The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1952-08-08

Mr.. Latham pInched hlmSeIf;
it couldn't be so. And the more
he thought about it, the more GER
tain Mr.. Latham became that it
was something that he just had to
do, no matter what his family and
his medical advisers or anybody
else said. (He took along with him
a medical case history, with di-
rections for emergencies if any
happened, as the parting gift from
his physician, DIR. Ellis G. Win
stead. He didn't need it-but if
there had been need, we'll the
United States had a built-in hos
pital that was as big, (and almost
as good) as Mr.. Latham's new
hospital in his home town.
Captain Topping made it con-
venient to be in Belhaven for a
brief visit on the day Mr.. Latham
was to present himself as passen-
ger on the ship at Newport News,
and the boy of the grapevine con-
Quoted his guest aboard the ship
and within three minutes he was
being welcomed into the private
quarters of Commodore Harry
Manning under the vast bridge of
the ship. No dinner was being serv-
ed generally aboard that evening,
but Commodore Manning attended
to that detail briefly: they ate
in the Commodore's private din
ing room.
1t is characteristic C, Mr.. La
than that he has tenacious mind,
an exploring and retentive memory
and the years have not loosened
his mental grasp of things seen
and heard. During the trial runs
of the great ship, of the great
ship he missed nothing. He had
the run of the bridge, but he did
not presume on it unless he was
sent for, unless he was specific
ally invited there. 1t was apparent
enough that the people on the
bridge were busy men. The build
ers were there. Gibbs the designer
was there with his people. The
Navy was there, and when they
could get there, other elements
who has manufactured this or that
element that had gone into the con-
struction.
But the octogenarian guest miss
ed nothing. He knows, for instance,
just how fast the massive ship
will do, what she turned up when
they opened her engines wide out.
But that is classified information
and an atomic blast would not
dislodge it from him. 1t would be
bad manners; he was a guest
aboard-the guest of that boy
whose belly's failure to explode
with grapes a long time ago :.
Performance was astonishing
enough, but there other magni-
tudes that have kept Mr.. Latham
busy for the weeks since trying to
transpose bulk and values into
terms that are understandable to
him, and to his neighbors. He has
even measured off the towns prin-
cipal street and he can and does
tell his wondering neighbors that
if her stern was laced under the
spotlight in the center of town
she would reach westward past the
school house-and the street isn't
wide enough by II feet or so to
accommodate her beam.
Or set the great ship down in
Raleigh, her bow against the steps
that come down from Capitol
Square into Fayetteville Street
and this street even lacks 18 inches
of being wide enough for the ships
101-foot beam-her stern would be
down a little ways beyond the Sir
. Walter Hotel. And the stateroon
that he occupied was as far above
the Plimsoll line as the top of the
bank building a block down from
Capital.
Or, if some cataclysm washed
the United States ashore at Caps
Hatteras, and she would sit with
her keel fiat on the beach abreast
the Lighthouse-taller than any
building east of Winston-Sa Salem
her top structure would come with
in II feet of being as high as thu
Great Light. The sheer magnitude
of the ship will continue in a per
manent place in Mr.. Latham's re
membrance of her. And the cost
too, because Mr.. Latham is pru
dent and frugal man.
To pay for all that he saw woul,