ST. LOUIS BLUES
This is a small St. Louis story which comes from a news release from Washington. In 1764, Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau, French explorers and fur traders, established a town on the west bank of the Mississippi River and named it after one of the French monarchs, Louis XV. You will be surprised to know the name of the town is St. Louis as in the St. Louis Blues.
By the year 1800, German immigrants began to come to St. Louis and they quickly outnumbered the French. By 1900 or thereabouts, the town was considered German and in large measure, remains that to this day, particularly when the environs are considered.
Germans had to have their beer gardens and the major one of them was run by a man called Chris Von Der Ahe. To promote his beer garden, Chris established a professional baseball club around the year 1884 which he called the St. Louis Browns. The nickname of the Browns came from the uniforms that Von Der Ahe’s employees wore in his elaborate beer garden. The Browns played in the American League, the so called “Junior circuit” with the National League being the “Senior circuit.”
Over the years, the Browns passed to the Ball and DeWitt families after Chris Von Der Ahe died. In 1922, they came within one game of winning the American League pennant, but in those years, there was no “Wild Card Team,” so the Browns simply went home after the season. From that point on, their efforts for the next 20 years were met with no success at all. In large measure, baseball people more or less felt sorry for the Browns.
While the Browns were basically failures at professional baseball, two other St. Louis industries were meeting with great success from the 1890’s to 1950 or 1955. First was the beer brewing business and second was the shoe industry.
After the war, we were very lucky to rent a flat on Wyoming Avenue in South St. Louis. The aroma of beer and yeast were in the air at all times as that flat was with walking distance of three breweries. There was Alpen Brau Brewery, the Greideick Brothers Brewery, and the Falstaff Brewery. In the end, the Budweiser brewery took over all the other plants in St. Louis, including the three within smelling distance of our flat on Wyoming Avenue.
Shoes were also a big success in St. Louis. There was the Endicott Johnson company and the International Company with their Buster Brown shoes for youngsters leading the way in sales all across the United States. My sister had a secretary’s job at Endicott Johnson and it seemed in 1938 to offer life time employment.
And so there was the little poem about the breweries, the shoe companies and the Browns. It went –
First in booze,
First in shoes,
And last in the American League.
St. Louis, I believe, now has only the giant Budweiser plant in South St. Louis. The shoe companies have long since gone. And the Browns, in a shameful deal, were sold to some outsiders in 1953 and are now the Baltimore Orioles. So no more booze or shoes or the American League.
Ah, but St. Louisans should take heart. An announcement last month from law enforcement authorities in Washington has named St. Louis as the “most crime ridden city in the country.” Think of that! It’s not last in the American League or any other league any more. St. Louis actually leads the league. Think of that!
Can you imagine how this makes the authorities in Newark or Chicago’s South Side or Brownsville, Texas feel as they see the mantle of leadership go to St. Louis? The same feelings of dejection must also be felt in Los Angeles and New Orleans. It is quite plausible that St. Louis ought to be the most crime ridden city on the North American continent. If that is true, the St. Louisans would have to beat Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Mexico City, but I am quite confident that my old home town can easily handle these Mexican upstarts.
I am an old man and for decades I have been burdened with the thought that St. Louis was last in the American League. But no more. Newark, and Chicago’s South Side and the seamy side of Miami and all those other fleshpots in Los Angeles and New Orleans will now have to look up to St. Louis as the leader when it comes to being the most crime ridden city in the country. That, my friends, is an accomplishment worth waiting a lifetime for.
“St. Louis Woman,
With her diamond rings,
She led that man around,
By her apron strings.”
Thanks to W. C. Handy
LUCKY TO SPEAK ENGLISH
Once in awhile, if you stick around long enough, you may get lucky. For example, when the stock market was booming, AT&T spun off Lucent in 1996. That was sort of a lucky gift. As were Lucent’s two for one stock splits in April, 1998 and January, 1999. All those new shares started off at $29 and grew over time to somewhere around $60. So it is quite clear that many of us were very lucky to receive these gifts from a never ending boom in the stock market.
It doesn’t help my premise that Lucent not long ago seemed headed for a rate of less than one dollar per share. It has picked up recently, being traded at about $1.50. But that is a diversion. I am just going to concentrate on being given Lucent shares as a lucky gift.
Aside from personal luck, countries can be lucky also. Before World War II, the international language – lingua franca – was French. Many European countries spoke French as a second language. The Russians and the Poles regarded French as the language of sophisticated citizens. It was widely spoken in other European countries including Scandinavia.
But then came World War II. English started to replace French. In any case, the possessions of the British Empire made English the language of choice in India, Hong Kong, Nepal, Egypt, East and West Africa and many other countries. There are some cases in Nepal or in Ghana or Nigeria where English is used often to the exclusion of the native tongue because the language of the country is not adaptable to the commercial needs of the post World War II world. And there are many cases where the natives of one part of the country are unable to speak to their countrymen from other sections of the country, so speaking English is the solution.
