A True St. Louis Cardinals Story

The full-page ad above appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Thanks, Charles!) last weekend, after the Red Sox had beaten the Cardinals in Major League Baseball's 2013 World Series.  I loved this ad for its obvious good sportsmanship, and also because it reminded me of two other life experiences.

The first was in 1961, as we on the New Trier Swim Team were about to swim against Evanston, our arch-rivals.  Our coach, Dave Robertson, in his characteristic soft-spoken way, told us, "It is easy to be a good winner, but it's hard to be a good loser.  So, today, let's do the easy thing."  (We won the meet.)

The second was in 2005.  I was riding Rocinante west to California, to my brother Bob's house.  (Shirl would later fly to Burbank, then we'd ride together on a two-week motorcycle tour of California and western Nevada.)  As I headed across Missouri on I-70, I was following a maroon station wagon with a St. Louis Cardinals sticker on the rear window.  Both the car and I pulled off at a service area, and parked.  As I was following the woman and her two children into the restaurant, I called to her.

"Excuse me, Ma'am,  May I ask you a question about the Cardinals sticker on your car?"

"Sure," she said, "what do you want to know?"

"Well, I grew up in Chicago, and I was a Cubs fan, but I have always been curious," I asked, "how far across Missouri one must drive before he stops meeting Cardinals fans, and starts to meet Kansas City Royals fans?"

"Denver," she replied.

A New Trier Classmate, Met on Facebook

Hey, Jim! How come I never met you at New Trier?

Or did I, and am I just having a senior moment?

Anyway, I find you to be a sensible and stalwart classmate here on FB.

I've often wondered. I was in Mr Rude's homeroom and played trumpet for Sam Mages, but my friends were the butt-smokers who hung out around Chris's Snack Shop.

Gotcha! You probably knew my girlfriend, Patsy Burmeister (violinist), and my best friend in the Wilmette schools, Doug Mitchell (drummer).

I got lucky when I met Gut after coming home from the war. She turned me around (and around and around).

Gut?

Gudy - not Gut. It's pronounced like "Judy".

A classmate?

She was a friend of the waitress at the pizza place I worked at when going to UICC. Gudy is from Ecuador, S Am.

Two of my brothers served in Vietnam. George (Dr. Cornog speaking) McDougall, NT '60, was in the Navy on the heavy cruiser USS Boston, CAG-1, and only spent one night in country, though they shelled the North for some months. Walter, NT '64 was in the Field Artillery, and caught some serious Hell. But both made it home. I flunked the flight physical for the Navy in '64, and ended up 3A for the remainder of the war years.

Are you bilingual?

I am in Cluj, Romania this month. The name Kucera could be from Eastern Europe. Is it?

My Vietnamese is almost as good as my Spanish, but we speak American at home. I was a lumberjack when they drafted me in 1966 so they put me in the Signal Corps to patch the holes we shot in our own wires.

Sounds like fun.

Dad came from Prague when he was 2 yr old. They had passage booked on the Titanic but they missed the boat.

Amazing.
I used to manage a woods crew for the Beebe River Bobbin Mill in Campton, NH. Where were you in the woods?

High lead logging in Oregon and Snoqualmie Washington. We used cables to drag the logs in because it was too steep for cat logging. I saw one log (on a 12' bed) twice. That'll probably never happen again.

I learned rigging-slinger, choker-setter and 2nd loader, but my favorite job was whistle-punking.

I have never seen Prague. Everyone tells me I must, so one day I shall detour through it on my way back to Stuttgart (where I keep my Euro-car, a 1993 BMW for which I paid 2250 Euros in 2008). Here is a look at Beebe River. I was plant manager for North American Rockwell from Dec. 1972 through June, 1975. http://www.hope1842.com/beeberiver.html

You are WAY beyond my knowledge of the woods. We had a forester (Dave Ash) who supervised the woods crew. We only cut about 5% of our maple needs, but it kept us able to buy logs at the best prices.;-)

We owned 30,000 acres in NH, and 70,000 in the Adirondacks of upstate NY.

Rockwell sold it all for $100/acre, as part of their liquidation of America's leading textile machinery companies. SOBs.

A bobbin was typically 9" long. We could use logs of smaller diameter and lower quality than the furniture companies. In NH they were known as "bobbin logs."

Only needed a 10" clear-cut. But the product was incredibly precise. +/- 0.001" in diameter, and +/- 0.009" total sweep over the length, when turned on centers.

Our 17 lathes were rotary-head specials built for Draper Corporation in the 1930s. We averaged 115,000 bobbins per day in Fiscal Year 1975, 27,000,000 units that year (the record).

That required only about 5.3 MMBf of hard maple. Five bobbins per board ft.

