In the Midwest we are plain speakers. For example, turn to Carl Schroth’s letter to support my application to join the Army in wartime. (The Right Way; The Wrong Way; The Army Way”) He listed his Mobil Gas station as being at the corner of Clayton Road and North and South Road. Clayton Road was called that because it ran from St. Louis to Clayton, Missouri. Not much mystery there. North and South Road actually ran north and south. So what could be plainer than that?
Immediately south of Clayton, MO., on North and South Road, lay the village of Richmond Heights. Just below came Brentwood. And that’s where we found some answers to plainly worded questions. Brentwood represented pay dirt.
In the first case, you will note after reading the script of the story about the Plaque at 32 Sixth Avenue, that Don Meier’s name is missing. It’s now 58 years later and I can’t get over the omission of Don’s name. In any case, I had really begun to doubt my own intellect. I started to ask myself whether Don Meier ever existed. Did I make up the story about driving him to work? Since 1950 when I began to ask about Don, AT&T turned my questions aside. In point of fact, Don’s records were buried along with mine and with all the other men who irked the Company by enlisting instead of waiting for the draft. In contract bargaining in 1950 and again in 1951, I raised the issue of why Don’s name was missing from the plaque in the lobby of 32 Sixth Avenue. I got no answers.
Finally, Judy and I took a flier. We called the Brentwood, Missouri city library. Brentwood was Don’s hometown. A very helpful woman suggested in plain language that if we called Joe or Barbara Gill of the Brentwood Historical Society we might find what we were after. So we called Joe Gill and asked about Don’s name being preserved in his hometown. And while we were at it, I asked Joe if he had ever heard of Gualdoni’s Grocery – located just below Dead Man’s Curve on that famous road, North & South. (See my essay on “I’d Be Ashamed” under the section called “John Gualdoni, A Prince Of A Man”). Joe said he had heard of John Gualdoni and might have a picture of his store. He also said that Brentwood had a large plaque right in front of City Hall honoring men lost during the war. He said he’d look into both thoughts that I had raised.
So we sat back prepared to wait for a long time while Joe Gill looked in his archives and at the plaque in front of City Hall. Within a week, Joe Gill sent us pictures of John Gualdoni’s store and several shots of Don Meier’s name on the plaque in Brentwood. There was no bill. Joe said he hoped we’d enjoy the photos. By return mail I sent Joe a check to help the next person asking questions of the Brentwood Historical Society.
I was mighty glad to have the photographs but mostly, we had established that Don Meier lived and rode to work with me – regardless of the fact that AT&T seems to have buried his records so deep that no one can find them.
Don was killed 58 years ago. I believe he was lost in the battle for Tarawa. AT&T may not remember him, but boy, I do.
E. E. Carr
August 24, 2001
Essay ~#12
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Related to The Plaque, so posted out of order. Poor man. Seems like Pop did everything he could have done.
Seems like there’s a serious lack of essays during 1998 and 1999. We’re not actually skipping forward very far in terms of essay count, but it seems like Pop took some break years!
From Judy:
Hi Kevin,
Your question on why Pop did not write essays in 1998 and 1999 was a mystery and sent me on a search. 1998 was easy. Remember that the stroke was precipitated by withholding Coumadin prior to surgery to replace the aortic valve. After the stroke, the surgery was postponed three months and took place in February, 1998. His 1998 exercise records show that he did not return in earnest to exercising until April of that year.
His 1998 and 1999 correspondence files prove that he was in top writing form…he wrote with wit and the subject matter was all over the map. A check of his medical history shows that this period after surgery was uneventful.
That said, perhaps what really happened was that he just forgot about essay writing after being down for a while. There were just three in 2000. It looks like his first essay on return to essay writing was in May 2001 with “Lillie,” the essay about his mother. Perhaps the Lillie essay was prompted by urging from Harry Livermore or Howard Davis. Maybe Suzanne. I think that what really got it restarted was the request to be the first fellow in this area to contribute to the World War II story telling project for the Library of Congress. He jumped into that project enthusiastically and wrote the script for his video. That project took most of the summer but put him back on a disciplined writing schedule.