When I Was a Scholar

[Originally posted in May 2017 on the Pacific Coast league 1930-1960 Facebook group, responding to this photo of the original editions of Richard E. Beverage's books on the Hollywood Stars and Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. spt+]

The Stars book I bought in the early '80s directly from Richard Beverage through the mail, but when I inquired about the Angels book, it was long out-of-print and he had none available. Occasionally I'd inquire at used book stores in the San Fernando Valley, but no luck. In 1988 I headed up to the Lutheran seminary, which has graduate student privileges at Cal.

So in a University library one day on a lark I looked up "The Angels" and, sure enough, they had one copy -- at the Bancroft Library. That's a non-circulating, research library. No checking out books. You can't even go in the stacks to see it. One of the librarians gets it for you. You aren't allowed pens or pencils, even to make notes (they will make copies for a fee), and you don't leave until you return it. And they don't do this for just anybody, even a graduate student, holding a Cal library card. No you have to first register as a researcher, completing a form that remains on file declaring to the Bancroft who you are and your field of study! Gee, I just want to read something about the team my dad fell in love with when he was a boy.

Then it hit me -- I'm a divinity student at the Graduate Theological Union. And so I put down that I was researching angels. And I got to read the book.

Thank You for Shopping at Sears

Last month Sears declared bankruptcy. Today's news is that the company hopes to sell most of its profitable stores, perhaps to its biggest shareholder, to keep the business alive. We'll see how well that works.

I started working for Sears after graduating high school in 1977. (That's me behind the thick glass of the Cashier's Cage in this Spring 1978 Polaroid taken by a sweet CSUN coed working in the stationery/photo department across the aisle at the Sears in Northridge Fashion Center.) We were an "A" store, ranking among the biggest in the company. When something new happened at Sears, Northridge was among the first stores to do it. As an accounting student at CSUN I read the Wall Street Journal, which helped give me some insights into the company. Such as, Sears was already in trouble.

Granted, Sears was still the biggest department store by any measure. But K-Mart was moving up and Sears was not responding very well. I remember a front page WSJ story describing Sears' plans to overcome the competion. And then a year or so later, there was another front page story describing Sears' new plan, replacing the earlier, unsuccessful plan. I recall thinking as I read that new story, "Wait a minute; that earlier plan hasn't even been implemented in our store yet."

Throughout the '80s Sears tried several different strategies. The one that affected me most was the creation of the in-store "Sears Financial Network," where I spent the last 2½ years of my Sears employment at Sears Savings Bank, the company's California savings-and-loan, at the in-store Northridge SFC (Sears Financial Center) branch. SSB's branch operations that weren't sold to Citicorp or California Federal Savings were shut down at the end of 1987, shortly before I started seminary. Yes, I helped close a bank.

Kmart never caught Sears. Walmart would pass them both, becoming the top retailer in 1990. Kmart went bankrupt in 2002, emerging from bankruptcy the next year. In 2004, Kmart bought the now obviously struggling Sears, so today's Sears Holdings Corporation is, in a sense, really Kmart.

Freedom's Just Another Word

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," Janis sang in Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee. That's what immediately came to my mind when Twitter (yes, Pastor Zip has a Twitter account, but only because NetworkedBlogs, which for free automatically forwards my blog posts to my Facebook page, does -- or at least did -- the same with Twitter; so every couple of days there's an e-mail from Twitter) wanted me see CNN's tweet, "Florida student Emma Gonzalez to lawmakers and gun advocates: 'We call BS'."

The thing is, what may fit the context of a song from the end of the '60s is not a civic reality. Freedom actually means you have everything to gain. And freedom means, conversely, you also have everything to lose. Miss Gonzalez tells of what she has been learning in her AP Government class. Well, thousands of years ago (as my 8th grade social studies teacher Ms. Greenman used to say) in my (11th grade) AP American History class I learned that our Founding Fathers, after winning their rebellion against the British Crown and the King's Parliament, intentionally devised a national government that would have limited ability to infringe upon rights that they regarded as "unalienable." Which helped us to understand the Bill of Rights, which we first learned about in plain old 4th grade Civics.

