A candlelight vigil was held last night at the House of France in Balboa Park. The House of France is a member of the peace-loving House of Pacific Relations International Cottages.
During the vigil, the victims of Friday’s ISIS terror attack in Paris were remembered, and loving support was displayed in San Diego for the good people of France.
I walked by the House of France early this morning. The candles were still lit.
Today was Union-Tribune Kids’ News Day in San Diego! I can’t believe this is the third year I’ve blogged about the special day. Time flies!
Every October, smiling Chargers football players and cheerleaders, kids and volunteers station themselves at busy intersections around San Diego. Waving at folks in cars, they hold up special edition newspapers, printed just for this day, which motorists eagerly purchase. The proceeds go to help our local Rady Children’s Hospital.
In the morning I happen to walk through one of the key intersections while heading to work, so I had to take a few photos. This year I’d like to say thank you to the San Diego Chargers, Union Tribune and all the volunteers who make this possible. Over many years, millions of dollars have been raised by Kids’ News Day for Rady Children’s Hospital, helping to save thousands of young lives.
Do you want to donate? There’s no better cause. I urge you to click here!
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A few days ago I received new information about an important bronze plaque, which was created in 1975 to commemorate the United States Navy’s 200 year anniversary. The historic Navy Bicentennial Commemorative Plaque stands today on San Diego’s Embarcadero, on the Greatest Generation Walk next to the USS Midway Museum. Thousands of people breeze past it every day.
When I first saw the old plaque, I could find absolutely nothing about it on the internet. So I originally posted this blog. As new information trickled in–sometimes out of the blue–I posted this and this.
I was recently contacted by one of the plaque’s creators. He has provided detailed information about its history, including three amazing photographs and nine scans of a typed News Release from 40 years ago. The text of the News Release does not appear online, so I carefully transcribed the words. That way a very important bit of San Diego and Navy history won’t be lost.
(I tried to transcribe exactly, including possible misspellings. I’m not certain about the spelling of some names in the photo captions.)
If you know more about this plaque and would like to add some information, please leave a comment below. If you’d like to contact me, but don’t want to have your comment published, then please tell me that and I’ll email you.
NAVY COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE
by Pat Sutton
San Diego . . . . . The actual presentation of a plaque by the Navy to the people of San Diego on October 3, 1975 is the end of the story.
One might say the plaque story began October 13, 1775. On that day the Continental Congress authorized the fitting out of ships for the Continental Navy. This action constituted the first naval legislation and became the genesis of the U. S. Navy.
The skills and spirit which forged the Navy of 1775 also forged the commemorative plaque in 1975 . . . . .
In the spring of this year, representatives of various commands in the Eleventh Naval District met to discuss plans for celebrating the Navy’s 200th birthday. The group reviewed the heritage, the building of proud traditions, the horizons of the Naval Service. It was decided to hold a great celebration
to honor the Navy, its members past and present, the nation and San Diego – so long a part of the life, the heritage and tradition of the Navy.
The plaque story developed in an uniquely traditional Navy way. The Navy’s microcosmic capabilities began to surface and swing into action.
Civilian Mrs. Jo Palm is the Visual Information Specialist for the Commander Naval Surface Force, Pacific. She also chaired the Navy Bicentennial exhibits committee. Jo conceived the idea that there should be some lasting remembrance of the occasion for the people of San Diego – perhaps a commemorative plaque would be appropriate.
Civilian Francisco (Cisco) Lopez is a designer with the General Atomic Company of San Diego. He is also a First Class Draftsman in the Navy Reserve. Tall, 28-years-old, Cisco is a 12-year Navyman, combining four years active duty with eight years in the Reserve. Last June he served his annual two weeks active duty in the Naval Surface Force Public Affairs graphics shop, reporting from his Reserve Unit with the Fleet Intelligence Center, Pacific.
“Jo told me her idea and we decided I should design something depicting 200 years of Navy history – along the lines of a plaque, but not like the usual plaque.”
Cisco was raised in San Francisco and has lived in San Diego the past five years. He graduated from San Francisco State and hopes eventually to be a research historian or teacher.
“I have almost a passion for history. I’m taking a month off work in June ’76, I’ll be in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July. As an armchair military historian I really relished the opportunity to be a part of today’s history by designing a representation of our Navy over a span of 200 years”.
At the suggestion of her student husband, Mel, Jo Palm went aboard Mel’s former ship, USS Ajax (AR-6), with Cisco’s drawing and the question, “Can you make it a reality?”
For a fleet repair ship like Ajax, “can” is a reality because she is designed for heavy duty hull repair; to provide a full range of repair services to Navy units in remote areas.
