| Website: | www.ussbrownson.com |
| Email: | webmaster@ussbrownson.com |
Hi and Happy New Year. As usual, this newsletter is later than I planned but this time at least, I have a reasonably good reason for the delay. There have been a number of major changes to the site, which you will read about below. The main thing to be aware of is that the web address has changed. The Brownson Association website now has it's own domain. The old address, brownson.sandmansoftware.com, has been replaced with the new address, www.ussbrownson.com. For the time being, both will work but eventually, the old address will go away. Please update your bookmarks accordingly. In addition, mail that was previously sent to webmaster@sandmansoftware.com should now go to webmaster@ussbrownson.com. You will also notice that all of the officers now have ussbrownson.com addresses.
In addition to the new domain, the website has been completely redesigned. There is a new look to it that is hopefully, a little more contemporary. I'm still tweaking the layout and it may change somewhat in the next few weeks. Feel free to send me any comments on the layout, both positive and negative. I'm a far better technician than I am a designer.
In addition to the look of the site, there have been a number of internal changes to the site. Some of them are not quite finished but I didn't want to delay the project any longer. Please be patient, I'll be working on them in the next few weeks. If you find any gremins or something that isn't working quite right, let me know. Some of the major changes are described below.
A note on spam filters: Since this newsletter is mass mailed, it is possible that some spam filters will block it. If you are running a spam filter be sure to put ussbrownson.com on your "white list". Any mail sent from the site will be from that domain.
Since the last newsletter we have received photos and other memorabilia from the following Brownson shipmates:
A strange story - I received the following from someone named Bob Brownson:
"I want to share a story with your members. My daughter (married) lives in Medford, MA and was digging in her backyard garden last year when she unearthed a commemorative plaque like the one shown above on this page. She was stunned to learn that was a ship with our family name. It now hangs proudly in her living room. It is pewter and is not dated. We are very curious as to its origin and age. We are also curious as to how it happened to be buried in this location. "
I wrote to him and told him a bit about the history of the Brownson. I received the following replies:
"I just took a look at the picture of the plaque on your website. The one we have has no color left, which can be explained, I suppose, from having been buried for many years, otherwise it is identical. There is no mounting attached to it, just the pewter plate."
"After reading the history of the USS Brownson, I would think that the likelyhood of someone from the ship or working on the ship when it was in Boston (several times) for retrofitting and upgrading, probably lived on the street where my daughter lives. It is only a very short commute to the old shipyards where the Brownson would have been docked. This is the most logical explanation I can think of and maybe one of your members might see the notice and respond."
Bob is not aware of any relationship to the Brownson family that the ship was named after. If anyone has any idea how the plaque ended up in his daughters yard, let me know and I'll pass it on to him.
The following addresses have been added or updated since the last newsletter
Kenneth D. Hyde (E3, 57-61), mart@mybizz.net Garald Mack (TM/E4, 68-71), tazz49@earthlink.net Ken Zortman (E3, 73-74), kenzort@hotmail.com Bernie Hahn (FTASN, 55-59), bernard@hahn.net Joseph Sparveri (SN, 60-62), joesparks1@msn.com Paul Romanos (QM2, 59-62), paulr@tomsofmaine.com Vincent Ring (IC2, 57-59), vring@ix.netcom.com
We would love to have you make a contribution to our growing collection of memorabilia. We can accept just about any form of electronic media. Ideally, photos should be scanned at 200-300 dpi, saved in jpeg format and zipped in a compressed file but just about anything will do. Winzip (www.winzip.com) is about the best compression program and is pretty easy to use. If you would prefer to send actual materials please contact me first.
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