I suspect that most of you will recognize that the title of this essay has been lifted from the preamble to the American constitution. My best guess is that it came from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, a gifted writer. This essay is not about politics or governmental affairs. It is about a few items that, if they were ever achieved, would promote the general good and welfare of the American people. Further, they would provide an uplift to the feelings of the American people, which are currently below knee level. Let me give you an example or two of what I have in mind in this essay about making America a more perfect union.
As long as I can remember, I have been an admirer of the end pieces of bread, which are called heels. In our house in Richmond Heights, Missouri, there was a hot air furnace in the basement with pipes leading from the furnace to the various rooms. From time to time in the winter, my mother would knead the dough that would provide us with home-made bread as distinguished from the Wonder Bread which I detested. Once the dough was kneaded, she would place the platter on top of one of the warm pipes and the dough would rise, following which she would bake it. As a child, if I arrived home from school on a cold winter afternoon and found that my mother had baked another loaf of bread, she would cut the end of the loaf off for me, as she knew of my love of heels.
Years later, following the Second World War, the veterans returned to their former jobs. In my case, that was working for the Bell System in
St. Louis. Downtown St. Louis offered all sorts of eating establishments, ranging from the elegant Miss Hulling’s Tea Room to the dozens of saloons that offered food. Four of us returning veterans ate lunch together. They were Tom Laflin, Lloyd Rockamann, Gordon Ginz, and myself. More often than not, we found ourselves eating in the saloons because the service was quick and the food was inexpensive. They did not waste money on such fripperies as napkins and place cloths. In one place that we frequented, I noticed that the sandwich maker would open a loaf of bread and discard the heels. Screwing up my courage as a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States, I asked the sandwich maker if he would prepare my sandwich on two heels. The maker of the sandwiches looked at me as though he questioned my sanity, but in the end he complied with my wishes. From that day forward, he always made my sandwiches between two heels of bread and in the end, my companions were also persuaded to do the same.
As a long-term lover of the heels of bread, I would like to propose to the bread makers of this country that from this day forward, every loaf of bread should contain several heels. If it is possible to bake a loaf of bread having nothing but heels, I would applaud such an effort. For hundreds of years, bakers have produced loaves of bread with only two heels. If they were now to devote their efforts to producing a loaf of bread having heels at every turn, I would kiss their foreheads and the union would become perfect.
As life moves on, those companions, all of whom were veterans of World War II, are now deceased. I miss them.
Twenty-five years ago, before I became a vegetarian, there were times when I was required to participate in eating a roast of beef. From the beginning, I really never cared for meat products. If I were required to eat them, as at a banquet for example, I would hope that the meat provided to me would be as well done as it possibly could be done. Most meat eaters, who prefer their meat in a raw form, would chide me for eating a piece of beef cooked much like a piece of shoe leather.
As a young man growing up in the Midwest, where fish was not always available, it seemed to me that every hostess and mother would strive to provide a roast from time to time, either on Sundays or holidays. I gather that during the Second World War, women would save their ration stamps so that they could provide a roast on special occasions for their families and guests. On such occasions, I fervently hoped the gentleman carving the beef would provide me with an end cut. My recollection is that it is the most well-done part of the roast, with the juicier parts being in the middle. My proposition is very much like the one that I offered having to do with heels of bread. Can American cattlemen and butchers provide people with tastes like my former taste was with roasts having nothing but end cuts?
If I could have been guaranteed that at every dinner I would have been provided with an end cut of beef, it is possible but not likely that I would still be eating meat. But as things now stand, there are only two end cuts on a roast. If there were more end cuts on every roast, I might be tempted to try meat-eating one more time, but I doubt it. So the objective here is to have loaves of bread that provide nothing but heels and roasts that provide nothing but end cuts.
I suspect that there are hundreds of other improvements that might make this a more perfect union. For example, there is the ice maker that comes with many refrigerators. Over the years, we have had several refrigerators that lasted say 15 to 18 years. The ice makers never last more than five or six years. At that point they begin to leak and it is expensive to have them replaced. But that is not my complaint with respect to making this a more perfect union. My complaint is that when they are used to fill a glass, there is a terrible racket that takes place. Conversation has to stop and if there is any television being played in the kitchen, it will be drowned out. American manufacturing is known for hundreds or thousands of innovations. At this point I would ask all of the companies that manufacture refrigerators if in the future we could have silent ice makers. In exchange for their silence, I would be willing to put up with the ice maker spitting out a cube after I turn around and sit down on my chair. I would even be willing to put up with the ice maker that provides too many cubes or not enough cubes to fill a glass. May I suggest that silent ice makers would provide a means of making this a more perfect union?
My next two suggestions also have to do with silence. When the tree trimmers come by to take a fallen tree away, they usually bring a device called a chipper. Limbs and parts of the trunk are shoved into the maw of the chipper which grinds them into chips and makes a terrible racket, very much like the ice maker does when a glass is attempting to be filled. To make this a more perfect union, I would suggest that wood chippers be silenced. At the same time I would suggest that blowers used to gather leaves should also be on the list to be silenced.
Aside from the foregoing suggestions to make this a more perfect union, I might also suggest to manufacturers of support stockings that they make it easier to put their stockings on the legs of the affected individuals. Those of us who wear support stockings at the behests of cardiologists know that they are very difficult to manage. As a general principle, the heel of the support stocking often winds up on the instep. I realize that support stockings are silent, but those of us who must tug and try to position them correctly know that it is an athletic endeavor that leaves one largely breathless. And so I suggest support stockings that slip on as easily as a fielder’s glove should go on the hand of a shortstop.
I know there are perhaps thousands of improvements that would make this a more perfect union. It was not my intention to list them all because I am incapable of doing that. May I suggest that even a writer as skilled as Thomas Jefferson would also find it difficult to list all of them. At least my suggestions are based on making this a greater country with a better union. While there are many improvements that could make this a more perfect union, in the final analysis it seems to me that the place to start is in baking a loaf of bread that has nothing but heels. When that happens, the baker will have my undying gratitude and I will know that this country has come together in an effort to make this a more perfect union.
E. E. CARR
July 14, 2008
Essay 328
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Kevin’s commentary: I’m no baker, but I think both the bread and roast beef “problems” could be solved to Pop’s satisfaction by simply preparing large discs of meat and bread instead of the traditional loaves. If, for example, dough was cut using a dinner plate, and then baked, it would probably be crusty throughout. The thinness would have the same effect on cooking meat. I think there would be a relatively small market for these products, but at least Ed would be happier.
So far as the icemaker goes, I see three options. The first would be a soundproof box that could be retrofitted onto the front of any existing fridge. You stick your hand and glass in the box, fill the glass, and withdraw them both. This seems like it’d probably be more effective than, for instance, designing a very soft or porous ice that would not clatter as much in the glass.