TOO SOON?
Enough With The Iron Oxide And Aluminum-Impregnated Cellulose Paint On Zeppelins, Already!
An open letter from Harvey Hindsight
This might not be a popular opinion, but I’m 100% against using iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint on zeppelins, starting immediately! And if you muckrakers have the guts to print this opinion editorial in your weekly newspaper after the Hindenburg disaster, I’m sure it will ruffle quite a few feathers.
We all know that Zeppelins are the future. They are the safest form of air travel out there, and no one is debating that.
But I just learned that 100% of Zeppelins that were coated with iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint have burst into flames and crashed.
Why haven’t we done anything about this yet!? Are we just slaves to the iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint industry?
I’ll bet you a ha’penny that if they had used lead-based paint, none of this would have happened. That stuff is indestructible. I have no idea why they don’t sell it anymore. Luckily, I still have a bunch of it stored in the nursery.
I love this country as much as the next flag waver, but the lack of action from the lollygaggers in Congress is cattywampus!
What makes the Hindenburg disaster even more tragic is how it cast a cloud over Germany, a country with such a proud and otherwise unblemished history. Now, the Hindenburg is all anyone ever thinks about when they think of Germany.
If this sounds personal, it’s because I’ve been told that I have German ancestors. No one in my family has done any genetic research or family tree history, but we’re pretty sure we have ancestors that might have lived in Western Europe somewhere.
And I will not rest until my possible relatives stop perhaps dying on Zeppelins over 80 years ago!
Just the thought that there could be someone out there right now slapping some iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint on a rigid, gas-filled airship somewhere keeps me up at night.
That, and the dozens of horseless carriages parading up and down my street, making an unholy racket. Why would anyone still be carousing about after 4:30 post-meridiem? Doesn’t anyone sleep anymore?
But I digress. What I’m hoping this opinion editorial will accomplish, at the very least, is a switch from iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint on zeppelins to some form of non-impregnated cellulose paint, with or without aluminum, or perhaps paint with some non-stoichiometric compound other than iron oxide.
I mean, isn’t this just common sense?
I still have high hopes for our United States of America. We might not be a big fish yet, but I envision a day when we could even be considered a superpower, completely out of the shadows of our former British overlords.
I can’t imagine we will ever have more than a shaky yet civil relationship with Great Britain given our history, but I, for one, consider it all water under the bridge now.
So, dear reader, let’s start using our voices to make this country and this world a better place, starting by eliminating iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose paint on zeppelins once and for all!
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Your humble servant,
Harvey Ambrose Hindsight
Editor’s note: Harvey Hindsight was struck in the head by a steel girder in 1917 and spent the next 104 years in a coma. When he woke up, he received a giant settlement that gives him the financial freedom to do nothing but slowly catch up on the history he missed, in no particular order, and write angry letters to various publications.
