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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.