Monday, December 31, 2007

ZEP: origin of





Zep


In 1938, I had a small wagon with Zep written across the sides. This was in the time of the German zeppelins, much vaunted. It wasn't until very later that I took the name Zep for my nick-name. I ran across the rumpled snapshot shown at the right in a box of old pictures. At that time, Orson Welles' famous film Citizen Kane was getting a lot of acclaim, and I was taken by the ethereal portayal of the Kane's death scene and his dying word, Rosebud, which was (ostensibly) the name of his childhood sled. Rosebud......Rosebud..........Rosebud.


Ancillary to that self-dubbing, I had and continue to have a great love of zeppelins. In this transit-ory world, they, like everything else, came and went. The Hindenburg's crashing and burning was something I could relate to, and the tragedy was the knell of death for the huge airships.


So I collect zeppelin toys, and have a lovely and large book of zeppelin photos and history given to me by my dad before he passed on. That is why I am called Zep, often signing my correspondence "Zep" or "v. Zeppelin." Now you know.

Yours truly,

v. Z

The 2008 Jack Daniels calendar has a picture of an antique metal (copper?) zeppelin on a bookshelf with other items.




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