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The Inaugural, in not-droughty times. Photograph by Thomas Crone
The Inaugural, in not-droughty times. Photograph by Thomas Crone
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Photographs by Thomas Crone
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Photographs by Thomas Crone
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The only time, to my knowledge, that I’ve eaten alligator was on a trip to the USS Inaugural in April, 2008. As a new pescatarian, I was assured by some weekend adventure colleagues that alligator qualified as seafood and that the alligator steak we bought at Soulard Market was a sensible fit into any new fish-and-aquatics-only diet. The alligator, if memory serves correct, was fairly tasty, cooked on a small, abandoned barbecue pit sitting atop a berm, high above the partially-sunken minesweeper. It’s a touch surprising that anything edible emerged, as the previous item atop the grill was a tennis shoe.
On that spring day in 2008, the USS Inaugural sat a couple dozen yards off the Mississippi River’s banks. Accompanied by some new friends and old, we sat there and wondered what it would take to board the boat. Whether we could find someone with a canoe, or small raft. Whether we’d need any type of ropes to get high enough to walk about. And, honestly, whether the boat was all that worthy of hard work exploration; the large, visually interesting gun that long-topped the minesweeper had already disappeared and it didn’t seem that the remaining, rusty body had a lot of unique touches. (Rumors long circulated that a prominent, former St. Louisan held the cannon in his personal collection after a creative surgery aboard the ship.)
Mind you, the story of the minesweeper’s always been plenty interesting. And it’s a story that’s popped up intermittently in the local press, with updated variations. In 2007, the Riverfront Times ran a comprehensive, free-wheeling tale of the Inaugural’s colorful history. More recently, the stories have been cropping up almost weekly; the Post-Dispatch and stltoday.com just tapped into St. Louis’ love of the nostalgic with a “Look Back” feature and photo spread, noting the fact that as the river was slowly disappearing, the boat was emerging from the water. Last week, the RFT’s website ran a notice of the boat being tagged by members of the OFB crew, though some of the graf references are in slight error. The final straw for another trip to the 'sweeper came when MayorSlay.com “Big Picture” photographer Michael Defilippo posted a shot on Facebook on Saturday morning, incorporating multiple exposures and the flashlight-aided “light painting” technique. He reported that the boat was, with the possible aid of a “stout walking stick” quite accessible.
On Saturday afternoon, a frequent exploring companion and I went down to the ship, located just south of the Arch grounds and tucked behind the City’s painted flood walls. We’d been down to the same site a few weeks before and looked out at the boat, which was seemingly moving closer to shore by the day, a visual trick being played by our slow-developing drought. On Saturday, the only challenge to boarding the ship was that trip down the embankment, which is a mix of man-made and natural; tons of concrete and cement sit atop crushed construction materials and the natural banks, creating a real ankle-breaker of a descent.
Once down to the soft, sandy banks, though, the final steps onto the minewsweeper were as easy as could be hoped for, with a simple crossing of rocks and one strategically-placed tree. Eye-catching was the fact that immense amounts of sand have built up, both on and around the Inaugural, causing a beach-like effect that spilled all way into the crevices atop the ship. Nearby, life-jacketed workers moved a quartet of barges only 100-odd-feet away; our “what’s up?” waves went unreturned, and we felt pretty safely alone in the location for the half-hour of remaining sunlight.
What made the situation a bit more interesting—and what brought the RFT down last week—was the super-recent appearance of a variety of bright graffiti pieces, compliments of the OFB crew. Looking at the minesweeper from the shoreline, the names were immediately familiar, with Ilson, Ed Box and Cristo represented, along with the unmistakable signage of Rat Fag. It was just a couple weeks ago that this space noted a bit of a track-down effort re: this fella, an attempt to interview one of the most-prolific graf writers in town. And here was Rat Fag again! Of course! (New shots of my Rat Fag obsession can be found here.)
Would love to ask him some new questions. For example, is touching up a WW II-era boat a proper place to express artistic intent? What about the additional bit of uncredited graffiti, which features a nose-down Japanese Zero, inscribed with the phrase Our Fallen Brothers? Can the connotation of that message/delivery be misconstrued? Is there actually more honor in this paint strike than in the complacency of the multiple government agencies that’ve allowed this once-active warship (and popular riverfront museum) to decompose for two decades? And what time did you paint? That’s some of what we’d ask.
Post-Script: After driving along the riverfront-embracing Sullivan Boulevard, we found some more Rat Fag work along both sides of river, snapping off a couple frames before darkness completely enveloped us. This last bit of graf-hunting preceded a social side-trip, at which point we met Rat Fag. In a moment of complete and utter synchronicity, we wound up in conversation, neither of us knowing the other one. The elusive graf writer and the obsessive stalker. Together at last, in a scenario that bordered, frankly, on the unbelievable. And upon leaving the ironic exchange, I’m still not sure he sorted out who I was, or my interest in him and his efforts. Traveling to that talismanic ship set the day into motion. And the results were unpredictable, indeed. More to come... Photographs by Thomas Crone
