Deep Sea Helmet (Day 24)

Left:  Found in a bar in Derry, Ireland 2009.


Below:  Found at the Civil Life. 

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In 2009, as I wandered Europe on my drinkabout, I would spend countless hours sitting in pubs thinking about how to build the pub now known as the Civil LIfe.  It was very time consuming and during the process, I racked up a good 10,000 pictures... which I edited down to 9,999 when I returned back to the States.  

I am a big believer in pub culture as evidenced in my “Daylight Savings Time Ushers in Pub Season” post.  In Ireland, time and time again I found myself sitting in a pub and looking around at collections of all sorts of items.  This collection of old deep sea diving helmets caught my eye.  Transporting myself to a deep sea diver in the late 1800’s, walking on the ocean floor and then returning to land to tell people of all my experiences.  People are naturally skeptical of things but in the 1800‘s they seemed to buy into a lot more.  But I am sure they had little frame of reference for someone telling them they had seen schools of fish, barracudas and jelly fish.  

I can almost hear the questions, “Schools of fish, what kind of school? What are they possibly learning?” “Jelly fish, how can I spread that on bread.”  and “I bet Baraccuda would make a good song?"

And with that, I enter our one deep sea helmet replica into the pub.  I couldn’t afford a collection of them but it is always good to start somewhere and one is really the only beginning I know.