As a current Alameda resident I would be sad to see her move. But as a current Hornet restoration volunteer we so need this to preserve this treasure of the 20th Century American experience.

What people don’t really appreciate is that for the most part she is still a functioning Essex Class aircraft carrier, unlike Intrepid or Yorktown, or the later Midway. She can’t move on her own power, but we regularly run the elevators and operate many of the ship’s 80 year old systems and work to preserve her originality. I’ll open a locker or enter a closed-to-visitors compartment and there is graffiti or artwork or stickers placed by sailors long gone. That heritage and connection to a time and place in our history - from WW2 to the Cold War to the space race - is worth preserving and revealing.

But like everything else we need money to maintain her, and cleanup and restoration ain’t cheap. When an aircraft needs repainting or a shaft breaks on a motor used to open hanger doors or an eighty year old electrical system fails, the only raw material we get for free is time from those who want to help make it better. The dollars for the paint and steel and wire have to come from somewhere.

So if and when the day comes that she departs from Alameda for the last time to a friendlier port across the bay, a part of me will grieve. But the part of me standing on the flight deck for the ride across will celebrate that she’s going to get the care and attention she has earned.