Are you living near Chicago?

Beebe River could have been Meadowbrook (Snoqualmie) in 1963. The loggers' hotel had a cafe in it. They made a box lunch (2 sandwiches, pie and a thermos of coffee) for a dollar. There were 2 bar on the street to the sawmill. One was always open.

I love it.

I will come to Chicago next June. I hope to meet you.

We're in Bensenville now. Mostly we've been in DuPage County after I sold the house in Logan Square. What a long strange trip it's been.

Agreed. Peace, brother!

:-)

Almost 1:00 AM here. Good night, Jim!

Night, Duncan. I look forward to seeing you.

Internet had job descriptions for all but whistle punking. So, I am guessing that was an extra-curricular passtime?

Reminds me of a submariner I knew, who didn't take a piss, but rather "blew bow buoyancy."

The punk laid a line from the landing to where the woods crew was setting chokers, etc. It had a squeeze handle on it and when you squoze it the air horn on the triple drum tooted. Once meant stop (or start if you were stopped). Twice meant back it up and three times meant go ahead slow Two toots , pause, then tree toots meant "tightline", where the tripledrum guy made the cables go forward and ack at the same time. You could lift a whole truckload off the ground like that.

10:24am

Fascinating.

Seven Long meant someone was hurt or dead. If it was followed by two short toots it meant "Bring a stretcher." You could hear the air horns all around, and we all prayed for the two toots when we heard the seven long.

New Trier and Wilmette Recollections Shared by an Old Friend

Message from a classmate:

Duncan,
      I'm still enjoying the reunion.  And I'm very grateful you brought Joseph McCloskey with you.  Also, I enjoyed learning that you dwell in the environs of my alma mater - a wonderful part of our country. 
      We survived Sonnenfeld [our excellent, demanding, fifth grade teacher in Wilmette] together.  You likely may not remember me, as I spent a considerable amount of time in the silent "conference" room working independently with serenity - efforts to manage my behavior.  My solitude was commonly interrupted when Skip Dunham was sent in; he would educate me on the sexuality of the world. 
      Glad you convinced me that nobody was cut from the swimming or diving team.  I was self-centered enough back then to interpret not being "chosen" as a premier as being cut.  At least now I can begin my recovery.
      Anyway it was great to see you and identify that the spirit of your youth still prevails.

  Regards,
  George Brannen

Reply: 

Dear George,

It was good to see you, my friend.  I know what you mean by "still enjoying the reunion."  Me, too.

Interesting to read your story about your interpretation of being put on the "C Squad."  I had the identical reaction when, as an eight year-old, I was told that I was being put on a "farm team" in the Wilmette Little League.  Proud of my ability as a sandlot/Cub Scout League softball player, I was so hurt not to be put in the "majors" that I quit, and never played competitive baseball again. 

As for the "C Squad," it had a few remarkable successes.  Mike Doscher was a C-Squad member for three years, then made the State Meet Team as a senior.  He had skipped a grade, and was a year younger than we were.  Once he matured a bit, he got really fast.  I do not remember his event in the State Meet, but I think he may have been our second man in the 200 free, as Dave Robertson had moved David Lyons into the 50 and 100 for the state meet, letting Terry "T-bone" Townsend handle the 200 and the 400, events they had shared all season long in the dual meets.  This left a second slot open in the distance events.  As it happened, Lyons and T-bone brought us four first places in the solo freestyle events.  The last time I saw Mike Doscher, he was swimming in the finals of the NCAA meet at N. C. State in 1963, as a member of Stanford's 400-yard Freestyle Relay team.   ...

Our meeting and conversation were part of the Plan.  There are no coincidences.  That realization has come to me only in the last three years. 

Warmly,

Duncan

My A- for "Gross Illiteracy." (Alternate title: "Playing to a Tough Crowd")

There follows a Facebook conversation I have had over the past 18 months with my high school classmate author Lois Borkan Morris. [Posted with Lois' permission.]

May 12, 2010

 I hope this note finds you well and still thrilled with life. You can read about mine at the link below.
 
Your admirer and friend,

Duncan

Da Da Da Da Life Goes On*

dcmcd2.blogspot.com

May 14, 2010

Lois Borkan Morris

Hi. Your present and immediate future life sound exciting, speaking of thrilled with life. After your note last year about your brother (at Penn), I was about to counter with a bit of bragging about my outrageous radical activist criminal attorney sister, Susan Jordan...but then she died. Now, nearly a year later, I'm beginning to research a memoir about her, her career, our relationship. Much about the 60s, 70s, decisions made and life courses taken. Like there we were in Chicago August 1968, where she was in law school and I had returned to be married to my future ex-husband. Comes the day of the Democratic Convention and she's in the riot and I'm at a bridal shower.


