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"I WEAR ABOUT 20 hats." Bob Albee, 52, dwarfs the mustard yellow vinyl chair in which he is sitting. One of two cell phones rings. "We haven't installed phone lines yet," he says. "Excuse me-that's the big boss." A white-haired man with a tour guide badge that reads "Bernie" walks in looking for him. Albee finishes the phone call and turns to Bernie, but the phone rings again. "That's the second guy," he explains as he answers it. A towheaded boy clinging to his father's jacket wanders in and stares wide-eyed at the pictures of submarines that adorn the walls and the Soviet naval overcoat displayed in the corner. Albee prompts a tour guide to start the introductory video on safety procedures in the submarine. Ten minutes later, phone calls and visitors dispensed with, he brushes his shaggy brown hair from his forehead, tucks one of the cell phones in the pocket of his brown and maroon plaid shirt, and rearranges the other cell phone and a two-way radio on the table. Then he leans back in the chair to explain his full-time, volunteer job as project manager of the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation and the Russian Sub Museum at Collier Point Park in Providence. A full-time job "Project manager" does not reveal the scope of Albee's job for the last three years. As well as managing the submarine and the associated submarine store, Albee coordinates the volunteers and members. Albee also generates and researches ideas for directions in which the project should move. In addition, he serves as everything from proofreader and inventory manager to logo designer and photographer. Each day, Albee starts off by hoisting the flags: two hammer and sickle Communist flags, two American flags, and one red, white, and blue OPEN flag, like the ones that fly over Chinese restaurants. After turning off several sets of fire and burglary alarms, he opens the submarine hatches. Before the museum opens at 11 am, Albee also makes sure that the docents are armed with two-way radios and the cashiers are prepared to accept visitors. Then he does everything from checking that the Coke machine is full to managing the books. Albee's work is a vital part of the the mission of the foundation: to establish the Air, Land, and Sea Heritage and Technology Park in Rhode Island with the 1067-foot USS Saratoga aircraft carrier as its centerpiece. The USS Saratoga Museum Foundation has not yet acquired the Saratoga but does own a 1965 Soviet Juliett 484 nuclear submarine. Now moored off of Collier Point Park, this submarine is the focus of the Russian Sub Museum. One of two surviving Julietts, the sub (in fighting configuration) has attracted more than 7,000 visitors since it opened last August 5. The Russians used Juliett class submarines first to target United States cities, then to carry a four-missile nuclear payload, and finally to shadow aircraft carriers such as the Saratoga. A big purchase The Juliett at the museum was first purchased by the son of the King of Finland and turned into a restaurant, Albee explains wryly. It flopped. Ladies in high heels could not negotiate the steep steps, nor could many of those exiting the bar. Paramount, Intermedia, and National Geographic reincarnated the submarine as the focus of the Harrison Ford movie K-19: The Widowmaker. The movie was filmed in Halifax, and the government of Nova Scotia requested that the sub be removed after the filming was finished because tourist season was approaching. A 300-foot submarine might mar the pristine views. The movie producers did what could only be expected in the age of the Internet: they put the 3,174-ton submarine up for sale on eBay for $1 million. And that's when the Saratoga Foundation snapped it up. Now, the sub has gone from being the centerpiece of a Paramount feature to the centerpiece of the life of Bob Albee. But don't be fooled-Bob Albee can hold his own against most any Paramount film star. The man behind the sub Albee rests his thick hands on bleach-spotted jeans, lost in thought for a moment. "I'm a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a conundrum," he looks up and says with finality, as if this one statement unlocks his entire life history, no further explanation necessary. Albee's boss Frank Lennon calls him a "renaissance man." Albee puts it more simply. "I take the bumpy road," he says. Before coming to the submarine museum, Albee was a clam digger through college, a one-time shipwreck diver, the PR manager for Thomas Downey's successful 1974 Democratic Congressional bid in New York, and an adman when he relocated to Jupiter, Florida to care for his father. In Florida, Albee