By Carla Kelly

I’m amazed by what people remember about their travels. When I worked at Fort Union Trading, I was in charge of the Elderhostel Program. For a week, Elderhostelers from all over the country came to Williston for history, and visits to Indian reservations.
They left at the end of the week, except for one couple, whose flight was a day later. I volunteered to keep the fun going and drive Sandy, a physician, and his wife, a sculptor, down to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Sandy was astounded to see buffalo right on the road; the rock formations fascinated him. On the way back to Williston, he had me stop so he could pick some wheat. The harvest was over, but as you know, there’s always wheat along the edge of the fields. I did what he asked, and he was so pleased. When he left the next day, he told me the North Unit was the neatest place he had ever seen.
I was stunned. It is a wonderful spot, but Sandy and his wife had traveled the world, and seen everything. That’s the way it is with travel. Sure, you go for Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the British Museum, but sometimes the small stuff lodges in the heart.
What could be smaller than a handful of Japanese schoolgirls? They were kindergarten age, and dressed alike in blue and white check dresses. Since July was near the end of the school year, we noticed many students on field trips. These little ones were touring St. Paul’s Cathedral during our visit to London.
In the floor of St. Paul’s are several circular, filigreed metal grids that allow observation into the crypt below, where lots of folks are buried. The little girls all decided to kneel in a circle on one grid with their noses to the filigree and their rumps in the air, as they spied on the people walking below.
I’d have given anything for a camera. It was the funniest sight, and ironic, too. Here we were, in a cathedral with one of the world’s most majestic ceilings, and these little misses were peering down into the crypt. It still makes me smile.
I had my own gee whiz moment in St. Paul’s, and it was in that crypt. I knew he was there, but there’s something about actually seeing Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s coffin.
Sandy would have understood. I’m a fan of the Battle of Trafalgar, where in 1805, a Royal Navy fleet led by Nelson defeated the combined fleets of Spain and France. Nelson was shot on the deck of his flagship, HMS Victory, by a French sniper. He died below deck three hours later, but not before he knew the British had won. This victory confirmed Britain’s mastery of the oceans.
There was Nelson’s sarcophagus in the crypt, set on a high pedestal. Because Nelson was Nelson, he was not buried at sea. Typically, a ship’s captain would by buried in his sleeping cot, which was literally a coffin. When in use, the sleeping cot would be slung like a hammock from the deck beams. When a captain died at sea, he was put in his sleeping cot, along with cannonballs for weight, and a lid would be tapped on. The whole thing went over the side of the ship. Buh bye.
Not Nelson. Because he was a small man; his body was put in a keg filled with French brandy. There rose a rumor that on the voyage from the southwest corner of Spain to London, the crew used macaroni “straws” to drink down the brandy preserving him. The naval expression “tapping the admiral” (drinking on the sly), comes from that supposed event.
He was buried in a coffin made from the mast of L’Orient, one of the ships that took part in his other great victory, the 1798 Battle of the Nile. The coffin went into a sepulcher build originally for Cardinal Wolsey, but never used by him, because the cardinal fell out of favor with Henry VIII. Britain’s greatest naval hero moved in, instead.
I stood in the crypt before Nelson’s coffin for quite a while. Maybe those little Japanese school girls were looking down on me through the grillwork. We probably all had a good time. When I think of Nelson (and I do), now I’ll think of them, too. Small moment, big memory.