, on a par with spiders. After WW2 ended we still had the 'anti flak' dirigibles hanging over many cities in England. Some were there for years, too dangerous to take down by manpower. We had to wait for them to disintegrate disgracefully.
Your story was fascinating to the end. It flowed well and you had integrated the facts with the story seamlessly.
Unfortunately, we have always been flotsam and jetsam and will be nothing else. We perceive ourselves to be important to this world and we give ourselves far too much credit for things we have no control over. This doesn't mean to say I don't enjoy a good yarn told by a master wordsmith, I do - that's why I've read just about all of your stories Gary.
Lis.
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Hmm...
I don't think you need the author's note for this one, but I do feel that the there is another theme that you ought to consider, and that is the unassailable fact that, just as you cannot buy dreams, you'll find it an uphill struggle to sell them. Especially if they're personal, and especially if they're historical, you won't make a penny out of them.
I would especially give para 4 a haircut. No-one can doubt your enthusiasm, but who would want to be "dining on delicacies, immaculately clad"? I know what you mean, but it is easy to think you have misrelated your participle here, a fairly constant danger in long sentence structures.
I suspect that sentence is meant to convey a fairly quick pace of almost breathless enthusiasm; instead ir feels pedestrian and almost like a sales pitch, and who wants to listen to those? Different of course if it were an auction, but it clearly isn't.
Unusually for you, you have missed the essential point, which is that, though you didn't intend it to be a trip down memory lane, that is precisely how anyone under the age of 30 would probably view it, because the Hindenburg, not to mention the R101 were accidents waiting to happen in the light of technology development since then. Incidentally, the last sentence, with its sprawling subordinate clauses, demands more attention than the average reader wants to pay; I would normally advocate the KISS principle there.
Sorry to say it, but this is a well written bit of so-what for most people. As I said, i personally appreciate the technical expertise of the writing apart from para 4, the problem is that your main burst of enthusism seems to be there.
I think the themes of hopes, dreams and desires is worthy of exploration, but i fear you have failed to capture your audience here
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Haha im 13 and i like it now i wanna read more about this type of thing.
I like your detailed descriptions.
Keep up the good ork.
~Alex~
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I have a fascination with all things airborne, and felt a deep kinship with this piece because of it. Fantastic write!
As a fan of aviation history, I feel that you had the basic idea of why it affected so many people correct as to what it represented to Depression-era people, and also feel the need to point out that one of the reasons as to why it has endured so well as a crisis was because it was one of the first disasters to be so well covered in the media. Newpapers, radio, journalists, even newsreel cameras, all were there to witness the tragedy, the horror of people choosing to leap hundreds of feet to their deaths rather than be burned alive. All of it was captured and recorded and presented to the public as never before in human history. the suddeness of it captures the imagination to this day.
Again, excellent story, my friend.
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Wow, I found this fantastic to read. I'm over 32 and also have a fasination of the Hindenburg. (Spelling)I may have to do a piece on this myself . I found this an intresting and fulfiling article. Thank you so much for sharing this .
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Good story
If I didn’t understand fully what your story meant when I finished reading it, I surely did after reading your dialog with the commenters.
I was probably one of the few readers who listened to the radio broadcast, describing the incident in real time. I will never forget the sound of the announcer’s voice as he sobbed at the sight of the burning hulk falling to the ground and collapsing, passengers and all. I was a youngster at the time but I have a strong memory of that broadcast. I watched the news reels in the movie theatre a few days afterward. It all made a strong impression on everyone who watched and listened to these things.
Frankly, I did not have your conception of the significance of the incident. To me, it was comparable to the crash of an airliner today.
I do understand your view of it though. It was different from traveling in an airliner, more like traveling on a luxury ocean liner, and symbolized the good life.
The sinking of the Titanic was the same thing on a much larger scale but did not have a radio announcer describing it in real time.
As everyone has noted, you did a fine job of describing your feelings about it.
. Rewarded 8
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Dreams and Desire
I like your detailed descriptions. I could almost see myself getting the Good Year booklet. I think the overall story was about dreams and desire. Maybe the collection started because you are still chasing the dream and trying to fulfill the unclaimed desire.
. Rewarded 6
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Let me try to give some weight to the AIRY
Essentially you are correct. There is a lot in this story...3 sections really, the most symbolic of which is the eponymous Zeppelin Man...who held the dream and desire...the elusive, destined for flight, Zeppelin. It was he, remember, who vanished...taking with him the elusive object of desire. (Ain't it the truth?!) The second section, the Hindenburg lecture, attempts to, in a more mundane way, provide a pragmatic, rational explanation of that catastrophic phenomenon,...lay a basis and foundation for the tale, as it were, and the third section deals with the vacarious pamphlet which embodies and represents the Zepp/Blimp/Derigible collecting passion.
