Please Do Not Smoke The Declaration Of Independence

                     

I help Charles Koehler teach a class at St. Louis Community College.  The class is called "Re-Live the 1904 World's Fair". 

The Fair was held in the largest urban park in the country, Forest Park, not very far from the College.

Our job is to make the Fair come alive for the attendees.  Charles, who is an audio-visual expert, has taken stereopticon pictures from the Fair and figured out how to project them in 3-D on a special silver oxide screen.  The attendees put on 3-D glasses and look at the buildings at the Fair 109 years ago.

"Building" is an understatement.  The smallest building was 8 acres in size; the largest was over 20 acres. So, they are called Palaces.

And there was not enough steel in the United States of America to build the Palaces at the St. Louis World's Fair.  The Palaces were built of wood frames covered in staff, a material that can be shaped and sculpted.  For the class, Charles pulls a piece of staff out of his pocket and holds it up.

He mentions that staff is a mixture of plaster and hemp.

Industrial hemp used to be a major export of Missouri, centered on the port town of Glasgow.  The wealth from hemp helped build the mansions of Glasgow overlooking the Missouri River.

Industrial hemp has many practical uses: rope, cloth, paper.  Then there is a type of hemp which is not industrial; it is recreational.  Charles has to explain that the World's Fair hemp is not the type you smoke.

However, the Federal government has declared both types of hemp illegal to grow in the United States.

One morning, I heard on public radio that the Declaration of Independence was printed on paper made from hemp.  I mentioned that fact at lunch that day, and I also mentioned that I have been puzzled why industrial hemp is banned in the United States.  

Someone at the lunch table knows a botanist who is gives expert testimony in the Missouri court system.  It turns out that industrial hemp is virtually indistinguishable from recreational hemp.  For court rulings, you need a complete plant, roots and all, to distinguish the two types of hemp.

Hence, it was simplest for the Federal government to just ban all types of hemp.  Industrial help became a controlled substance in the 20th Century, and the glory days of Glasgow, Missouri were over.

While Charles is holding up his piece of staff in class, I ask him how he found it.  He explains that he was walking through Forest Park on a sunny day and there was some construction going on.  He looked in a ditch and found the staff, long buried since the World's Fair Palaces were demolished in December 1904.

I then spoof Charles and tell the class that the real story involves being under cover of darkness and the wearing of infrared goggles and the use of a small pickaxe, accompanied by the sound of police sirens as Charles escaped from Forest Park with his staff specimen, which contains a controlled substance.

Hemp once boosted Missouri's economy.  Now it is something to smirk about.  I sure hope nobody tries to smoke the Declaration of Independence.

- . - . - .

A 1-minute video of Judy Garland singing "Meet Me In St. Louis":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JARDvdrAxk

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com