And going back just a handful of years from that, to 1963, there I am writing you a letter in code, Jack Kennedy gets killed, life changes. And keeps changing.


Be well and enjoy your journeys. May we all. //L

July 19, 2011

Duncan C. McDougall

• Lois wrote: "And more: Duncan, how does the current government of and younger generation in Romania deal with the, uh, unpleasant realities of the past?"
  
  There are clearly visible scars in the demeanor of older Romanians, who are still quite reserved and formal in their modes of behavior and communication. Younger college-age (and just beyond) Romanians seem to me to be enjoying their European-hood, are ultra-modern users of the Internet and social media, and are doing a lot of travel in Western Europe. But still, they are pretty down on their country. They find that Romania, and Romanians are denigrated by their Italian "cousins," and that hurts their self-images. (I heard reports of beaches in Italy that had banned Romanians. The Romanians blame their expatriate "gypsies" for this image, but suffer nevertheless from the discrimination.)
  
  Male Romanians tend to be pessimistic. "Those in power are the former Communists, and until they die, things will never really change," is an oft-heard remark. The young men seem to buy into this thesis. They have not learned to take charge in a representative democracy, which can be done by a small minority that votes as a swing-vote block. (Witness Youth in electing B.O. here, and the Tea Party today in giving him fits.) The bureaucracy is huge and lacks a service attitude. The people exist to serve the government, rather than vice-versa.
  
  Female Romanians in the university town I lived in (Cluj) seem far better-adjusted then do men. They really take care of themselves, and they like to be noticed and appreciated by men. Of course, their beauty and charm are not lost on us auslanders, and many end up marrying foreigners and moving abroad. In general, the women evince self-confidence to a much greater degree than do Romanian men.

Those are my personal observations/opinions. Nothing more.


Thanks for asking!

July 20

Lois Borkan Morris

• So interesting, and so different from the Chinese, who make no comments about their government in public or private, as far as I can tell (when I'm drunk in China I understand every word). The younger generation is SO techno and Western-cool. And they're so into money. The older (our) generation that I've met--mostly in the arts--seem wistful. The bad old days were better for the artist than the profit-makes-perfect era.
  
  I've never traveled in eastern Europe, though when I was ed-in-chief for Arthur Frommer publishing, I wrote a guide to Romania in one of our newsletters, info culled from the tourist office in NY. I got more kudos from readers for that than for guides to countries I've been to. Hmm.
  
  Are you returning to Romania? //L

July 21

Duncan C. McDougall

• Yes, I will go back to Romania every chance I get. I love many people there, and it is a beautiful country, especially in Transylvania. Have you seen my photos from there, both in FB and in my blog?
  
  Doing Utmost, Never Caving, Always Nimble



July 21

Lois Borkan Morris

• Yes, I've seen the great photos. Are you going back to teach next semester? But you are coming to the reunion, right?
  
  Thanks for the book plug, by the way...



July 22

Duncan C. McDougall

• Dear LBM:
  
  No thanks needed. Tian/Morris is a great book. A page-turner about opera, of all things! (I have long loved a good biography, and this one I could not put down.)
  
  Yes, I am planning to come to the reunion, where I will attempt to give you a belated hug. Gay Weake and I are to be co-hosting the nearly blind and still beloved Uncle Joe McCloskey, if, as he puts it, he is "still around come October."
  
  I am to be teaching for my New Hampshire university in the fall, but only online MBA courses, so I will be free to accept my daughter's invitation to accompany her to Buenos Aires in September [a trip we decided to postpone for a year], and to fly to Budapest for an accreditation visitation scheduled for the week before our reunion. I hope to go to Europe a week or so early so that I can visit friends in Cluj, which is only a six-hour bus ride from Budapest [a trip recently completed].

Finally, I hope you saw my "then" in "seem better-adjusted then do men" as a typo. I would have circled it in a student's paper. ;-)

-DcMcD



July 25

Lois Borkan Morris

• So glad you liked the book, Duncan. What an interesting job to write someone's memoir who didn't remember the context of what was going on around him, because he was a child, and whose childhood I researched, finding details that at first he fought me on, such as the specific actions the Red Guard took against named teachers at the middle schools he went to (oh I do love research).
  
  I remember Mr. McCloskey with great respect and affection. I had him for English senior year, I think it was. Were you in class with me?
  
  Buenos Aires (good opera city, btw), Budapest, Cluj, Chicago--eek, but surely advernturous.
  
  I have given you an A- minus for your then/than mixup--or I would have in junior year English at NT, where Mr. Jensen (who also taught German) had a list of Gross Illiteracies. But since the advent of email and texting and all that, your personal suffering will suffice.