{"id":30271,"date":"2013-07-25T15:46:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=30271"},"modified":"2022-01-24T17:10:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T01:10:49","slug":"jxthomas","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=30271","title":{"rendered":"A Distant Memorial, A Close Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In
Photo by Joel X. Thomas<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"Scuba

\"In
Photos by Thomas Hemminger<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Like many people, my interest in Peoples Temple began\u00a0with a curiosity about one aspect of the story \u2013 in my case, Tape Q 875<\/a> \u2013 but perhaps unlike others,\u00a0the initial curiosity grew into \u00a0desire to learn more about the whole movement\u00a0and its people. Eventually, it transformed into a need to do something to show\u00a0my respect and admiration for those I\u2019ve come to know.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I had a perfect opportunity to express\u00a0that sense of \u00a0<\/span>honor. I decided to build a memorial for the people who died on\u00a0<\/span>November 18th, 1978, and place it in a very unique place underwater.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a certified scuba diving instructor in\u00a0Ohio, and\u00a0I train many dive students at White Star Quarry Park<\/a>, in Gibsonburg, Ohio. White Star Quarry is a 15\u00a0acre man-made lake, now dedicated to swimming, scuba diving, boating, fishing,\u00a0and camping. Its clear\u00a0blue waters are a haven for water enthusiasts. The\u00a0quarry includes\u00a0many underwater features which have been\u00a0added over the years,\u00a0such as cars, sunken boats, and a rock crusher building foundation. There are\u00a0also a number of memorials which individuals have placed to honor past friends.<\/p>\n

The idea for an underwater memorial for those who died\u00a0in Jonestown occurred to me in 2009, but due to changes and layout of the\u00a0quarry bottom, I had to wait until a designated underwater site was cleared.\u00a0Finally an official memorial site was authorized. I now had to design an actual\u00a0monument.<\/p>\n

Thomas J. Hemminger of HEMMCO Industries, in\u00a0Harrisburg, Ohio machined the memorial plate from aluminum. It reads \u201cIn Memory\u00a0For Those Who Lost Their Lives On Nov. 18 1978.\u201d The plate was then mounted to\u00a0a 110-pound stone block. In September 2010, a dive team consisting of\u00a0Hemminger, Randy K. Graham, and me used a system of diver\u2019s \u201clift bags\u201d to set\u00a0the stone down to its final resting place 42 feet below the surface, alongside\u00a0many other memorial stones.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know its distance from California and its relative\u00a0inaccessibility \u2013 even to people who live here \u2013 means that not many readers of the jonestown report<\/i> will ever be\u00a0able to touch this memorial. In a way, that\u2019s part of my tribute to the people\u00a0who died in Guyana. Much of the American public isn\u2019t directly related to the\u00a0events of that day, but they are still affected by them. It reflects how people\u00a0who are outside the immediate Temple community still feel, how we give a caring\u00a0thought to those who were<\/i> involved,\u00a0and who have suffered. My stone says what many others would like to say: \u201cYou\u00a0have not been forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Joel X. Thomas has been a life long musician, performer, and recording artist. He is both a composer, sound technician, and audio engineer, as well as a certified scuba instructor. His knowledge of the equipment used in both studio and live performances has found a particular niche in understanding some of the nuances that are inherent in the tapes of Jonestown. His collected writings for this site may be found here<\/a>. He may be reached at joelxthomas@hotmail.com<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many people, my interest in Peoples Temple began\u00a0with a curiosity about one aspect of the story \u2013 in my case, Tape Q 875 \u2013 but perhaps unlike others,\u00a0the initial curiosity grew into \u00a0desire to learn more about the whole movement\u00a0and its people. Eventually, it transformed into a need to do something to show\u00a0my respect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":30379,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30271","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30271"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113242,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30271\/revisions\/113242"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}