(Annie Edson Taylor, first person to ride in a barrel over Niagra Falls and live.).

The image looks a little strange today, though it had provoked a minor disturbance as the production meeting wrapped up on Friday. Of course you recognize the lady in the picture, and the anniversary of her signal accomplishment. She was the first person to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel and survive. Sadly, it failed to accomplish what she intended on October 24, 1901.
Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She was 63 and built the barrel as a padded contraption of oak and iron. She made it successfully and her fame spread as things did in those days. By telegraph and news print. And despite the buzz in the clattering media of the day, she failed to make money. Daring celebrated in Fame failed the marketing challenge.

The people in the backroom with the eye shades should have handled that part.

While the stunt earned her notoriety, it did not bring her the financial security she sought, and she reportedly advised others never to attempt a stunt like that though she inspired widespread imitation. What the anniversary did to our Group of Boomers, Old Salts and GenZ interns was to open the floodgates of mirth, since all of use have had the equivalent of throwing ourselves over really impressive things and none of us are rich because of it. We did survive, at least temporarily.

Which is why it came up as a Creative Section issue. Miles had waved around a long, thick photo album allegedly from the Chairman’s Great Grandfather. He opened the volume carefully to display the four images affixed to the left and right-hand pages. Two each on fifty pages of ancient images take before the cell phone made us all correspondents.

“This is a record of a Grand Tour of Europe only two years after Annie rode the falls in 1903,” he said. “The Socotra Gand Tour of Europe.”

There are maybe dozens of these images with captions like the one above. It is a public road in Sweden or someplace. But like Annie’s, the faces are stunning, looking out at us from 122 years ago.


They are on the voyage to Europe in that picture onboard the liner Minnetonka. Spring of the year on the waves. It is astonishing that the blood that flowed in one of them still flows when the Chairman deigns to visit the Creative Section.
Miles looked at us with a faint smile. “Now all we have to do is recreate a journey conducted the same year the Wright Brothers flew.”

Splash was still struggling with the idea of a woman being so desperate for cash that she would risk it by challenging certain death. “So, we gotta clean up the Chairman’s antique stuff now?”

Miles gave him one of those stern looks. “So long as he is paying the bills and the rent for all of us, it is a little like Annie and her barrel. Let’s keep floating, shall we? Maybe we can get rich in only a century or so.”

Rocket smiled as he examined the old album. “I am prepared to go over these pages without a barrel. Head First.”

There was some nervous laughter as we turned our attention to the bagels AJ brought from the bakery over on the Leesburg Pike. They were demonstrably new and probably still fresh. We do not intend to throw ourselves over anything, but it is still early!

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