In the early 1970’s when I took up duties of dealing with all the communications companies around the world, there were a few countries where we required a translator. One of the first lessons we learned was not to ask the American Embassy in such a country to recommend a translator. Uniformly, they offered someone from the Embassy staff who very often tried to take over the negotiations with the foreign telecommunication company.
In a high percentage of the cases, someone from the foreign administration spoke English and translated for the rest of the delegation. In most cases, the English speaker was the head of the foreign delegation. This was the case in many of the Arab countries with whom we negotiated. As a general rule in Arab countries, a government official was responsible for telecommunications policy because such policy was a government rather than a private function. On one occasion in Algeria, the leader of the Algerian delegation was a cabinet minister in that country. His native tongue was Arabic. Our meeting took place shortly after Algeria had successfully worked to gain the release of the American hostages who had been held for many months in an Iranian prison. When I spoke at the outset of the meeting, I thanked the minister for Algeria’s efforts on behalf of the American prisoners. His reply was simple and straightforward. He said, “It was our duty. We were glad to be of help.” I was deeply impressed by his thought that it was a matter of duty to the Algerian government.
One place we never had trouble was in the Scandinavian counties. In meetings, the Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns kept us on our toes with their responses. In Sweden and Denmark particularly, our counterparts felt free to joke with us in English. My retirement from AT&T took place 18 years ago, but I am still in contact by e-mail and written correspondence with two good Swedish friends. The dialogue is in English although I have a Swedish-English dictionary around for ready reference.
The point I am trying to make is that the world came to us where the English language is concerned. The Europeans, the Asians and many of the Arab countries mastered the English language. Sad to say, the Americans have not mastered theirs. That is why I said at the outset of this mini-essay that we are very lucky people. Indeed, the world came to us on the subject of language. We are very fortunate.
Winston Churchill once said the United States and Great Britain were completely united, divided only by our common language. If we can communicate with our French and German neighbors, and with our Arab and Asian friends, perhaps in time, if we are again lucky, we may even be able to communicate with our friends in old Blighty. Rule Brittania! Britania rules the waves.
APHASIA REDUX
Last November, I wrote an essay on the effects of aphasia which often follows a stroke. The idea was to list some of the effects of problems that aphasia sufferers might encounter.
As time goes on, it seems that the effects of aphasia tend to diminish. In my case, I have accommodated the thought that the effects of aphasia will be with me for the rest of my life. Rather than being distraught about that turn of events, I laugh at some of my errors in speech and it seems that the name of a person or a thing which will not come to mind at the moment, will appear effortlessly later in the day. Aside from laughter at my failings and patience in waiting for a word to show up, it helps to write essays and letters to exercise my brain, which is what the therapist at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation ordered in the first place.
Now here are three of my recent verbal faux pas which tell me that aphasia is hanging on in my mind. Happily, each case of misidentification became an object for laughter rather than for distress. All of them involve my wife Judy which may suggest that she enjoys the laughter as much as I do.
In the first case, I meant to tell Judy that it was my intention to eat some “amazons.” The word that was missed was “almonds.” Where that monster river in South American or the on-line book seller came from is anybody’s guess. I long since quit trying to figure that sort of stuff out. Perhaps a neurologist or even a psychiatrist might offer an explanation, but I would say after seeing two neurologists, their explanation would be no better than mine. So save your money and come see me. My rates are quite reasonable, but I don’t see HMO patients.
A second word substitute came when Judy started to leave the car in a rain storm. With great solicitation, I asked her if she had her “envelope” with her. Obviously, my intention was to ask if she had an “umbrella.” There was no envelope to be mailed. That word intruded just as Amazon intruded in the almond incident.
Then there was a case when Judy brought up one of my shirts on a hanger from the basement laundry. Judy usually contends that her hangers are not promptly returned, so as soon as she handed me the shirt, I asked her if she would like her “pliers” to be returned. Where did “pliers” come from? I have no idea. Rather than try to figure it out, it seems better to laugh at it.
Well, here are three indications of word substitutions that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject being discussed. But that is the nature of aphasia and it hangs around for a long while. By all means, don’t click your tongue and feel sorry for me. I have never felt sorrow for myself and indeed, these verbal mishaps are the subjects of fun and laughter. The question is, what will I say next?
So if we are ever speaking, and I make a reference to something as foreign as Amazons, or envelopes or pliers, or whatever, please point it out to me so that we both can have a laugh.
E. E. CARR
March 3, 2003
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St. Louis had its title stripped by Detroit! Memphis and Oakland are also hotly contesting the title. Urban poverty can produce some pretty intense cycles of violence, and our society hasn’t found (or attempted to find?) a viable solution for that yet. But don’t worry guys, the manufacturing industry is going to come back to Detroit and everything will be fine again — all the politicians still tell us so.