The Lost Art Of Long-Distance Wheelbarrow Pushing

I had never heard of long-distance wheelbarrow pushing until I read a book about coffee in St. Louis, which was the center of coffee production in the early 1900's.

Right in the middle of a book about the St. Louis coffee trade, I came across a section on "The Wheelbarrow Man".

It was 1902, and this guy had accepted a bet that he could push a wheelbarrow from Michigan to San Francisco.  He had a year to do the pushing; the wheelbarrow contained about 200 pounds of clothing and provisions.  He had to start with zero dollars in his pocket and had to finish with $500.  Along the way he had to marry a woman who proposed to him.  The bet was for $1,300.

The guy's name was Harry.  He was a fan of the physical culture movement sweeping the country at the time, so he adopted the last name of Adonis.

When Harry Adonis arrived in St. Louis pushing his wheelbarrow, the head of the Blanke Coffee Company immediately saw a promotional opportunity and painted Harry's wheelbarrow blue - the same blue as a can of Blanke Coffee.  And he wrote "Blanke" on three sides of the wheelbarrow.

It was 1902.  I wondered if women back then dared to propose to men.  It turns out that by the time Harry reached St. Louis, 422 women had already proposed to him, but he didn’t find any of them suitable.

Harry pushed his newly-blue wheelbarrow westward out of St. Louis.  It was 1902, and roads were terrible.  Just getting to St. Louis from Michigan was an accomplishment.  Now he had to cross plains, mountains, and a desert before reaching San Francisco.

Did he make it?

Luckily, California has done a wonderful job of digitizing its old newspapers, and I was able to find a San Francisco newspaper online announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Adonis, trundling a wheelbarrow, had arrived in the city on December 20, 1902.

He made it!  He married proposal number 448 - in Kansas City.  This woman definitely suited him, because she walked with him across plains, mountains, and desert.  Harry had triumphed, almost.  I read that he did not arrive with $500 in his pocket, so he could not collect his bet.

Joining Harry Adonis in the pantheon of American wheelbarrow pushers, is Larry Hightower.  

In 1946, Larry left Ellensburg, Washington, pushing a wheelbarrow, and did not make it home again until 1951.  Larry, who was a veteran, spent all this time going from town to town giving speeches about Americanism to elementary schools.

Larry Hightower pushed his wheelbarrow around the world.  He did not go around the world literally (like Phileas Fogg), but figuratively --- by racking up 25,000 miles pushing his wheelbarrow all over North America.  

It is now the 21^st-Century, and it looks like the art of long-distance wheelbarrow pushing has died out in the United States.  However, there was a guy in New Zealand who named his wheelbarrow "George" and pushed George all around the North Island in 2004 to raise money for charity.

Maybe it is time for Americans to put down our buckets of ice water and pick up the handles of a wheelbarrow to raise money for charity.  After all, a wheelbarrow is versatile: it can carry your supplies during the day, and you can sleep in it at night...or under it if it is raining.    

- . - .- . - . - . 

Here is a 1-minute newsreel segment ("Footloose and Fee Wheeling") showing Larry Hightower pushing his wheelbarrow in the Cascade Mountains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8qW2LrTp0U

Here is a 10-second video of two people who have walked around the world without ever leaving St. Louis' Citygarden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6lSA2gTTNg


- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail

Never Say That Vampires Are Fictional

Somehow, the St. Louis Paranormal Research Society got wind of me.

They heard that I lead Saturday morning vampire tours in St. Louis, and decided that I would be a suitable pre-séance speaker for their Halloween Night paranormal extravaganza, called Dark St. Louis.

What the Paranormal Society did not know is that my vampire tours are light-hearted, based on the novels of Laurel K. Hamilton, who describes a thriving vampire community on St. Louis' waterfront.  I even promise the people on my tour that they will get to see an actual vampire.  Yes, they will see a vampire standing in the window of the Wax Museum on the waterfront....and if they complain that he does not move, I point that vampires can’t move when it is broad daylight.

When the head of the Paranormal Society called me up to invite me to speak at their event, I made an enormous faux pas.  I said: "Yes, I lead vampire tours, but vampires are fictional."

Never, never, never say "vampires are fictional" to the head of the Paranormal Society; he gets all bent out of shape.

