To this old Missouri essayist, it is a cardinal sin to grow older but no wiser. At this moment, there are four or five questions unanswered that are floating through the vacant space in my head. The first question has to do with wine.
In the early 1980s, a lovely saleslady at Svensk Glas sold some wine glasses to me. Her name was Mrs. Martinsson. The wine glasses came with a matching decanter. It is alleged that when wine is poured from the bottle into the decanter, it breathes and has a better bouquet as well as improving the taste. That may or may not be true but in any case, I presented the glasses and the decanter to Judith, my wife, who makes frequent use of them.
My question is a simple straightforward one. When wine is poured out of the bottle into the decanter, it is said that the wine is being “decanted.” From this fact it should be obvious that when the wine bottle is filled, the vintner must say that he is canting the bottles. The fact is that there are a number of meanings of the word “cant” listed in the dictionary. For example, if an object is placed at an angle, it is said to be “canted.” But there is not a single reference to canting the wine before it leaves the vintner. The term for filling the wine bottles at the vintner’s is called “bottling” it. “Canting” seems to have nothing to do with this process.
I have prayed to be relieved of this terrible dilemma but I find myself believing that when the wine is poured from the bottle it is called decanting. Obviously the antonym for decanting is canting. But the English language makes no provision for canting the bottles. They are filled at the vintner and are decanted when the bottle is emptied. The English language, which flows from a Saxon base, makes no provision for this circumstance. Apparently the Saxons either did not drink wine or, if they did, drank it straight from the bottle, much like our current Neanderthals drink beer from long-necked bottles. And so we will leave the decanting question unresolved and turn now to another question unanswered.
I pay my exorbitant real estate taxes to a place called “The Township of Millburn.” I suspect that “townships” were in vogue when Millburn was a town in the colony of New Jersey under the beloved George III.
I have lived in this town for 39 years and have yet to develop any warmth toward its being. To me, Millburn has always been a pass-through town, as distinguished from a place of destination. In the downtown part of Millburn there are two main thoroughfares. Main Street runs north and south, and Millburn Avenue runs east and west. Both are heavily traveled streets with busses, trucks, and automobiles of every description being driven with not much space between the bumpers. At the intersection of Millburn Avenue with Main Street, there is a traffic signal. At that point, Millburn Avenue is a one-way, three-lane street. Two blocks eastward from the Main Street crossing, Millburn Avenue narrows from a three-lane road to two lanes. Motorists leaving the Main Street crossing try to get ahead of through traffic in anticipation of the narrowing of the roadway. This means that engines race, tires skid to get a footing, and fumes abound in every direction.
Several eating establishments are located on Millburn Avenue in the general vicinity of Main Street. At the corner, there is a Starbucks coffee salon, while up the street eastward there is an excellent restaurant called Basilico. For reasons unknown to any civilized human being, both of these establishments have put tables on the sidewalk outside their doors where patrons may dine among the fumes, the honking of horns, and the skidding of tires. When the tables are on the sidewalk, pedestrians are obliged to walk in single file until they pass these tables.
Not being a coffee drinker, I have never patronized Starbucks, where one of the offerings is a $5 cup of coffee. For my money, $5 is an obscene amount to pay for a simple cup of coffee. Basilico, on the other hand, is a sophisticated restaurant where the cuisine is distinguished and elegant. As the trucks and busses leave the Main Street crossing, they inundate the patrons at Starbucks and half a block away they perform the same service for the outdoor patrons of Basilico. In addition, I suspect that the noise the traffic makes at Basilico is so great that a young male lover would have to yell at his sweetheart as to whether they should wind up at his place or hers. As a man of adequate years, I can assure you that this is no way to conduct a love affair, nor is it a decent way to drink a cup of obscenely priced coffee. But patrons of these two establishments seem to have a fascination with outdoor dining. If there is any one who can explain why this condition exists, it would be my pleasure to listen to his circumlocutions. And so another question goes unanswered, with which we now turn to cravats.
Cravats is a fancy word which denotes the use of neckties. Since time immemorial, men have worn a colored piece of cloth under the collar around their necks. When I served my hitch in the American Army during World War II, soldiers were obliged to wear a necktie with the ends being inserted between the second and third buttons of the shirt. This made no real sense at all but was in keeping with the rest of the Army regulations, which were often disconnected from reality.
During my business career, it would have been largely unthinkable to take a man seriously if he appeared in my office and did not wear a necktie. I know that this is silliness in the extreme but those are the facts. If a man had a presentation to make, he would carefully select a necktie that matched his suit. Even today I know of several physicians who when examining the most intimate parts of the human body, do so wearing neckties. If a young man set out to court a young woman, he would wear a necktie lest the young woman’s mother declare him persona non grata.
But now after wearing neckties for hundreds of years, it seems clear that neckties are being abandoned in great droves. Not long ago, when a man bought a new suit, the clothing salesman would hardly let the purchaser out of the premises without showing him the perfect tie to go with the new suit that he had just bought.
If confession is good for the soul, it must be reported that upon my retirement, I had something more than 60 neckties hanging on a rack on the back of one of my closet doors. In this territory, the Vietnam Veterans Association collects used clothing for resale. I donated the ties to the Vietnam Vets, not realizing that they would wonder what to do with them and might marvel at the donor who was so far out of touch.
