"The Burning of the World" by Scott W. Berg (2023)

 So much has been written about the Chicago Fire that one would think the topic to be exhausted. Not so. In the hands of Scott Berg the event is explored in a new and ingenious way. There was no Mrs. O'Leary milking her cow. There was a Mrs. Leary, but the fire began at 9 PM, hours after the cow had been milked. There was no lantern for the cow to kick over.

The night before there had been a large fire known as the "Red Flash" fire to the North of where the Leary's lived on DeCoven Street between Jefferson and Clinton. An unseasonably warm October had made the city of mostly wood frame houses a veritable tinderbox, just waiting to be touched off. Most of the Fire Brigades were on stand down from the fire the night before.

What really caused a single dwelling fire to burn so quickly out of control was a combination of an error on the part of the city's fire watch, perched atop the City Hall. Combined with a high South westerly wind which blew flaming embers from DeCoven Street further and further from the point of origin, the fire was quickly out of control. It would burn for 2 days, beginning at 9 PM on the night of October 8th, 1871. 

The book is filled with all the heroics of every disasterous fire, even as the Chicago River, coming off Lake Michigan, boiled. But the real genius of this book is in what happened after the fire. In the age of the telegraph the news spread quickly. And in the age of train travel, fire companies from every state around came by train, each loaded with firefighters and their equipment. 

Within another 48 hours financial aid came pouring in. The "Friends", Quakers from Cincinnati, donated $100,000, providing enough pre cooked soup to feed the city for years if necessary. From this point on the book becomes a tale of what happened next. The political jockeying for the soul of the city was underway. It would wage for over a year, through a winter and an election. 

That election gave way to a Temperance movement and a struggle over "blue laws" to close saloons on Sunday's. No matter that beer and liquor had nothing to do with the fire, the Temperance League saw an opening, and the battle was set.

The big players in this drama were Joseph Medill, the owner of the Chicago Tribune, who became the next Mayor. There was even a new political party formed; the Union-Fireproof Party. The commercial rebuilding began with Marshall Field, owner of the legendary department store. The results were a division between those who wanted to rebuild only in brick rather than wood; setting off an economic clash between the working class, who favored wood as more affordable, and the more well to do, who wanted new fire limits in which buildings would only be of brick. . 

All in all this is an exciting new look at the story of the Great Chicago Fire. That it comes from the pen of Scott Berg should come as no surprise.

A Night in Spain 1979.

 Housebound almost 5 years now. An occasional trip to the restaurant, but not too  often. You'd think I'd be bored. Not really. You see, there is a story to everything you see on my walls. Right down to the little stuff tucked in the frames. 

Take, for instance, this photo. A strip of 4 for 20 Francs, taken in France in early 1979. It is one of only 2 photos I have of me, Dennis in the middle, and Ron Tabb together. That the photo was taken in France I remember distinctly, because I had "zee moustache!" 😀 But this story, several weeks later, took place in Spain.

It was a cold, rainy Spring night, and we got caught in a downpour. The last boat back to the ship  had gone. All the local inns were closed. Soaking wet we found an unlocked car. One of those which ran off a propane tank in the rear. You'd stop and exchange tanks, paying only for the gas. Like a grill. Had to get down to our skivvies because were were soaked! Langlands wouldn't and got real sick, high fever....

Imagine the surprise when the owner came down at the crack of dawn and found the car filled with two half naked guys and one with teeth chattering! 🤣😂🤣😂

I remember him screaming Spanish at us so fast we were hysterical! Drunk as skunks! Not to mention the smell from the smoke! Benefit of our Rating we had no Captain's Mast. 

Dennis has faded away somewhere, chosing to stay away from the past, and be absented from the present.

Ron Tabb tragically passed away about 30 years ago. He couldn't have been more than 40. Married to a girl named Candy, they had 2 kids and lived somewhere near Norman, Oklahoma. I used to laugh at that. I'd be,  "Norman? Never heard of it!"

You can't buy memories, or freinds, like those.........

"The Night Before Christmas"- Read by Louis Armstrong (1971)

 Louis Armstrong loved kids. In the summertime he would come out of his modest home in Queens, near old Shea Stadium, and buy the neighborhood kids ice cream. At other times he would have "block parties". His own impoverished childhood was probably the impetus for this.