Response: "Vampires are REAL.  I have seen people drink human blood."

Obviously I had touched a nerve.  I knew best to not get snarky and ask the guy: "And these people you saw drinking human blood, were they 800 years old?"

I talked to another member of the Paranormal Society.  “I lead vampire tours, focusing on Laurel K. Hamilton’s books about fictional vampires.”

Response: “There is a lot of truth in fiction.”

Then I asked a woman from New Orleans if vampires are fictional.  She did not get bent out of shape; instead she gave me a comprehensive overview.

Response: “Folklore around the world has references to vampires, which would indicate that vampires do exist.  Today, there are people who drink human blood, and call themselves vampires.”

Dr. D. J. Williams (photo above), a sociology professor at Idaho State University, actually did a study of eleven self-identified vampires.

So, for my pre-séance talk at the Halloween Night paranormal extravaganza, I needed to avoid vampires, avoid fiction, and avoid the drinking of human blood.  

I chose the topic: "Dark Moments in St. Louis History".  I covered plagues, the secret spraying of St. Louis children with zinc cadmium sulfite by the United States Army, grave robbing, river pirates, the torture of St. Louis citizens by British mercenary troops, exorcism, and various gruesome deaths.

I also told the audience what the next dark moment will be.  The uranium used for the atomic bomb was refined in St. Louis, and the radioactive waste from the refining process was buried in a landfill in a suburb in 1945.  Currently, there is an underground fire in another landfill working its way straight toward the radioactive landfill.

My conclusion: after so many centuries of misfortune, it is no wonder that St. Louis is a hotbed of paranormal activity.  Hearing this must have pleased the head of the Paranormal Research Society.

- . - .- . - . - . 

Nosferatu, the classic silent movie about a vampire, was re-mastered in 2013.  Here is a 2-minute trailer for the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LOOhc2eML4

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

There Is An Emptiness In Our Household

Petey the dog was found roaming the streets in Jefferson County, the county south of where we live.  This means he had been dumped --- or that he had run away from a bad situation.

A woman with the St. Louis Australian Shepherd Club took an interest in Petey, and declared that he was part Australian Shepherd.  I think this was a leap of imagination --- she told a little white lie because the Australian Shepherd Club had an excellent rescue dog program, and she wanted Petey to be in that program.

We met Petey at an adoption event at the American Kennel Club’s Museum Of The Dog.  We adopted him.  

That was 12 years ago.

Petey gained a lot of karma. I had him trained as a therapy dog, and he helped psychiatric patients connect with the world.  He was good at killing squirrels that set foot in our back yard.  He surprised us by swimming across the Meramec River chasing a deer.  He did not catch the deer, but he once presented us with a woodchuck.

As Petey grew older, his hunting days were over.  His rear legs grew weaker.  He always wanted to be near his humans, and he began struggling to manage stairways as he followed us around the house.  Petey's favorite part of the day was when we went to bed, and he could lie in front of our bedroom door, guarding us as we slept.

Old age was unkind to Petey.  He had trouble standing still over his food bowl.  He started nagging us to go to bed.  Continence became an issue.  And the rear legs could get him up stairs, but could no longer get him down stairs.

Petey’s quality of life, Petey’s happiness, and Petey’s pleasure in living were all diminished.  The fact that he could not go down stairs meant we had to carry him.  He weighed 39 pounds, and carrying him put us in danger.

Time for a decision.  

A decision made easier by knowing that we had given him 12 years of good life: we had taken Petey to San Antonio for Christmas; we had taken Petey to Vermont for a wedding; we had taken Petey to South Dakota for Harley Week in Sturgis.

I took him for a final visit to the vet.  The procedure was peaceful.  And now there is an emptiness in our household.

- . - .- . - . - . 

A wonderful song from John Hiatt, in a 3-minute video:

     So, it’s over that ridge for one last mile,

     ‘Til we’re fast asleep by the fireside

     Dreamin’ these dreams for free

     Just my dog and me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6THLLBLE8

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

The Joy Of Horizontal Ice Cream Cones

When I was a kid, there were vertical ice cream cones and there were horizontal ice cream cones.

The vertical cones were sold by ice cream shops.  The horizontal cones were made by Borden’s which called them Mello Rolls.  They were sold at the seaside by the state government of New York, and I liked the horizontal cones better than vertical cones.

