OCR Text |
Show It's gotta be a whale of a tale! p.g. blab i . . 1 By MARCELLA WALKER I was so sorry to read about the death of Kandu, the killer whale, which died at Sea World last week. The big animal attacked another female in the holding tank, apparently appar-ently in a dispute of territorial rights, and came out with fatal injuries. The other whale was only slightly injured. All this happened just four days after we had been to Sea World in San Diego and saw the killer whales perform. When we decided to go to southern south-ern California for our vacation this summer I was really excited because be-cause I wanted to see the new Baby Shamu which was born last September Sep-tember at Sea World. I had seen on the TV that the baby was now being trained to perform with the other whales and felt that this would be a special thing to see. It was. However, when the trainers tried to get Baby Shamu to do his solo act, he was not fully cooperative and kept fleeing to his mother's side. Finally the trainers gave up and went on with the show. I wanted to get back for another performance during the day while we were there to see if the baby would perform another time, but we did not get back. My maiden name was Whaley, a name not too common around here but which is more common in the Georgia-South Carolina area and in England. The family crest has whales on it and so I have kind of had a special love for whales although I collecting them so that if they see any unusual ones they can bring them to me. Collecting has not been one of my big things. When I was young I had a collection of matchbooks. I don't know what ever happened to them. Then I had a collection of buttons but-tons and I still have a few around but not the big collection I once had. An aunt on my mother's side recently donated a bunch of buttons but-tons and I did not have the nerve to tell her that I did not collect them any more. I kind of started a collection of plates when I received a really special bicentennial plate in 1976. A few years later my oldest daughter daugh-ter began giving me a small miniature mini-ature plate with cute children painted on it every Mother's Day. Since then I have received a couple of other nice plates and I do display them in my one knickknack cupboard. Now my emphasis is on whales -so we will see how that works out. There are a variety of spellings of my maiden name. In addition to Whaley, there is Whalley, Whale, Whalle, and so on. The most notorious of us all, at least as far as I can determine, was Edward Whaley, the regicide. He was a nephew of Oliver Cromwell. Edward was a general in the English Army at the time and was one of the judges who decided that old King Charles should not be king any longer. Oliver Cromwell and his follow ers did not want there to be a king in England anymore. So he was killed. After King Charles' son rallied some troops and was able to.retake the throne, the judges fled for their lives and Gen. Whaley and another man fled to the American colonies. This was in the late 1600's. They had to remain hidden most of their lives as there was still a price on their heads but they found many sympathetic souls in the colonies colo-nies who kept them out of sight. Their families came to America and hid out with them. They began in the Massa-chusettes Massa-chusettes area but eventually moved down into Maryland and finally into South Carolina. There are a few Whaley families around, there is one right here in Pleasant Grove in fact, but when I was growing up the n ame was quite rare. When I was a kid some of my friends called me "Whalebones" and I know my brothers had similar nicknames' at times. Since the whale is supposed to be a pretty smart creature I guess that is alright. Now the big discussion among the zoologists is whether the big killer whales should even be kept in captivity at all. I don't know the answer to this but I sure did enjoy seeing them at Sea World. However, we will miss seeing Kandu the next time we go there. do not know any personally. All of my cousins and I had started giving one of my aunts a miniature whale knickknack when we saw her. We had some Avon necklaces . which had a whale on it for all of us and we wore them at family reunions reun-ions and stuff. My aunt died last winter and I inherited a bunch of those miniature mini-ature whales that we had given her. Now I am starting a collection and while we were at Sea World I bought a carved wooden whale to add to it. I don't know where I am going to . put all these lovely whales. I guess 111 have to go see Steve Peterson and get a lovely cupboard for them all. I have told my family that I am |