He was the reason I began coin collecting. His official bio at the time gave his birthday as July 4th, 1900. So, my first coin was  a 1900 Indian Head Penny. I bought it at the Hobby House on Coney Island Avenue for 75 cents. I was 11 years old and used to fantasize that this coin may have passed through his hands at sometime. I still have it. (His birth date has since been disputed and is currently listed as August 4th, 1901)

On February 26th of 1971, the year he passed away, he was home in Queens, in the same house which is now his museum, and recorded "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on his reel to reel tape recorder. Whether he meant it to be released is not really known. He had thousands of these kind of tapes on his personal collection. You can hear some of them at the museum. Each one has a hand drawn cover which he did in pencil, ink and crayon.

On March 1st he began his last commercial appearance, playing for a few weeks at the Waldorf Astoria. 2 days after the last show he had the first of two heart attacks and by July 6th he passed away in the hospital, 1 floor away from his manager, Joe Glaser, who also passed away shortly after. The two had been together since 1935.

That Christmas his recording of the poem was distributed by the cigarette manufacturer Lorillard, which pressed it onto a million 45-rpm records as a free giveaway for anyone who bought a carton of cigarettes. Some candy store owners sold the records for about 75 cents to neighborhood kids. I was one of them. I had it for decades but lost track of it over the years. Luckily you can still hear it, and download it, from you tube.

Merry Christmas from Louis Armstrong. ❤

Seeing Santa Claus - 1957

I first posted this photo last year. It was taken at A&S on Fulton Avenue in Brooklyn. I was just 2 months past my 3rd birthday, yet I remember this vividly. And not from the photo, which I had not seen for almost 60 years when I was 9. And that was over exposed and very fuzzy. I still have the Brownie camera with which it was taken. Dad never let Mom take the 35mm out by herself. She would definitely have lost it somewhere. It was only 2 years ago when I found the photo and used the simple app on my tablet to make it more viewable. Prior to that I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at! 

I remember that whole year very well for 3 reasons. The first reason was that this was the year my Dad had pneumonia, and he was never ill. Ever. Also, with the luck of the Irish, he was ill during President Eisenhower's 2nd recession, both of which seemed to coincide with his 2 heart attacks. That was in the summer when I was just a few months short of turning 3. 

The 2nd reason was because this was the year when Mom "lost" the car in the parking lot at Riis Park. She had no clue as to where she'd left it, and that was a huge parking lot. Still is. And this necessitated a long ride in a tow truck by the Police to find it, riding up and down the rows of cars before Mom spotted the 1955 turqoise and black Plymouth 4 door behemoth. 

And then, when we got back home to 3619 Bedford Ave, on the corner of Kings Highway, she hit a fire hydrant! She never drove again, though she kept her license current so she could cash checks. It was not a good day for Mom, but to a kid just shy of 3 years old, this day was a real adventure!

The 3rd reason I remember the year so well is because it was also the year I learned to fly a kite! That was on Armistice Day, November 11th, which back then was a Federal Holiday. I still remember the Disabled Vets of the First World War selling the green and red Poppie pins for 2 cents at the entrance to the elevated Subway station on Kings Highway. They got around by using their gloved hands to propel themselves on "dollies" which served as their missing legs. 

My own Grandfather was already dead, a belated victim of that same war. He passed away with the steel plate in his head where the artillery had taken away part of his skull. He was a New York City Policeman who used alcohol to ease the daily pain for 25 years, which brought on the heart attack which took his life at age 43. 

So, this memory is crystal clear. It was a weekday, and we took the Subway to Fulton Avenue, which involved changing trains, probably at the Prospect Park station. 

By the time December rolled around I was pretty much aware of everything that was going on. And so remembering Santa is a cinch. I asked for a fire truck and a tank, which actually shot plastic cannonballs. I used it to shatter just about every Christmas ornament on our Christmas tree. I also got a Cowboy belt with 2 cap pistols and a Cowboy hat. Peace on Earth! 🤣 

There were other gifts, such as clothing, but that didn't really register with a 3 year old. As a matter of fact I remember feeling "cheated", as those things were necessities, so I would have gotten them anyway. And that is the story behind my memory of this photo. Still not sure who took the photo though, because that is my Mom on the extreme right.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year - Max and Dave Fleischer (1936)

Once again I am going to post a cartoon from Christmas past in the days leading up to the holiday. I always loved this old classic. I’m posting it again because it’s a great example of the quality of the animation in the 1930's. And, Max and Dave Fleischer were two of the best.

They often worked separately on various projects, though their best works are probably the collaborations they produced with the Popeye cartoons and Betty Boop series. They also made a boatload of feature cartoons like this one, which is a wonderful little story about an orphanage on Christmas morning. If you have seen this before, I hope that you enjoy it once more. 

"Kilroy Was Here" - A Christmas Story

"Kilroy Was Here" has been part of the American vocabulary ever since World War Two. And the story behind it is not often told. In a way, it involves Christmas,  so I thought I would post it here and tell the story of the phrase and also how it connects to Christmas. 

