Ginger Rogers
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BULLETIN PRESIDENT TREASURER EDITOR John Bachochin Loren Moore Mike Prero 15731 S. 4210 Rd., POB 1181 12659 Eckard Way Claremore, OK 74017 Roseville, CA 95678 Auburn,CA 95603 918-342-0710 916-783-6822 530-906-4705 No. 344 ALL DUES DUE APRIL 1st September 2013 by Mike Prero You may not be into collecting Military as a category in itself, but here‘s a related category that you might wish to consider. It has a lot to offer. Military logos are usually quite colorful and attractive; there is a lot of history connected with each unit represented; and logo ―formats‖ run from crests to cartoon characters and everything in between. You‘ve certainly got a wide variety of covers to work with here. You‘ll run across logos for individual units ranging in size from companies to entire armies, individual ships to naval groups, squadrons, air wings, and more. Then there are the logos for the different branches within branches. For example, within the Army, you‘d find logos for Army Air Corps, Military Police, Infantry, Armor, Rangers, etc...even bands! Then there are the logos for the various bases, forts, arsenals, air stations, naval stations, and the list goes on. Of course, you‘ll find basic branch logos for Army, Navy Air Force, Marines, and the like. And....you‘re certainly not limited to just the U.S. Military. You can find a very nice selection within Canadian Military covers, as well, and the Armed Forces of other countries around the world are fair game, too! Realistically, however, most collectors would really only have access to to U.S. and Canadian covers....with, perhaps, an occasional foreign entry appearing every once and a great while. There‘s nothing stopping a collector from aggressively going after such foreign covers, though. The main obstacles are postage and finding the right contacts overseas. No. 344 SIERRA-DIABLO BULLETIN-September 2013 Page 2 It should be obvious by now that, although we‘re talking about a ―small category‖ [in the sense that it‘s not one of the well-known, widely collected topics, we are talking about sizeable numbers! Just a guess, but looking at my own Military collection, I‘d say you could put together a collection of 2000+ Military Logos fairly easily. Putting together such a collection would be a nice challenge in itself, but searching for a complete set of the covers such as the Disney Pepsi Set to include with it would add even more zest to the hunt! You‘ll find that 20-strikes are the most common size for Military Logo covers, although the other sizes are represented, as well. And, don‘t forget to make room for an unusually large number of 40-strikes here, since those Universal 40‘s were abundant during World War II, and many will qualify for your Logo collection. As noted above, there are some sets to be found and some Fancies, although very few of the latter. Also, if you wanted to, you wouldn‘t have to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the definition of ―logo‖ too far to also include covers which show Military rank insignia—and there are several nice old World War II sets of just that very thing [also quite challenging to acquire]. How you organize such a collection would, of course, be entirely up to you. You could divide everything up by countries, then branches, then forts, bases, etc, and finally units. Or, if you‘re artistically inclined, you might devise some format based on the logo design—say, separating the cartoons from the crests, etc. You could even then separate out the Disney-designed cartoon logos. You know, if you are a Military collector, this might be an interesting method of dealing with your dupes—building them into a second collection! No. 344 SIERRA-DIABLO BULLETIN-September 2013 Page 3 No. 344 SIERRA-DIABLO BULLETIN-September 2013 Page 4 Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers! If you‘re not old enough to have seen her films, you missed something! She was a very famous actress, singer, and dancer. Her dancing career started when she won a Charleston dance contest. She performed in vaudeville, went on to Broadway, was a Ziegfeld chorus girl, and then on to Hollywood. Her career began during the Great Depression, continued through World War II, and went on to 1969, when she starred in her last Broadway show, Mame. She made 73 films and starred in five Broadway shows during her lifetime. She was born Vi Catherine McMath on July 16th, 1911, in Independence, MO. Almost 84 years later, on April 25th, 1995, she died. During the space of those years, she had married and divorced five times but never had