On her way to see the Repair Officer, Lieutenant Commander Harley M. Oien, Jo Palm passed through the Patternmaker/Carpenter Shop, remarkably clean despite the several huge saws rasping, whining and spewing sawdust. She was escorted through the Heavy Machine and Shipfitter’s shops where expert Navy operators can literally rebuild a whole ship.
Twelve-year Navy veteran, Chief Molder Marvin E. (Tex) Feasell of Baytown, TX, is in charge of the Ajax foundry. He recounts the meeting below decks in Mr. Oien’s office where he and a few key men, including Patternmaker First Class Ronald Gray, held a conference with Jo.
“We hashed, squabbled, explained our methods, discussed time frames, costs to the Bicentennial Birthday Fund, and most of all, the making of the pattern. That’s the critical area. That’s the make or break of the job”.
Tex Feazell learned his profession when he was sent to the Moulder “A” school right out of Boot Camp in 1963. He reported aboard Ajax in May 1974. He has a keen appreciation of the expertise of the Ajax crew, and a keen pride in its performance.
“We have one of the most hard charging crews in the fleet. The people are hard charging – hit it! Hit it! We wanted to show our skills. We wanted to make that plaque for the Navy and for San Diego. We didn’t know for over a week if we would get the job. It made us feel proud when we heard we were going to do it”.
And so the “make or break” responsibility of the Navy’s bicentennial birthday memento to San Diego was enthusiastically assumed by Patternmaker Ronald Gray, who applied his
Navy-learned skills to transform from drawing to working pattern the impression of 200 years of the United States Navy.
Ron has not always served in the time honored rate of Patternmaker. He joined the Navy shortly after he graduated from high school in Olympia, WA, and served his first hitch as a Commissaryman. A friend, appreciative of his carving hobby, suggested Ron reenlist under the Navy’s SCORE (Selective Conversion) program and be schooled as a Patternmaker.
Now, after 7 1/2 years in the Navy, 2 1/2 aboard Ajax, this craftsman laid the historical design out, carved his first figures in bas relief, glued them on board, then build up the other details. The pattern for the 30″ x 24″, 150 pound metal plaque would end up basically wood and plaster, however, the rope detail was real rope!
The Spirit of ’75, the hallmark of the Navy, nowhere better manifested itself than aboard the USS Ajax as the work progressed.
Patternmaker Third Class Roger Richie of Denver, CO, was a millman in civilian life and when he joined the Navy he wanted to be a carpenter. But at the time, there was no billet open at the carpenter school.
“Now I think I got lucky, because I was sent to Patternmaker’s School. There’s not too many of us in the Navy, or in the country, for that matter. So by what you might call a ‘freak accident’ I was here to help Ron on the plaque. There’s pride in this job”.
The Ajax Dental Department loaned Ron Gray tools for working on the intricate wax carvings, and a dental drill for final sanding. The ship’s Dental Officer, Commander Roger E. Bisson of Helena, MT, enjoys woodworking and asked to carve the plaque’s Navy aircraft with his precision instruments.
“We all want to contribute. Gray is so willing to share the glory with the team, even though he has done most of the work”, Bisson said.
Below the gleaming metal decks, at the very keel of Ajax on the concrete deck of the foundry, Molder First Class William McCoy of Coshocton, OH, and his men were ready. McCoy spent his first four years in the Navy as a destroyer torpedoman. Then for ten years he was a civilian molder. Unable to wash the salt from his veins, he returned to the Navy a year and a half ago.
McCoy described his work, “The molding art is fairly unchanged since the middle ages. We use primitive tools, primitive casting methods. A person with an understanding of the primitive makes an excellent molder”.
Then he turned to his bicentennial commemorative plaque assignment, “We’re looking forward to this job. The foundrymen will tussle with 700 to 800 pounds of sand and probably 150 pounds of molten metal. That’s a big pour”.
In providing the material for that “big pour”, the Navyman’s natural penchant for building on a proud tradition swung into action again. Commander William D. Collins, Public Affairs Officer for the Commander Naval Air Force, Pacific Fleet, remembered the legendary aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17). A World War II combatant, Bunker Hill, was nicknamed “Holiday Express” because from November 11, 1943 to May 11, 1945, when she sustained crippling bomb and Kamikaze hits, she had conducted ten major strikes on holidays. During this brief period she had run up a combat record of 430 enemy planes destroyed in the air; 230 on the ground; 146,803 tons of enemy shipping sent to the bottom and 20 enemy planes shot down by her antiaircraft batteries.
