The Calm Before the Storm H ANGING in midair above the islands just Brewster, these dignitaries, including Nellie Ross, off Bar Harbor, looking itself almost like an of Wyoming, the nation's first female governor, had island risen out of the sea, the dirigible just finished up their seventeenth annual governors' Shenandoah stretches out serenely from its moor- conference at another of America's favorite resorts, ing mast aboard the U.S.S. Patoka in early July, Poland Spring. As Mount Desert celebrated, the 1925. Tiny craft full of eager dirigible-watchers bob governors lunched at the renowned Pot and Kettle in the quiet waters, appearing as mere dots below Club, admired the breathtaking view of what was the helium-filled behemoth. They weren't the only then known as Lafayette National Park from the ones clamoring to view the first rigid airship built imposing Seal Harbor estate of John D. Rockefeller, in America. Crowds along the whole East Coast had Jr., and overnighted at the prestigious Malvern eagerly scanned the skies for the aircraft during its Hotel in downtown Bar Harbor. Some of the more incredibly silent and swift (an unheard-of 111/2 daring even chanced a flight aboard Commander hours) passage from Lakehurst, New Jersey, to Zachary Lansdowne's magnificent two-year-old Mount Desert Island, Maine. President Calvin airship. To the governors and all the others who Coolidge, reviewing a parade in Cambridge, crowded onto Mount Desert to witness the gigan- Massachusetts, paused to look up, while the city of tic zeppelin hovering like a friendly alien over the Biddeford heralded its passage overhead by blow- offshore islands, the news must have come as a ter- ing the municipal fire alarm. The Shenandoah was rible shock just two months later when the actually part of an oversized welcoming commit- Shenandoah broke apart and crashed in a violent tee - along with the U.S.S. Patoka, three naval windstorm over Ohio. Fourteen of the thirty-six destroyers, marching bands, and crowds of Mainers men aboard were killed, including Commander - on hand to greet the nation's governors as they Lansdowne, who only weeks before had sailed in arrived on the island for the Fourth of July festiv- the balmy summer breezes over Bar Harbor. ities. Hosted by Maine Governor Ralph Owen -Ellen MacDonald Ward