any children. One of her husbands was Lew Ayers, who just recently passed away. ―Ginger‖ came about because one of her little cousins pronounced ―Virginia‖ as ―Ginga,‖ and ―Rogers‖ came from her stepfather, who had legally adopted her. She was a devout Christian Scientist. She owned, and lived on, a ranch along the Rogue River in Oregon. She was tall and had chestnut brown hair, though in most of her movies she appeared as a blonde. Though she did many other things in her lifetime, she remains best known for her wonderful films with Fred Astaire. When the two first met in Flying Down to Rio, in 1933, no one could have foreseen the string of nine other films to follow: The Gay Divorcee, Shall We Dance, Top Hat, Swing Time, Carefree, Follow the Fleet, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Roberta, and their last film to together, The Barkley’s of Broadway, all of which, I believe, were made for R.K.O. Radio Pictures. Many of the songs she sang in their appearances together were actually originally intended for Astaire, but he declined and gave them to her. These films were very popular; they were made during the Depression; audiences wanted to forget their troubles, and what better way than with such magical fantasies. Though they clicked on screen, there was never any romance. In fact, Astaire never even liked to kiss her in the movies because he said it made his wife uncomfortable. Ginger Rogers loved musical comedy, but she always wanted to be a great dramatic actress. She achieved that goal in 1940, when she received an Academy Award for Kitty Foyle, a drama about a young woman struggling with two suitors. When called to accept her award, she stood at the podium for a minute, looked straight at her mother, and said, ―This is the greatest moment of my life.‖ The place erupted in applause and cheering that drowned out whatever else she might have said. She always regretted that she didn‘t have the opportunity to do more dramatic acting. Always true to her beliefs, she fought for performers‘ rights. She was one of the founders, for example, of the Screen Actors‘ Guild, a group of performers who joined together to improve working conditions for actors and actresses. She was very vocal in her efforts to help her fellow workers. In later years, she appeared before Congress as part of the effort to bring a halt to the studios‘ ‖colorizing‖ older black and white films, since she and many others in the industry were adamantly against the process. Ginger Rogers...captured forever on film...and on matchcovers! No. 344 SIERRA-DIABLO BULLETIN-September 2013 Page 5 MS Pacific Princess Sails Into History MS Pacific is a cruise ship owned and operated by the Brazil-based Viagens CVC. She was built in 1971 by Nordseewerke, Emden, West Germany as Sea Venture for Flagship Cruises. She operated cruises be- tween the United States and Bermuda, which had been settled by the survivors of the wreck of the original Sea Venture in 1609. In April 1975, she was sold to P&O's newly acquired Princess Cruises along with sister ship Island Ven- ture. The pair were renamed Pacific Princess and Island Princess, the latter now operating as Discovery. In 1998, Pacific Princess was impounded by police in Piraeus, Greece after 25 kg of heroin was found on board, smuggled by two Filipino crew men. According to police sources quoted in the BBC report at the time, there was evidence the ship had become a major tool for drug smugglers in the Mediterranean. Pacific Princess was sold in 2001, but was leased back and continued to operate as part of the Princess fleet until 2002, when the former Renaissance Cruises R3 replaced her and took her name. She made her final voyage with Princess Cruises in October/November 2002, sailing from New York City to Rome, Italy. She then began operating for Pullmantur Cruises of Spain as Pacific, sailing in the Caribbean. She was later operated by CVC in Brazil during the Southern summer and by Quail Cruises in Spain during the Northern Summer. She was reportedly seized by the Italian Coast Guard in 2008 for a repair bill owed by her former own- ers . In order to satisfy the debt, Italian authorities tried to sell Pacific at auction three times between 2010 and 2011, but no bids were received. In March 2012, a sale for scrap fell through; the ship once again was up for sale, and in August 2013, it was announced that she was headed for the scrap yard. Why is any of this of note, you ask....The Pacific Princess was the Love Boat! Princess Cruises agreed to have the ship featured in the television romantic sitcom ―The Love Boat,‖ which debuted in 1977.