In 1947 Bunker Hill was decommissioned. In 1965, 22 years after her commissioning, the old warrior was fitted out as a research facility for the Naval Electronics Laboratory Center, San Diego. She became a San Diego landmark moored in the bay off North Island Naval Air Station as she served as a floating laboratory for seven years.
“The Bunker Hill was stripped of her brass and bronze fittings prior to her scraping in late 1972”, Commander Collins reported at a Bicentennial Committee meeting, “this was molded into ingots. Some of the ingots still remain and are stored at the Naval Station in Honolulu. We would be honored to have Bunker Hill permanently a part of San Diego. The Pacific Naval Air Force will provide her brass and bronze for the plaque”.
And so it was done.
In August Jo Palm called Cisco Lopez with the news that the plaque was to become a reality. Cisco told Jo of an uniquely Navy coincidence. “For my 1975 active duty tour I was stationed on Ajax! I designed ducting for ventilation of a spray booth. Great crew! I never expected to work with them again”.
On September tenth, after the sand had been rammed around the pattern and the pattern removed, leaving its historic impression (the negative), the excitement of expectancy on the Ajax foundry deck rose even as the metal of old Bunker Hill rose toward the proper temperature to pour.
Participants, both active and anticipating, ranged from Jo Palm and Cisco Lopez; Navy combat cameramen and photographers; to the molders, firemen, and as from the beginning,
Patternmaker First Class Ron Gray, whose work would not end until his bicentennial plaque received its final buffing.
In the seething depths of Ajax the bronze flared at 1850 degrees Fahrenheit and was poured at 1900 degrees Fahrenheit.
Emerging from the plutonic foundry floor, Molder Third Class Forrest L. (Lee) Garland of Longview, TX, removed his zinc-deposit-coated face mask saying, “A molder’s job is to know hear; how hot to pour, how much to pour in a little hole. We did a job today. And it was good.”
Lieutenant Commander Oien observed, “The men generated the enthusiasm for the plaque. If they had not wanted to do it, I suppose it could have been forced. Instead, it was a labor of love”.
At the San Diego Bay embarcadero, on Broadway Pier, permanently ensconced in a handsome planter, the Navy Bicentennial Commemorative Plaque is inscribed:
Dedicated to the People of San Diego
By the United States Navy
1775 – October 13 – 1975
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The 2015 U.S. Sand Sculpting Challenge and Dimensional Art Exposition is coming next weekend! Between this very special annual event, and the equally amazing Festival of Sail which will be held a short distance up the Embarcadero, the long Labor Day weekend is going to be awesome!
Today I walked along the waterfront in the warm sunshine to see if anything interesting was going on.
Not only has quarry sand been dumped in large piles along the B Street Pier, right next to the Cruise Ship Terminal, but sand sculptures which welcome visitors to the event were being readied by a few of the world’s top sand masters! I briefly met Dan Belcher, Ilya Filimontsev and Susanne Ruseler, three of the best, most talented sand sculptors on the planet! And all were really nice people! They and the other world-class sand artists who will compete at the event have won many top awards. Dan, alone, has won 14 world championships!
Ilya is new to the San Diego competition this year, and so is Susanne. When I spoke to Susanne, I remembered how Chris Guinto, several days before last year’s competition, told me his still unformed creation was secret. Susanne remarked that plans aren’t so much a secret–it’s that they’re only partially formed when the work begins. The act of sand sculpting is dynamic, and sometimes changes have to be made mid-creation for either artistic or structural reasons. I asked if she ever accidentally knocked down portions of a sand sculpture and she replied: “Yes!” But it’s something you get used to and work around. It’s just something one can expect when working with sand.
Funny. According to a notification I received from WordPress, today is the two year anniversary of Cool San Diego Sights. And during those two years, the most “liked” blog post is from last year’s U.S. Sand Sculpting Challenge! You might enjoy seeing last year’s jaw-dropping entries!
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Early this evening a rally and parade celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment were held in Balboa Park. As the sun descended toward the horizon, a small crowd gathered in Sefton Plaza to hear a variety of interesting, often stirring speeches. The speakers portrayed notable women in American history who have worked to further the cause of women’s equal civil rights. Wearing period costumes, the historical personalities included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul and Eleanor Roosevelt, plus important local San Diegans Dr. Charlotte Baker, our city’s first female practicing physician, and prominent philanthropist and journalist Ellen Browning Scripps. The event was sponsored by the Women’s Museum of California in Point Loma.
Here are a few photos!
