Mighty Mo!

Ok, ladies and gents. Here is one of my all-time favorite history stories, and it just so happens that it happened to me. I was in Hawaii presenting a paper I wrote at a history conference in Waikiki. I got to the island a little early and stayed a little after my presentation to do some sightseeing, namely to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri. The USS Missouri was by far the more fun (if not the more affecting) of the two. Our tour guide had brought us around the whole ship in fine style, making jokes, making us all comfortable and generally having a really wonderful time. We finally arrived at le piece de resistance, a gold medallion set into the deck that marked the exact spot where the Emperor of Japan signed the surrender after the Second World War. So here we are, reveling in the history, having our first moment of silence and solemnity in an hour and a half of touring and we all hear this voice. A tiny, screechy voice with a heavy New York accent saying, "Excuse me, mister tour guide, why is there a TV in the captain's room? I am absolutely sure they didn't have THOSE things back in 1945! This boat isn't even right!" I turned around slowly, on behalf of my whole tour group. Our guide was a little too dumbfounded to respond. "Actually, miss," I started, "the TV was probably added in the 1980's when Reagan had the ship refitted as part of his 600-ship navy plan. It was added. It wasn't here originally. So...yeah." She just stood there staring at me. And the approval of my tour group, and my tour guide was palpable. Good times aboard shit, mateys. :-)