I know you got it all...I'm just using this opportunity to clarify...and thank you for thinking about it.
Thanks,
GA
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For me, personally Zeppelins mean two things - the Led variety, and the 'dead heat in a Zeppelin race' variety....
More dreams and ghosts and hope and death. In this case the death of dreams....
Very well written, and once again a very personal story. I think that's one of the things that I like about your stories - the subjects don't necessarily mean anything to me, so I have to get everything from your words. Or to put it another way, your feelings for the subject have to shine through before I can get anything out of it.
Thoroughly enjoyed it, especially your explanation of the reason the Hindenburgh meant so much.
Thanks again for sharing,
GoNE
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-__-; I, like the students, have no idea what the Hindenburg thingy was all about. Which I felt was very important in this story...I'm so Sorry ^_^;
Are the blimps and Zeppelin supposed to be the symbol of "Dreams"? O.O Cuz that's what it sounded like to me.
Zeppelin Man...I would DEFINITELY have pestered my parents to buy it on the spot! XD Lol. I wasn't much of a patient girl when I was small ^_^ -
Hmmm, this wee story tried to escape this critical editors eye-it's the last of those you've posted that I hadn't read.
No complaints grammatically. I got it, it was interesting, I thought that the bit about trying to explain to the students about the Hindenburg was perhaps overly long. Otherwise no complaints, but no "love" either, just vague liking for your descriptions. -
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What? No Love? Ah...
Thanks but....
I would defend that part of the piece which "explained" the lasting essence of "catastrophe" of the debacle...because here beat the heart of the tale. But...I truly cannot because all three segments are equally weighty and substantive...and play equal parts in the saga's relevance. What can I say further, Kristina? One cannot win them all! But I'm glad you were moved to read this through.
Thanks,
GA
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Very nicely written. I like how you likened the Zeppelin man to the one holding the dreams and how like dreams, he was somewhat just beyond reach and then disappeared altogether. Very thought provoking. I loved it.
. Rewarded 4
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At least good readers don't vanish forever!
Thank you. Always nice to read that someone understood...better yet perhaps, to read that someone understood enough to "love it."
Always appreciated.
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<
Indeed. The H. disaster endured...and still lives on in vivid horror and sadness. In the light of so much else I had to wonder why. And, so many young people don't understand. You got it, though...and I'm gratified. I was beginning to think I was alone! (lol)
Hopes, dreams and desires...frail, tenuous things in our lives...sometimes just out of reach...and tragically, often when IN reach...headed for disaster.
Thank you for reading this.
Gary Alexander -
Its deep. I had to concentrate real hard while reading it. I must say it was good. I dont know whether I got the whole idea behind it. I think it does speak of the loneliness we suffer and the break we need from our hectic schedules.
. Rewarded 4
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Perhaps HIGH...but not too DEEP
It really isn't all that deep...in fact, pretty explicit and, forgive the pun, down to earth. In this tale we deal with (one of my favorite themes) Hopes and dreams...and what hard reality does to those things. It's ALL explained in simple English in the tale...I'm sure you "got" it...not sure at all what seemed so..."deep!" And the Zeppelin Man? He's the guy holding dream and desire...the guy who always seems just out of reach...the guy who, alas, all too often disappears...sometimes forever! Just like the story says! Hmm?
Thanks for reading it!
GA -
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Hey I actually didnt understand it first time, but now that you have explained it to me, I will make it a point read it again and really 'get' it this time.
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Interesting...
Interesting
I was really bored reading this story, but hey I a youngling. haha. So my mind is immature. Now, My mature twin shall take over. "I liked it" it was captivating and Descriptive. An Illusion to the flying Eagles. lol. I am suprised you wrote a story like this. With flying machines I mean. Usually your in 1790 or between that era. lol. And street walker is usually your forte I think. This was definatly a breath of fresh air. It definatly hits the top charts! I don't know of very many people who write stories like this. Good Job, very different from your usual menu. tee hee -
< A story like this...
I appreciate your stopping by to read this saga...although I did wonder as to your "surprise" at my writing a "story like this." I AM delighted that you liked it...and found it "captivating." Thanks for the time and effort. I'd love for you sometime to define "like this!" as in: "A story like this." It might help in future postings. -
I really had to read this over a couple of times to get it- and although I still think that I could probably get a hold a firmer grasp on the concept, I'll try to review the best I can.
It sometimes felt like, maybe, the main character wanted to (this is going to sound silly) be the blimp. Float away somewhere to escape something (reality, perhaps?) which could have sparked his obsession in the first place.