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I was walking along San Diego’s waterfront after work today, enjoying what remained of daylight, when I spied some sort of construction underway at the foot of the Broadway Pier. I moseyed over to check it out.
I discovered that the first of the custom pavers are being installed by the Port of San Diego, in the wide new plaza at the pier’s entrance. Anyone can sponsor a paver “brick” and have a name engraved upon it for posterity. Phrases such as “In memory of,” “In celebration of,” “In honor of,” “Sponsored by,” “Established in,” and “Dedicated to” are allowed. Plaques on furniture such as tables, chairs and benches can also be customized with a name of your choosing. A tall stack of pavers was ready to be installed, so it looks to me like the Port of San Diego is off to a good start!
Interested? Check out sdportwalk.org for further details!
San Diego’s North Embarcadero, often referred to as the city’s front porch, has undergone enormous improvements in recent years. I’ve lived downtown for 15 years, and the waterfront is more beautiful, friendly and functional than ever. But additional phases in its revitalization await completion. According to the Port of San Diego website, money that is raised will help fund future improvements and developments on the Embarcadero.
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The huge SDCCU Super Shred Event is underway right now as I type! The event is an attempt to break the world record for paper collection in a single location during a 24 hour period!
San Diego County Credit Union already holds the official Guinness World Record. Today they’re trying to break it. So why was I there taking photos? I collect my old records in a box at home, and whenever SDCCU offers free shredding, I head on down to take advantage of the service which is available to anyone. This morning the annual event, taking place in Mission Valley’s gigantic Qualcomm Stadium parking lot, is bigger than ever. So I brought my camera!
Not only does shredding paper documents protect against identity theft, but recycling paper is good for our environment. So this event is pretty cool for a whole variety of reasons!
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Last January I posted the blog: Our Silences and precious freedom of speech. I had walked down to Ruocco Park, just north of Seaport Village, to investigate an eye-popping new installation of public art titled Nuestros Silencios (which translated from Spanish means Our Silences).
The mysterious, monumental bronze sculptures, created by noted Mexican artist José Rivelino Moreno Valle, convey the importance of freedom of speech. The mouths of the huge anthropomorphic figures are each blocked by a metal plate; voices are censored and silenced. The emotional reaction the artwork produces is quite strong. In the past six months millions of San Diegans and visiting tourists have had the opportunity to be directly influenced by Rivelino’s thought-provoking artwork.
This morning I made another discovery! I was walking along San Diego’s waterfront when I noticed a crane lifting large objects near Tuna Harbor. I thought it was some sort of boating equipment being loaded onto a truck. As I approached, I suddenly saw the large objects were Rivelino’s sculptures!
I soon learned that Our Silences is on its way to San Francisco! (The sculptures were supposed to move to Los Angeles in March, but those plans changed.) The amazing public artwork will soon be situated on the north end of Harry Bridges Plaza, on San Francisco’s Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building! They should arrive in time to take part in San Francisco’s Mex I Am festival, which showcases performing arts, culture, and ideas from Mexico.
Our Silences has been traveling around the world for about 4 years, making its potent statement in San Diego, Mexico City, and in numerous major cities throughout Europe.
But wait! Would you believe it? I was fortunate this morning to meet the artist himself! He was hanging out at Seward Johnson’s famous Unconditional Surrender statue just across the Fish Market’s parking lot, and I was graciously introduced and allowed to take a photograph!
Rivelino, smiling, showed me on his smartphone a new piece of public art that he’s been working on. Called Equality, it’s going to be installed in historic Trafalgar Square, at the center of London, England! Equality will consist of two huge sculpted index fingers, each pointing at the other. It seems that each massive finger is blaming the other. But people can stand in a space between the two sculptures, reach out and touch the tips of each finger, uniting both! I can’t wait to see photos when Equality is finally installed!
Very cool, indeed!
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With this important blog post I’d like to address an astonishing rumor. It concerns popular television personality Conan O’Brien, and his impending visit to San Diego for 2015 Comic-Con. An interpretation of the strange clues and suggestive images photographed on the sign below has produced a startling rumor.
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This afternoon I spotted three ships of the Japanese Self-Defense Force in San Diego. They were docked at the downtown Cruise Ship Terminal on the busy Embarcadero. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force must be training with the US Navy off our coast, although I find nothing about any joint naval exercises when I do a quick search of Google News.
A year ago I spotted three warships belonging to Japan docked in the same spot. I see the big training ship Kashima, of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, has returned. (Last year an article I researched referred to it as a landing ship.) I suspect the other two are destroyers, like last time.
It’s an interesting sight you don’t often see up close, so I took a few pics!
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