- RMS Titanic took on passengers at Southampton, England, Cherbourg, France, and Cobh, Ireland. While I’m sure they are simply lovely places, I can state without fear of contradiction that I have never been to any of them.
- First class passengers were served something called “Cockie Leekie” on the menu. To my ears, that sounds more like a urinary tract infection than a luncheon choice. Bearing that image in mind, I would have passed on lunch, which I never do, which means I never would have booked my passage in the first place. (I won’t even mention second-classers eating “Yarmouth Bloaters” or the third-class devouring “Gruel”. I imagine if there were a fourth class, they would have been allowed all the sea water they could drink coupled with a robust napkin for supper.)
- My ancestors were in the United States either prior to the Titanic's voyage or arrived several years after its sinking. As I am part English, there always is a possibility a distant relation (like a 27th half-cousin twice removed) could have perished in the disaster. However, that ancestor's final mid-April swim in the North Atlantic did not thwart me from writing this list many years later, so apparently, this ancestor had little impact on my eventual genetic makeup.
- I have never been on an ocean liner of any kind. The only ship of any consequence that I have been on was a car ferry in Wisconsin that goes from Door County to Washington Island. While I don’t remember much about this brief voyage, I can say with certainty they didn’t serve “Yarmouth Bloaters.”
- I have never been near or in the ocean. However, I did live near Lake Michigan, have gone to numerous fish fry dinners, and have read 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Obviously I just need to finish my masters on advanced McHale’s Navy theory and I’ll be a bona fide man of the sea.
- On the night the Titanic sank, the estimated water temperature was 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Many survived the ship sinking only to die of hypothermia while swimming in that freezing water. I don’t swim when it is cold out. Even when I lived in arctic Minnesota, I never went into icy water, mostly for fear of “Cockie Shrinkie.”
- I always knew that if I got on that ship, I would be in countless melodramatic movies in the ensuing years. After all, even the Nazis released a Titanic movie. (No, not Paramount, I mean actual Nazis.) Mercifully, I decided to not sail into legend and 3+ hour, bladder bursting box office history.
- Only due to the fortuitous intervention of Providence, I decided to not transport massive amounts of iron ore across Lake Superior. (Oh wait, this point only applies to how I also survived the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald! My apologies for the confusion. Please consult with Gordon Lightfoot for more information.)
- If I had made it through the dramatic events of that April night, by this point I would have died anyway since the last Titanic survivor passed away in 2009. Whew, dodged that bullet!
- My parents had a premonition that if we boarded that ship, we would perish. This led to dad and mom delaying their own births until the late 1940s. In addition, my folks didn’t have me until 1978, which only slightly increased the odds that I would survive the Titanic ordeal.
- Finally, the main reason that I survived is that I live in Wisconsin. Even though it achieved statehood way back in 1848, Wisconsin still does not have any transatlantic ports. This is due to legislation that was put in place in 1904 to prohibit the further entry of polluting tourists from Illinois, mainly Cub fans. Ultimately, this childish yet justified hatred directed at those in the Land of Lincoln prevented me from perishing during that chilly April night well over a century ago.
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