I have yet to find the three elements, but I'm working hard to find them out...I will! (Goes to read another time)
As always, great, deep, fascinating story with much more too it than meets the eye.. Rewarded 8
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SOME ANSWERS
Your idea of the narrator wanting to "be" the blimp is not so far fetched. As did those who gazed in wonder at the Hindenberg, investing THEIR hopes and dreams in that vessel which coasted across the heavens (which, you'll recall was the narrator's idea of why so many were PERSONALLY "crushed" and affected when the ship burned) so did the narrator wish the joy, the adventure and the escape afforded by such a Zeppelin or Blimp. The Hindenburg, which represents the narrator's middle life of reality, people's ignorance and numbness and an inescapable reality at that, explains his passion translated by an "adult." The real origin of his inner passion, in his past, is explained by the Zeppelin man, who held out for the boy a child's hopes, dreams, excitement of escape and adventure.
It is the Zeppelin man's disappearance (like the Hindenburg) and the boy's inability to reach out and satisfy his dream (like those of the Hindenburg watchers) which fuels his desire and leaves him with a lasting void. The third layer of the puzzle lies in the present: the narrator's receipt of the GoodYear brochure...and his vicariously misplacing HIS feelings of loss and nostalgia with the man who sent it to him, and HIS experience. Despite the narrator's cleverness and understanding of the world he doesn't quite see what lies in his own heart at the base of his own feelings. As he notes his failing friends, thinks of his numb students and recalls the early days of the brochure's sender, he comes close. But he only remembers the real reason...and barely makes the real connection of his sadness as he realizes that the Zeppelin Man vanished forever. I hope this helps! Thanks for reading...and...THINKING!
GA
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Your style is very reminiscent of William Styron. Which is, always, a complement. The vocabulary impressed me, adding an amount of style that one cannot usually find on an internet publishing site. I remember seeing a Good Year blimp fly above my house when I was a kid, which was unusual, as I lived a mile away from anyone else. We weren't even under any airplane paths. The blimp represented to me something that I couldn't reach, but was low enough to seem real, unlike the planes. It has always amazed me how many of the great traveling luxury vessels many times sink, as the Hindenburg, Titanic, the Lusitania. Like people didn't make the metaphor of their crashing, but something larger did...
But I digress. This piece was well thought and sophisticated. Great job.. Rewarded 8
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I liked it. It was an interesting read on very many levels. I have never really gotten the big deal about the Hidenberg but I liked your view on this. It was a great piece
. Rewarded 4
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Ok reading it now I get it. The last time I must have missed a piece, but with a screaming two year old next to you that's not hard to do (she's playing with blocks right now so I'm free
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I loved the part about how ppl, just after the depression, saw the Hindenburg and what a wonderous feeling it must have been to see this beautiful machines in the air.
As one person said below 'What goes up, must come down' is a great moral to stick into a story.
Sorry I don't have any suggestions to make this piece better, but I felt it was great.
~*Brooke*~
. Rewarded 8
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Gratified for the read and comment
Thanks for stopping by...for take two! I was concerned when, after the initial read you commented on not "getting it." I hadn't thought there was that much to "get!" Glad that's cleared up. I try not to be convoluted, arcane, esoteric, enigmatic and cryptic, (lol). But the piece was meant to show a connection in all our lives... between the distant past, our own yesterdays, and our present feelings and hopes.
GA
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cool
I'm a fan of zeppelins myself -
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Cool
Cool? That's it? A very incisive comment. Let me ponder it. I could have sworn there was more to this piece than that. But hey...at least you read it. I hope it imparted more to you, however, than "cool."
GA
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I had never really thought too deeply about the Hidenberg before, but I had wondered why it was, even today, such a big deal. Thank you for offering a different view on it.
. Rewarded 4
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I guess it was a thought worth thinking...I am glad I was able to contribute. So many questions are left unpondered...and therefore unanswered. So much of yesterday is left in the dust and rarely revisited...particularly by today's busy young people.
Happy you cared enough to venture forth!
GA
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A very engrossing read. I love how you observed that the Hindenburg was a metaphor for the 'high life', and it seems to fit perfectly with the saying 'what goes up must come down'. The blimps as the personification of dreams and hopes is a very clever device. Especially when mixed with your description of the booklet that was receievd. The way you coloured the images within it as grey below and blue above, those main colours, really summed up the hope that the Hindenburg represented.
I also like the touching ending, how one mans dreams became another.
It's an intelligent and moving look at how life, hopes and dreams sometimes fall to earth, yet will always be lived, hoped for and dreamt by somebody else.
. Rewarded 8
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Fallen Angel
Gee, Angel...I guess you got it! (Perspicacious person!)
Thanks for reading...and writing.
GA
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Loved it........its really gud....
its very different from your average story beginning and ends......its got some very captivating lines.....everything happens a bit tooo fast though.....
it seems abrupt at soem points.......despite that the descriptions are hell awesome.....i LOVED the ending......simply splendid.........
i would advise to make more paras, it'll become easily navigable and readable......
all in alll........a very gud read...!!!!
Cheers!!!. Rewarded 8
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