Old man rhythm is in my shoes
No use t’sittin’ and a’singin’ the blues
So be my guest, you got nothin’ to lose
Won’t ya let me take you on a sea cruise?
Oo-ee, oo-ee baby
Oo-ee, oo-ee baby
Oo-ee, oo-ee baby
Won’t ya let me take you on a sea cruise? Frankie Ford, 1959
That’s just what my sister Susan and I did Thursday as guests on the USS Potomac. The ship served as FDR’s private getaway and as a floating White House from 1933 to his death in 1945. As guests of my neighbor, David Dimmitt — ship docent and Benicia Thursday night sailboat racer — we were welcomed aboard the gleaming white ship draped in red, white, and blue bunting. It was like stepping back in time to enter the former Coast Guard cutter that was converted into the Presidential yacht. We sat in wooden chairs around the dining table as we gazed out the many windows which sported marine blue tie back curtains. It was cold and windy on the fantail which was outfitted with a huge leather wrap around banquette where FDR spent leisure time fishing, playing poker, and working on his stamp collection.
If ships could talk, the Potomac would have many fascinating tales to tell. After FDR’s fourth term, it changed hands several times, was towed through the Panama Canal by private owners who hoped to turn it into a theme park, was cited in a drug running scam, and rotted and sank to the bottom of the San Francisco Bay at Treasure Island. Elvis owned it briefly and donated it to Danny Thomas to support Memphis Children’s Hospital. It was raised from the floor of the Bay where it was eventually bought by the Port of Oakland and completely refurbished. Some 100 volunteers keep it ship shape.
Winston Churchill and FDR wrote the major provisions of the Atlantic Charter on the good ship during a top secret meet-up in Newfoundland. Funding of the Lend Lease Act took place there. Later, the President took the yacht on his way to meet Churchill and Stalin in Yalta. Can just imagine FDR holding court in the ship’s dining room puffing on his ivory cigarette holder as he listened to Winston — chomping on a cigar — making the case for US intervention.
In June of 1939 FDR and Eleanor hosted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for a luncheon cruise down the Potomac to Mt. Vernon. “It was bloody hot,” the President remembered. Card tables were set up in the ship’s fantail for the first ever visit of a reigning monarch to the States. King George’s brother, the former Prince of Wales, had vacated the throne two years earlier for the “woman he loved” – the American Wallace Simpson.
FDR delivered at least one “fireside chat” on board through the new technology of radio where he soothed a troubled nation during the Depression and War years. We cruised through the Port of Oakland to the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. Sailing the Port at sea level is awe inspiring. Giant elevators stack each container for multiple stories. They don’t appear to be secured in any way. Remember the “great shoe spill” back in the 1990’s where 61,000 pair of Nikes were lost off Alaska? Shoes floated up on distant shores for years. Saw one ship from Hong Kong.
Haven’t kept up with the latest tariffs but the importer must have paid a tariff of at least 55%, down from 145% a few months ago. The shores of Alcatraz are all white, the result of beaucoup bird guano. It will need to be power washed if it goes back on-line as a prison.
FDR’s bedroom is a modest affair, a built-in daybed with a photo of Eleanor on a shelf and a tiny sink. Beside the sink is a basket with a life-sized stuffed dog — Fala, the President’s beloved Scottish terrier. The compact bathroom includes a stainless steel bathtub. To get from one level to the next he used ropesand pulley’s to boost himself up and down in an elevator which emerges cleverly from a smokestack on the top deck.
At the start of the 1944 presidential campaign a Republican Congressman trumped up a story about FDR leaving Fala behind in the Aleutian Islands and sending a Navy destroyer to retrieve him to the tune of millions in tax-payer dollars. FDR’s response in a nation-wide broadcast was brilliant. “The Republican leaders have not been content on attacks on me, my wife, and even my sons. No, not content with that they now include my little dog Fala. Well, of course I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent attacks. You know Fala is Scottish. And being a Scotty as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian island and sent a destroyer at a cost of two, eight or 20 million dollars his Scottish soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since.” See YouTube.
The current president doesn’t have a yacht and is said to dislike boats. He did however, buy a super yacht from arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in the 1980s and spent another $8-10 million to upgrade and add gold embellishments. Considered the most luxurious yacht in the world, it was seized as an asset during one of several bankruptcies.
FDR was a man of empathetic and compassionate leadership, an optimist who reassured a frightened nation, a coalition builder unifying diverse constituencies, an intellect, composed and focused, with charm, and a sense of humor. In his 1941 State of the Union address he was prescient when he stated, “We must be especially aware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.” Available for dockside tours, bay cruises and special event. See: usspotomac.org.
Letters From Benicia 