The first reason to like a horizontal Mello Roll is that it signified an occasion.

It meant that my parents had decided that it would be a special day, and our family would go to Jones Beach State Park.  

This meant that I got to swim in the ocean and fine tune my body surfing skills.  Once I got tired of swimming in the ocean, I would ask my father for some money and head to the big swimming pool pavilion, where they sold Mello Rolls.

The second reason to like a Mello Roll is that I got to participate in making my cone. 

The ice cream guy would sit an empty Mello Roll cone on the counter.  No need to worry --- the cone had such a large conical base that it could stand on its own.  Then he plopped a cylinder of ice cream sideways in the rectangular opening at the top of the cone.  The cylinder fit snugly and was wrapped in paper around its circumference.  I had to carefully unroll the ice cream in my cone.

I also liked Mello Rolls because the cones were engineered so that melting ice cream did not drip on me.

Mello Rolls were not hand scooped; they were all exactly the same size --- so, I never had to check to see if my brother got more ice cream than I did.

Thinking back on those times, I realized that the state government of New York must have also liked Mello Rolls because the ice cream was not scooped – the uniform portion size meant better inventory control.  Because Mello Rolls were wrapped in paper, the state government didn’t have to worry about employees touching ice cream.

But the best part of a Mello Roll was the slight tinge of sea salt mingling with ice cream.  The salt came from my lips because I had just been swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.  That tinge reminded me that my parents had decided that the day would be a special day.

I live far from the ocean now, and Borden’s has stopped making Mello Rolls.  It looks like all ice cream cones are vertical these days.

- . - .- . - . - . 

Maria Campanella, with her wonderful Long Island accent, interviews a Korean War Veteran on Jones Beach.  Maria asks him to describe a Mello Roll.  1 minute YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbx48dMbSU

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

How To Tell If A Truck Stop Is Haunted

There is a deserted truck stop on Route 66 in Missouri, and it is rumored to be haunted.  Since I lead Route 66 bus tours for St. Louis Community College, I needed to investigate the rumors.

I turned to the Internet, googling “paranormal activity” and “Tri-County Truck Stop”.  I quickly found out that there are two main groups of people posting about paranormal activity on the Internet: believers and debunkers.

The believers would post that the Tri-County Truck Stop is haunted.

The debunkers would then post that there is no such thing as ghosts, and believers are jerks.

The believers would then post that all debunkers are idiots.

Jerk.  Idiot.  Jerk.  Idiot.  This seems to be the same path that many discussions follow on the Internet, especially political discussions.  It is not productive.

I needed to find something convincing.  I needed to find a group of people without an agenda.  So, I searched for former employees of the truck stop.  These people simply report what happened when they worked at the Tri-County.

What they reported convinced me that there was paranormal activity.

On my Route 66 tours, when we get to the deserted Tri-County Truck Stop, I have the bus driver park so that people can see the clean sweeping art deco lines of the building.  The plywood in the windows makes the building expressionless.

Then I read about former employees who:

-        Had things hurled at them when they were the only person in the place.

-        Saw a man stabbing a lady at the top of the stairs to the roof one night, and found an unknown red substance on the stairwell in the morning.

-        Saw the lights flicker when a fellow employee said she did not believe in ghosts.

-        Watched empty chairs dance in a circle

-        Were tapped on the shoulder when they were the only one in the bathroom

-        Took some photos, and a faint image of boy reaching out with his hands appeared in a photo --- which freaked out the photo-development lady at Walgreens

I hope that this list of events will convince the people on my bus tour that the place is haunted.

So, how do you know if a truck stop is haunted?  Ask the staff.  

Or you could come back to the Tri-County on October 31 –-- the one night of the year when they will let you spend the night ghost hunting in the truck stop.

- . - .- . - . - . 

In this 5-minute video, Billy Connelly, a Scottish comedian, drives Route 66 in Missouri and visits a secret collection...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqYk7LFtHUw

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail

The Stars Above; Buddy Holly Below

This summer, we went to St. Louis’ open-air musical theater.  It is called the MUNY and seats 11,000 people under the sky, making it America’s largest outdoor theater. 

