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Fiddlinsue

Rank：none Score：220 Posts：220 From：USA Register：11/11/2008 8:17 AM

Date Posted：12/08/2008 8:20 AMCopy HTML Her deep steam whistle blasted and the silver boat slid from under the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, a hundred feet below the limestone bluff where Mazie Krebs waited with a bottle of Dom Perignon and a slice of foie gras. Mazie had created every detail of the streamlined giant, the rounded bow that seemed to inhale the eddies of the broad Mississippi, the sheathing of metal over the huge side wheels as smooth as the rear fender skirts of the 1940 Lincoln Zephyr in which she sat. She spent most of her salary to payments for the convertible, but she had learned while traveling the vaudeville circuit with her mother to value objects of transport. Mazie's riverboat and her car were equally curvaceous. The S. S. Admiral and the woman who designed her were a study in contrast. Mazie Krebs was five foot four. She had large, dark eyes, and a taught, dancer's figure. The whistle blast had interrupted her pencil sketch showing the Admiral in an improbable stand on her stern in downtown St. Louis, six feet taller than the Bell Telephone building. Mazie closed her sketchbook and gripped the cold champagne bottle between her knees. She loosened the wire, then heard the pop as bubbles foamed down the neck of the bottle onto her bare legs and the maroon leather car seat. Tempted to drink straight from the bottle, she composed herself, pulled a monogrammed pewter flute from her glove compartment and poured. Conden- sation collected on the flute while the foam settled. After one lady-like sip, letting the flavor settle under her tongue, Mazie downed the glass. Soon the Admiral would follow the channel almost against the bluff and disappear from her view. She spread some of the paté onto a cracker. Captain John Streckfus had invited her on today's trial run, but Mazie Krebs, a girl from south St. Louis, had always followed her instincts. After a brief time at Wash- ington University's Fine Arts department, she forfeited her scholarship to become a fashion illustrator for Famous-Barr department store. Several years later she started her own syndicated but short-lived comic strip, Cindy of the Hotel Royale. Cindy, a brunette like Mazie, was one of the few funny paper heriones of the roaring twenties to work for a living. Mazie soon took another job with the Taylor-Rebholtz advertising display company, which had Streckfus Steamers as a client. She worked on their account before going to Chicago to design for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. When Joseph Streckfus, president of the company, visited the fair, he saw Mazie's modern work and hired her to design the interior of the President. Although the President was the first river steamer built entirely of steel, her contours were from the days of Mark Twain. Only inside could Mazie use round glass, powder blue leather, and chrome. The result was a gingerbread boat with a chrome and glass soul. But the vessel enabled the Streckfus family to make enough money during the Depression to eventually build the Admiral. Streamlining promised a future that would be gleaming and clean--an escape from the drudgery of the thirties, and Mazie was an inspired disciple. Onto Page 2 No part of this story is to leave this site under any circumstance. It is used with permission from the writer, Al Gowan. Thanks Al.  ©Maiden Voyage. Backgrounds and images created by me (©Fiddlinsue). Background html code was provided by Liz from Beyond the Horizon. Thanks Liz. Image ©image-cafe.net (linkware)