There was an occasion in the late 1940s, I believe, when Edward, the Prince of Wales, became the man who ascended the English throne. Prince Edward was a bachelor until sometime near his 40th birthday, but one way or another he became entranced with a twice-divorced female who called Baltimore and St. Louis her home towns. Her full name was Wallis Warfield Simpson. My recollection is that the people who ran the newspaper society pages in those two towns considered Mrs. Simpson a part of not-gentile society. Divorce at that time was considered something less than an appropriate thing to do, and Mrs. Simpson had two ex-husbands who were quite alive. In any case, Wallis Warfield Simpson got her arms around Prince Edward, this innocent Englishman, and from that time on he was a goner. But that is not really the point of this story. The point is that Edward had developed a system for tying his cravats in a loose fashion that resulted in what came to be known as “the Windsor knot.” When I returned to civilian life in November of 1945, I began to tie my ties in “the Windsor knot.” People who did not use that method of tying the tie wound up with a much smaller knot at the neck, which was not only hard on the tie but not nearly as attractive as the Windsor knot.
I shouldn’t leave you hanging on the ropes here because you must know that Edward, the former King of England, became so smitten with Mrs. Simpson that he wanted to marry her and make her the queen. The Archbishop of Canterbury was outraged, as was much of the upper class of English society. The outcome was that Edward abdicated the throne and became the Duke of Windsor and Mrs. Simpson achieved her life-long desire to become a member of British royalty, as she was called the Duchess of Windsor.
While all of this business about the former King of England may be of some interest to folks who enjoy the antics of royalty, the fact of this matter is that it does nothing to answer why men used to wear ties but in recent years have abandoned them in droves. I suspect that my grandsons would regard neckties as quaint. For myself, I must confess that I believe that I enjoyed wearing neckties, which I purchased for myself here in the United States as well as in several European ports of call. Beyond that, women of my generation knew that a necktie as a gift had just the right combination of a slight bit of affection together with an arms-length attitude which said, “Don’t rush things.” When a man bought a new necktie, he could not wait to wear it, knowing that doing so made him feel better. At least that was true in my case. And so I regret seeing the demise of the cravats or neckties but there is not much I can do about it. If neckties are a thing of the past, such as $2 gasoline, I suppose that we will then all have to accept the inevitable.
The final thought in my unanswered questions has to do with Cubans. For reasons unknown to me, when I could see, I thought that females wearing Cuban heels were very attractive. Women wearing spike heels were to be avoided at all costs. But women with Cuban heels always struck me as fascinating. Now, while we are on the subject of Cuban heels, it naturally follows that castanets should also be considered. My unanswered question is whether any musical composer has produced a solo for castanets. I would also like to know whether there are soprano castanets or tenor castanets or bass castanets. But no one is around to give me that answer.
A final thought about Cuba has to do with why we have maintained an angry posture toward the Cubans for more than half a century. I know that screamers like Jesse Helms and Joe McCarthy grew violent when they were confronted with the thought of a communist state ninety miles off our coast. But the fact is that over the years we have come to do business with real communists who come from Moscow, starting with Joseph Stalin. Then in recent years, our sainted President looked into the eyes of the Communist dictator of Russia and announced that he could see his soul. But that seems to have made no difference to Americans who hate the Cubans, contending that all of them are Communists.
All things considered, I am an admirer of the Cuban people. They are energetic and bright. One of them is a senator from this great state of New Jersey. His name is Menendez. When it comes to being angry, it seems to me that the Cubans have more reason to be angry with the United States than we have to be angry at them. For all these years, the United States has been an occupier of Guantanamo Bay, which is part of the Cuban mainland. As long as we are occupiers in a foreign country, I believe we have very little to complain about to the Cubans.
But nonetheless, my final unanswered question is, “Why are we so angry with the Cubans and why has it lasted so long?” If we can get along with Vladimir Putin, why can’t we get along with Fidel and Raoul Castro? My question goes unanswered. And whatever happened to Cuban heels?
Well, there you have four questions that, as of this writing, are unanswered. It may well be that when my days have run their course, those questions will still remain unanswered. But I have done my duty in bringing those questions from the basement up to the conference room, where they can be debated. I know there may be no answers within my lifetime, but there may be hope. If Wallis Warfield Simpson, the twice-divorced St. Louisan could achieve her life-long ambition and become a member of the British royal family, there is hope that my unanswered questions will soon be answered.
E. E. CARR
July 9, 2008
Essay 326
~~~
Kevin’s commentary: I’m not sure why one would actually want to be part of the royal family in this day and age, but in the words of one Lillie Carr, I guess Ms. Simpson just had to do the best she could.
Pop recently asked me how I classify an essay as a “favorite.” One of the surefire ways to identify a favorite is when I learn something new. I’ve been tying Windsor and double Windsor knots my whole life; and I’ve known who the Windsors are for ages, but I’ve never put two and two together.
Contrary to Pop’s assumption, however, I’d say I wore a necktie at least a third of my weekends in highschool, for debate. Some kids eschewed them in favor of sweater vests, but honestly you really didn’t want to be a sweater vest kid.
As a bonus, I’d never heard the phrase “cuban heel” before. So there’s that.
And finally, as far as Pop’s other questions go, I’m about as far from an expert on coffee or traffic as one could ask for. Instead of answering any of these queries, I’m left with one of my own — why stay in Millburn for so long if you didn’t like it?