The theater is in a park, stars are visible at night, and oak trees tower behind the stage.

The musical we went to see was The Buddy Holly Story. 

When I go to a musical, I expect great singing, great music, good acting. (I am a bit forgiving about the acting if it is a musical).  I also expect that the script will have some buffoonish moments in it.  Perhaps a little slapstick, to break the ice and get the audience laughing.

For this show, the buffoon was the receptionist at a record company office.  She would prance around waving her hands in the air, exclaiming “Te-te-te-te.  Can I help you?”

But the singing at the MUNY that night was fine.  I enjoyed listening to the Buddy Holly songs as Act One showed how Buddy built a career and became famous.

I was nice and relaxed in my seat as Act Two started…then I heard the words I was dreading: “Surf Ballroom.”

I have been to the Surf Ballroom.  It is a cheery place and only costs five bucks to tour.

You can view the painted ocean-front murals on the ballroom's walls and tall artificial palm trees on the stage.  The Surf Ballroom uses this tropical décor to be exotic, to make the audience forget that they are in land-locked Clear Lake, Iowa, surrounded by rows and rows of hybrid corn that stretch all the way to the horizon.

Clear Lake, Iowa, is where the music died.

Now I was in my seat at the MUNY feeling somber.  There would be no more buffoonery.  The actors on the stage were re-creating the concert in Iowa on the night when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Havens all died in a plane crash.

Every song that Buddy Holly sang in Act Two would be the final time in his life that he would sing that song.  The same went for the Big Bopper singing Chantilly Lace.  And for Ritchie Valens singing La Bamba.

The actors on stage joined together for a rousing version of Buddy Holly’s Rave On.  

I instinctively knew what would come next: the stage would go dark, and the audience would hear a radio announcement that a plane, four minutes after taking off from the Clear Lake Airport, had made a steep right bank and crashed into the ground, killing all the people on board.

The stage went dark.  A radio voice announced the tragic crash.  A hush fell over the audience.  

I looked up at the sky.  

Right above the stage I could see the Big Dipper.  It made me think that Buddy Holly might be up there looking down on us, looking down on 11,000 people who had come that night to listen to his music, fifty-seven years after the plane crash.  Maybe the music hadn’t really died.

- . - .- . - . - . 

Here is a 4-and-a-half minute video of Rave On as sung in the London production of The Buddy Holly Story.  Unfortunately, the London folks forgot to put tall artificial palm trees on the stage.  The video concludes with the radio announcement of the plane crash. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwf6nVQdTY

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

Margaret French Is My Hook

I got interested in pavement because St. Louis Community College asked me to lead a Route 66 bus tour.

Doing my Route 66 research, I got to drive on a 1926 brick pavement in the boonies in Illinois and on a 1926 dirt pavement in a small town in central Missouri.  Both pavements are still in use.

But my special find – my secret find – is a stretch of Route 66 macadam pavement abandoned in a forest in Valley Park, Missouri, the town where we live.

I became intrigued by pavement, and the history of paving in America.

I am so intrigued that I have volunteered to give a talk about the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and its effect on paved roads.

In 1904, Americans knew that they had the worst roads in the civilized world.  Americans realized that their roads needed to be paved, but, in 1904, the Americans mindset said that government should not pay for paving public roads; the American mindset said that property owners should pay for paving the public road in front of their property.

The World’s Fair played a small part in changing our mindset about paving. 

I needed a way to make my talk about pavement interesting for my audience.  I needed a hook.  The Internet gave me my hook: Margaret French. 

She lived at 747 Forest Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri.  In the year 1900, the Barber Asphalt Company paved Forest Avenue, and Margaret was asked to pay her share of the paving costs.

Margaret refused to pay --- possibly because she was not an American.  She was Scottish, and back in Scotland, the government paid for paving public roads.  Margaret may have asked herself: why should I, as an individual, pay for something that benefits the whole community?

But Margaret was not living in Scotland, she was living in America.  Therefore, she got sued.  The case went to the United States Supreme Court.  Margaret French vs. the Barber Asphalt Company.  Margaret lost in 1901 when the Supreme Court said she had to pay.

My hook: my talk on paving would be based on conjecture:  what if Margaret French went to the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.  There were nearly 1,500 buildings on the Fairgrounds.  What would have caught her eye? 