served as the landlord for the 20 single-family homes that his father had managed. During his spare time, Albee, man of many hats, took on yet another identity: humor cookbook author. Shrimp Diet for Giants is filled with "hundreds of other magnificent bits of waterlogged cookin' wit and wisdom from the greatest master galley chef of all time," its blurb boasts. And that master galley chef, who had never before worked as a galley chef, although he does like to cook, is none other than Bob Albee. Albee asserts that he has cooked every recipe in the book-"either on the stove or in my brain." After convincing the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain to sell his cookbook, Albee drove around South Florida for days on end sticking his books into plastic boxes suctioned to lobster tanks at Winn-Dixie stores. Shortly after the Winn-Dixie shrimp cookbook escapades, Frank Lennon, an old friend from advertising in Florida, called Albee up and offered him an unpaid post at the submarine museum. Albee knew nothing about submarines and had never set foot in one, but he was ready for a change and had just sold the houses he had inherited after his father's death. He packed up and moved to Rhode Island. His decision proved serendipitous. The submarine project has become Albee's seven-days-a-week and 12-hours-a-day passion, he explains. The submarine I love The Juliett is a fascinating boat. Silhouetted black and imposing against the skyline, its hulking size does not betray how compact and cluttered its innards are. Stepping inside is like walking into a multicolored plumbing and electrical system gone wrong: a mess of painted wires and pipes wending spaghetti-like all over the walls, cranks, screws, hydraulics, tunnels, radium dials, plaques, and tiny locked yellow cabinets labeled in Russian. On one wall less than eight feet in length and six feet tall are 56 hand cranks of differing shapes and colors, stuck on the wall like fireman's wheels on playground equipment. Enormous metal sheaths housed torpedoes as long and heavy as a car; now, they are empty, rusted tunnels large enough to crawl inside. The round metal tubes that contained the nuclear missiles are even larger; the welded tubes are taller than a human. Squeezed between the navigational and missile equipment are 5'10"-by-2' bunks for the crew; the Russians set a 5'10" height limit on those conscripted because of the tiny living quarters. When Albee is not managing the submarine, he runs the Saratoga Museum Store in the Rhode Island Mall. Between Kay Jewelers and Payless Shoestore, the Saratoga Museum Store looks out of place. Inside, shelves are filled with USS Saratoga shirts, hats, flags, buttons, and cups. A radial engine occupies the center of the store, and model planes-some assembled by Albee himself-decorate the shelves. A small glass bottle is perched next to one of the model airplanes. "Atomic Droppings Habanero Hot Sauce," reads the caption over a picture of a mushroom cloud. "With this sauce in your possession, you will control the universe." The mushroom cloud is from the Bikini Atoll nuclear test. In one corner is a tiny aircraft carrier, the fifth USS Saratoga, the predecessor to the one that the Saratoga Foundation is trying to acquire. Albee makes the hot sauce too. In the back room of the store, there are boxes upon boxes of personal possessions: a cat carrier, pictures, pots and pans, a painting of an astronaut. On one shelf are hundreds of boxed copies of Shrimp Diet for Giants. On another shelf is a frame containing the cover of Shrimp Diet for Giants and three check receipts from Winn-Dixie for the cookbooks. "I keep about two-thirds of my stuff in the store, one-third in the office, and just a few things where I live," Albee explains, pulling out a Rolex watch ad, the first ad he ever did. "I've never really unpacked." Albee spends his few free hours at home with his cat Sport cooking new recipes and flying small remote-controlled electric airplanes around the living room. Someday, perhaps he will live on a sailboat and see the world, he says wistfully. But right now, submarines have become his life. "I'm not trying to make somebody else rich. I'm trying to create a project that will exist for a long, long time," he says, sitting once more in the yellow vinyl chair in Trailer One at the end of the day. "It gives me purpose." The Russian Submarine Museum is looking for volunteers. If you are interested, contact Bob Albee, at 401-996-0852. Lindsey Ryan B'06 has nothing better to do than hang out with some old Russian stiffs. |
copyright © 2002, The College
Hill Independent
last updated 11 22 02
Lindsay Ryan sinks deep into Providence's own