Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar is filled with wonderful bits of
history, from tales of aeronautical flights of daring, to archeological finds,
and a ton of nods to Jock’s friend Henry Jones Jr. However, one of my favorite
hidden details comes from the lost and found and is the passport of none other
than Samantha Sterling. It just goes to show, the Adventurers Club may be gone
these nine years, but it has certainly not been forgotten.
Some of you may be asking yourself who is Samantha Sterling.
Let’s provide a little background. Samantha Sterling was the daring adventuress
who headlined the show stopping cabaret at the Adventurers Club. It is said
that stop a man in his tracks by just a glint in her eye and a beast in his
tracks with a dart from her blowgun. The character was dressed in the best
safari gear and was based upon Amelia Earhart, which makes it easy to see why
she and Jock would have been friends.
The passport gives us another tidbit of information that is
worth looking into, and no I don’t mean that she was a 5’8” blonde that had blue
eyes. I’m sure any man that ever got caught in her gaze could tell you that.
No, I’m referring to the date in which the passport was signed by Samantha. In
the bottom corner it reads, “Given under my hand and the seal of the Department
of State in Washington, DEC 23, 1937.”
Why is this date so interesting? A couple of reasons, for
starters it is a mere week before guests visited the Adventurers Club. As
guests, the story you were told is that you were visiting the club on the night
of a recruitment drive, which also happened to be New Year’s Eve 1937. It’s
likely that this is not Sterling’s first passport, as she regaled guests with
many a tale of her expeditions, but seeing as how it was issued so close to
when guests were visiting the Adventurers Club, it’s no wonder that she hadn’t
headed back out on a new trek yet.
We know that Jock was a member of the Society of Explorers
and Adventurers, along with many personalities scattered throughout Disney resorts
worldwide, and that the S.E.A. was founded after the Adventurers Club, so it
isn’t any wonder that membership would have its overlaps, quite possibly
including Samantha Sterling. Either way, their free spiritedness would have
made the two fast friends. It does make me wonder what other adventurers this
pair got into though.
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