Royal Order of Siam
Contributed by Rev. James Goudie
Ken Yeager is in his ceremonial place with the black snake around his neck. The lawn chair is not present, so that was likely a later innovation. The gold plastic helmet features the figure of a dragon on top. It is yet another example of the fundamental incongruity of all of this, since the dragons don’t have anything to do with Hinduism, Buddhism, Thailand or anything else at least theoretically relevant to the ROS. Yeager probably just thought it looked cool. The fire isn’t burning in this picture either. Given the arrangement of the people, this could be the very beginning of the ceremony before it would have been lit (that is, you would have pictures two and three reversed in chronological order). On the other hand, since the fire isn’t lit in the first picture either, this could also reflect the not-unheard-of occurrence that the magic fire-starting method (whether electrical or chemical) didn’t work and the show simply went on without it. The tall guy with glasses on the right side of the picture is probably Rick Walsh, possible dating this picture as pre-1967.

