2008 Hurricane Season
The 2008 hurricane season had no catastrophic events such as Andrew or Katrina, although it did have its moments. The numbers were high for a single season with Tropical Storms and Hurricane names running from Arthur to Omar. Several left indelible marks and while Fay never became a full blown hurricane she brought heavy rains during her eight day sojourn through Florida and spent another two days in Alabama and Mississippi. Hanna, Ike and Josephine were memorable because they were all active at the same time. Of the three Ike did the most damage to the upper Gulf Coast leaving his mark on the Galveston and Houston area.
Flight 19
Excerpt from The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
December 5, 1945
NAS Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
‘…Using the only timeline we have, lets go back to 3:40 pm when Lt. Cox flying Fox Tare 74 heard a voice transmission from Flight 19 asking Powers, not once but several times for a compass reading. There was no answer, but eventually Powers said¸ ”I don’t know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn.”
That’s when Fox Tare 74 made the blind transmission trying to determine who Powers was and if it was a boat or plane in trouble.
Now this could be simple semantics, but when Powers said, “We must have got lost after that last turn.” His language indicates to me that there had already been a turn or turns prior to that one. I suspect that Powers was in the lead and somewhere around 3:30 pm he determined that they were off course. At that point they should have been over open waters, but as I said earlier I suspect they were flying over several small islands. I figure he then made a left turn to correct from that possible drift to the south. Then after flying north for several minutes and it still didn’t bring them back to the open waters he was expecting he possibly made another turn.
It was about that time when Fox Tare 28, Lt. Taylor, having followed along through several turns led by Powers apparently looked down and saw an island that reminded him of the Florida Keys. And without thinking it through Taylor assumed Powers had led them far off course and down to the Keys. Then when he took over the lead he soon became disoriented and blamed the error on the compass…’
Let’s Go to the Movies
David O. Selznick was one of Hollywood’s best and brightest stars in the ranks of producers. Selznick will always be remembered for producing Gone With the Wind and in a later post I’ll talk about GWTW from purchase to production and premier.
But today I want to give you book lovers a Hollywood producer you can cheer for.
Selznick believed in bringing the actual book story to the screen, not just the title. And to illustrate his point here’s a small portion of a memo written to Alfred Hitchcock on the subject of Rebecca.
‘…It is my unfortunate and distressing task to tell you that I am shocked and disappointed beyond words by the treatment of Rebecca.' I regard it as a distorted and vulgarized version of a proven success, in which, for no reason that I can discern, old fashioned movie scenes have been substituted for the captivatingly charming du Maurier scenes. This is particularly true in the Riviera sequence.
We bought Rebecca, and we intend to make Rebecca. The few million people who have read the book and who worship it would very properly attack us violently for the desecrations which are indicated by the treatment; but quite apart from the feelings of these few millions I have never been able to understand why motion picture people insist upon throwing away something of proven appeal to substitute things of their own creation. It is a form of ego drawn upon Hollywood the wrath of the world for many years, and candidly I am surprised to discover that the disease has apparently also spread to England.’
Those words from Selznick might have had some effect because in recent years we have seen more films following the book story than was the case in the Selznick era.
Writers Notebook:
Sidney Sheldon on his approach to the novel.
‘When I begin a book, I start out with a character. I have no plot in mind. The character begets other characters, and soon they begin to take over the novel and chart their own destinies.
A caveat: Even though it works for me, I strongly advise beginning writers not to write without an outline. Writing without some kind of blueprint can lead to too many blind alleys. (While writing Bloodline, I found that the character of old Samuel was taking over the book, and since he was not a major character, I had to throw 250 pages into the wastebasket to bring the story back into perspective.)
(To be continued.)
Note that Sheldon’s method is similar to other writers, William Faulkner for example.
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
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