During the Second World War, when the United States was turning out ships and planes at a rapid rate, "checkers" were required to make the rounds of the shipyards and factories, inspecting the work. When they were done they placed a mark, with chalk, on the item to show that it had passed inspection. The appropriate riveter/welder would then get credit for the work, and hence, paid accordingly.

Soldiers began to see these marks, along with the words "Kilroy Was Here", wherever they went during the war. Wherever they went, they assumed they were the first, only to be greeted by the words that had become a slogan. There were now several Kilroy’s from coast to coast. But only one was the original.

There is even a story about the Potsdam Conference in 1945 which concerns “Kilroy.” A modern outhouse had been built for the exclusive use of Truman, Stalin, and Churchill. The first person to use it was Stalin. When he finished and came out he asked his aide, "Who is this Kilroy?"

At any rate, fast forward a bit to the end of 1946. The Second World War was over and the shipyards were shuttered. An unemployed shipyard worker named James Kilroy was facing a bleak Christmas, with no toys for the kids. That's when he first heard of the search for the real Kilroy!

The 2nd photo, below, is from the Boston American, dated December 23, 1946 and shows the Kilroy family with a trolley car in their front yard. They had won the trolley in a radio contest put forth by The Transit Company of America, offering the trolley as a prize to the individual who could prove that they were the "real" Kilroy. Of the forty odd men who made that claim, only James Kilroy was able to produce officials from the shipyard, and even some of his fellow riveters, to prove his claim. Having won the prize, he now had to get it home! And there was a blizzard coming! So, the real story involves how it almost didn't make it on time.

But, with the help of the Transit Company of America, and a local railroad spur, along with a truck and a crane, the trolley was delivered on time, where it served many years as a playhouse for James Kilroy's children. It was a Christmas they would never forget. And that, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

"Tenth Avenue Angel" with Angela Lansbury and Margaret O'Brien (1948)

Looking for a great Christmas film? You just found one. It begins in the late summer of 1936 in New York City and winds up on Christmas Eve at midnight. Something went wrong with the upload, so use this link instead.....https://youtu.be/SruIpM523RM?si=W3tJLcFnKumowZFK

Eight-year-old Flavia (Margaret O'Brien) lives in a New York tenement during the Great Depression with her mother Helen (Phyllis Thaxter), and father Joe (Warner Anderson), who's nearly broke and needs a job. Her aunt Susan (Angela Lansbury) lives with them, too. Flavia's thrilled because her aunt's sweetheart, Steve (George Murphy), is returning from a one-year absence. The little girl is unaware that Steve has been in jail for racketeering. She has been told he was a sailor on a long voyage

Flavia lives in a world built around fantasies and white lies told to her by her mother and Aunt. For instance, when she sees a mouse and is afraid, her mother tells her a story that if you catch a mouse and make a wish, it will turn into money. 

In the midst of the Depression everybody's desperate for money. Flavia's mother Helen is pregnant and faces physical complications. Steve is unable to get his old job back, driving a taxi. His  gangster friends offer him a quick job stealing a truck, but Steve's conscience gets the better of him at the last minute and he backs out.

This leads Flavia to catch a mouse, which she hides in a cigar box in an alley near Mac (the blind newspaper man's) stand. She wants the money to buy Steve a taxi cab of his own. Christmas Eve is now fast approaching. 

Two neighborhood youths rob "Blind" Mac (Rhys Williams) and, by coincidence, hide the money in the girl's box after finding it and throwing out the mouse. Flavia then returns and finds that the mouse really has turned into money! She is overjoyed; until the adults accuse her of stealing it from Blind Mac. Her mother has to tell her the truth about the story and Flavia realizes that so many things she has been told are "lies". This leads her to a crisis of faith. 

Her mother is having a rough time in the last stages of her pregnancy and, in an effort to give Flavia back her faith that all will be well, tells her another "story" about how on Christmas Eve all cows kneel at midnight in homage to Jesus' birth, just as in the scene of the Manger. Flavia is desperate to believe this, but assumes it to be just another "lie". 

Still, in desperation for her Mom, she tries to find a kneeling cow in New York City on Christmas Eve. It is now approaching midnight; and the last few minutes of the film. She heads to the railroad by the meat market to find one out the "truth" before it's too late. Her whole world now depends on finding out if cows really do kneel, or if this is just another "lie." 

This is a delightful, and well written drama about a young girl's search to have her faith restored. Along the way she discovers that life is really made up of a balance between truth and faith. And when the church bells ring at midnight; all is revealed.