He who hesitates is lost ,the saying goes . Our Shipping Reporter certainly lost out when he failed to immediately buy the above framed faded sign for the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival at the Magnetic Island Vinnie's shop in Nelly Bay.
He did, however, buy two books- one about crocodile hunters in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory , the other on the unfortunate London chef , Ahmed Errachidi, wrongly connected with the September 11 2001 attack on the twin towers, New York , and locked up in Guantanamo by the Americans .
.Not having associated Washington with cherry blossoms , the Shipping Reporter regarded it as an oddity, something worth looking into , too big to slip into his dillybag . so it was photographed .
When he tottered home , he eventually punched WASHINGTON CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL into Google and uttered another sailor's salty oath - not Shiver me timbers !- due to what he discovered..
An offbeat yarn, the kind he likes to write, developed . Seems the Washington festival kicked off on March 27,1912, with a gift of cherry blossom trees from the the mayor of Tokyo ,Yukio Osaki, intending to enhance the relationship between America and Japan .
However, long before that, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (pronounced Sid-more ), a trail blazing American journalist and travel writer , made a trip to Japan in l885, fell in love with the country, and on returning to Washington suggested cherry blossom trees should be planted around the barren capital , a suggestion apparently frowned upon by a military head .
Despite the rejection, Scidmore, the first woman member of the National Geographic Society , persisted with the idea and in 1905 held a tea party and viewing hosted by a prominent botanist, David Fairchild, whose fiancee, Marian , was the daughter of the famous telephone inventor, Alexander Graham Bell .
The Fairchilds planted a large number of cherry trees on their property . Then in 1910 Japan sent Washington many trees which, unfortunately, were found to be full of insects and parasitic nematodes.They were put in a heap and burnt.
Two years later , however, the festival was officially launched by Mrs Helen Taft, wife of the USA President .
Scidmore travelled far and wide - to Alaska ,where an island was named after her , Java, China, several times to Japan , India , the Philippines and Ceylon.
She wrote several travel books and illustrated articles for the National Geographic , of which she was associate editor, in one introducing the word tsunami to the English lexicon dealing with the after effects of an earthquake.
When she died in 1928 her ashes were scattered at Yokohoma under a carpet of pink and white cherry blossoms. Unfortuntely she instructed that most of her personal papers be burnt upon her death .
On learning this great story , the Shipping Reporter immediately kicked himself for not having bought the framed sign . The op shop was phoned and asked to put the cherry blossom sign aside as it would be picked up pronto . Alas, some bloke had come in only moments ago, and bought several pictures, possibly just for the frames , including the American one !!!