Margaret might have visited the Belgian Pavilion, where she could see a big map of the roads in Belgium that were paved by the national government.  She might have gone to the Portland Cement building, where exhibits extolled the virtues of cement pavement.  

Definitely, she would have enjoyed the New Jersey Road Exhibit.  New Jersey was ahead of the rest of the country: it was the first state where the state government started paying for paving roads.  Margaret would have found that encouraging.

But there was one of 1,500 buildings that I am sure Margaret avoided: the Barber Asphalt Company’s exhibit.

However, my talk will find that the World’s Fair did not have an immediate effect on the American mindset.  Missouri didn’t create a highway department until 9 years after the Fair.  The Federal Government didn’t create a federal highway system until 1926, 22 years after the Fair.

Margaret French would have been 76 years old in 1926.  I wonder if she felt she had a hand in changing how Americans viewed pavement.

- . - .- . - . - . 

Mary Chapin Carpenter has her "foot on the pedal and her heart on the brake" - a 3-minute song called A Road Is Just A Road: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeRU10GRvA0

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

The City That Never Sleeps Was Not Awake

When I was in high school on Long Island, I had a friend named Bonnie.   She was a year older than me.   She was vivacious and jovial, and I nicknamed her "Boom Bah Bonnie".   

My friend did not have a date for the High School Graduation Dance, and she asked me to be her escort.

I was gallant and I agreed, hoping that no one would mistake us for a couple.  I was a junior, and this would be a preview of what to expect when I graduated.  And I looked forward to staying up all night.

Our town had grieved decades before when some seniors were killed in car crashes while partying on graduation night.  The town decided, for safety reasons, to start a tradition that all seniors would attend a grand dance on graduation night   The legal drinking age was 18; so, the Dance lasted all night, to keep the seniors from drinking and driving.  The Dance went until 4:00 AM.

The dance featured a 1:00 AM dinner served by fathers all dressed in white shirts and slacks, carrying their aluminum serving trays with great flourish.  And there was entertainment provided by a local woman who was trying to establish herself on the New York nightclub circuit.  I remember that she sang a sultry version of “Bye Bye Blackbird”, and I remember being amazed that she had managed to fit into her skin-tight red-sequined gown.

When 4:00 AM came, I had planned for Bonnie and me to watch the sun rise --- in New York City.  We went to our town’s train station and caught the next train into the City.  From Penn Station, we walked over to to Fifth Avenue, as the sun rose.

Frank Sinatra said that New York was a city that never sleeps.  It was clear that Frank had never walked up Fifth Avenue during sunrise.  Bonnie and I were about the only humans visible at this time of day.  The city that never sleeps was not awake.  But we were happy to be strolling up New York’s most glamorous street, even though the buildings blocked out any chance of seeing the sun rise in the east.

We crossed streets without having to worry about traffic.  The stores were closed, but we checked out their windows.  St. Patrick’s Cathedral was closed, but we crooked our heads back to look up at its spires. 

Then we came to the Olivetti Typewriter Store.  In front of the store, right out in public, was a typewriter sitting on a pedestal.  A working typewriter.  It was time for a gesture.  I walked up to the typewriter and typed: “BOOM BAH BONNIE HAS GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL.”

Our energy was wearing down.  We walked back to Penn Station and took a train back home.  I hoped that I had been a suitable graduation night escort for my friend.

But there was fallout from that evening.  When I took a part-time job at the local library, I discovered that Bonnie’s aunt worked there.  Whenever her aunt walked by me, she would flash a smile at me and flutter her eyelashes at me because I had escorted her niece to the graduation dance. 

Those smiles and flutters made me cringe, almost wiping out my fond memories of having dinner at 1:00 AM, dancing until 4:00 AM, going into New York City at sunrise, and typing a historic message on a public typewriter,

I thought that my message was so historic that Olivetti might have decided to send it off to Italy, and maybe it now sits in the company’s archives somewhere in Rome.

- . - .- . - . - . 

New York has changed since Boom Bah Bonnie and I strolled up Fifth Avenue.  Johnny T (of Glove And Boots) has updated Frank Sinatra's song.  3 minute YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=326RcOeSPGs

- . - .- . - . - . 

NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.