Appendixes — Crossing the River Platte 217 



Later 



The mouth of the Platte was to the Missouri what the Equator, the "Line," 

 is to the ocean. River navigators once celebrated the crossing of the Platte 

 as do salt-water sailors the crossing of the Line, and men who had never be- 

 fore been this far up the River were shaved and ducked and treated to other 

 high-jinks; these proceedings were usually weU irrigated vdth whisky. A 

 man who had never crossed the mouth of the Platte was called, in fvir-trade 

 days, a "blanc-bec" which meant "white nose" or "white-beak." 

 (Dorothy Gardiner. West of the river. New York, 1941. p. 28-29.) 

 Reprinted with permission of Thomas Y. Crowell Company, publisher. 



B — CROSSING BY AIR 



1942 



Boys will have their fun too, no matter if you are flying low over the greatest 

 of rivers. As we crossed the equator — old Zero Degrees Lat. at 11:56 a. m., 

 at West Longitude 49 degrees 32 minutes — I saw those of my crew who 

 had been in the South latitudes before take paper cups of water and drop 

 them on the heads of those who were uninitiated, thus making them sub- 

 jects of the sacred realm of Jupiter Rex as identified from the realm of Nep- 

 tune Rex on the sea. We crossed the Amazon, from just West of Point Grossa 

 over Bahia Santa Rosa to Mixiana Island, thence to Isla da Marajo. 

 ( Robert L. Scott, Jr. God is my co-püot. New York, 1944. p. 57. ) 

 Reprinted with permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, pubHsher. 



1944 



Headquarters, Caribbean Command, Mar. 25 [1944] — Mrs. Franklin D. 

 Roosevelt was initiated into the "Superroyal Order of Hyperterrestial Hop- 

 pers" by Lt. Gen. George H. Brett yesterday as her mihary [sic] transport 

 plane passed over the Equator off the Ecuadorean coast. 



The "order" is Hmited to persons who have crossed the Equator in a mili- 

 tary aircraft. 



(Washington, D. C., Evening Sun, March 25, 1944.) 



An A.P. dispatch, reprinted by permission. Newspaper head: "Mrs. Roosevelt 'Hazed' In 

 Flight Over Equator." 



ca. 1950 



I had served in the regular Navy 42 years before I had an opportunity to 

 cross the hne, and then under unusual circumstances. I was navigating a 

 hght plane for my son, who was the püot. We were on the leg Singapore- 

 Batavia. I made the following entry in my Jovunal: "0932 crossed the equator 