Other news reports today, which happens to be the national holiday usually called "Presidents' Day" -- though legally it's the observance of George Washington's Birthday -- have noted protests by young students across the nation, demanding that the President and the Congress "do something" in the light of the latest school shooting. And if I'm reading Miss Gonzalez' address rightly, she's saying something that many advocates of "gun control" have been saying for years -- that the Second Amendment, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," is outdated and ought to be set aside. And set aside now. If necessary, without the bother of actually amending the Constitution. In other words, to grant those two branches of the federal government powers that our governing authority says they do not have.

"Freedom's just another word for something more to lose..."

This, however, is so right!

At least I hope so. But it was about the very last thing I expected to find walking down the aisle at Kroger's -- an item I haven't bought in 20 years because it was 1) a West Coast brand that 2) had disappeared even on the West Coast.

And I'm not quite sure how it caught my eye since coming to Peoria I have purchased maybe 3-4 6-packs of beer. Not that I don't like beer; I do. I just prefer not to drink it by myself. "Lead us not into temptation..." and all that.

But tonight I'm making an exception, for there at the Kroger store in East Peoria, Illinois, was my favorite beer from California (actually an Oregon brew), particularly my Berkeley years -- Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve.

I hope it's as good as I remember.

California: From Another Age

The following concludes Literature Reader: Sixth Year, edited by Leroy E. Armstrong, a sixth-grade reader from 1916 used in California at least through the mid-1920s. This weblog post is inspired today in part because I read the news from my home state, in part because I posted a new "cover" for my Facebook page featuring a postcard of downtown Los Angeles from the early '60s, and in part because I was thinking of essential things I learned in (California's public) schools that simply aren't taught any longer. Those were the days, my friends, and they seem long gone...

California

(Poets, dramatists, and historians are quite as useful and helpful to society as are wonder-workers in plants. John Steven McGroarty has served the people of California well by writing the Mission Play—a highly interesting portrayal of the days when California was owned by Spain. Mr. McGroarty has also written a pleasing book entitled California: Its History and Romance. The introduction to this book is a poem that is a worthy tribute to California. The author’s love for our beautiful State is felt in every line.)

’Twixt the seas and the deserts,
    ’Twixt the wastes and the waves,
Between the sands of buried lands
    And ocean’s coral caves,
It lies not East nor West,
    But like a scroll unfurled,
Where the hand of God hath hung it,
    Down the middle of the world.

It lies where God hath spread it,
    In the gladness of His eyes,
Like a flame of jeweled tapestry
    Beneath His shining skies;
With the green of woven meadows,
    And the hills in golden chains,
The light of leaping rivers,
    And the flash of poppied plains.

Days rise that gleam in glory,
    Days die with sunset’s breeze,
While from Cathay that was of old
    Sail countless argosies;
Morns break again in splendor
    O’er the giant, new-born West,
But of all the lands God fashioned,
    ’Tis this land is the best.

Sun and dews that kiss it,
    Balmy winds that blow,
The stars in clustered diadems
    Upon its peaks of snow;
The mighty mountains o’er it,
    Below, the white seas swirled—
Just California stretching down
    The middle of the world.

—John Steven McGroarty

Hat tip to Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor.

Remembering the Signs

So there I was, driving north-bound on I-35 about a half-hour after crossing the Iowa-Minnesota border, on my way to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. It's not the most exciting drive, but I had the lecture series by Br. William Short, ofm, St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian, on the CD player to keep my mind occupied.

When I was in seminary I worked for the Franciscan School of Theology -- first as it's Controller then, upon my return from intership, as the (personal) Assistant to the President. Brother Bill was FST's President all that time, though in the Spring-Summer of '92 he was on sabbatical, so I was Bill Cieslak's assistant my last few months there. Anywho, listening to Bill's lectures -- and I highly recommend them -- had reminded me of just how compelling lecturer he is. I'd not thought for years of how his lectures in the GTU's pre-Reformation Christian history courses were immensely well received. The CDs were (are) a nice reminder of what I really liked about going to seminary in Berkeley, and one of the reasons I've always had a stronger affinity for FST than my official alma mater, PLTS. But I digress.

So I'm driving northbound on I-35 in the middle of August. Also known as "road construction season." Especially this summer as where ever you drove, you weren't far from watching our grandchildren's money at work stimulating the economy for us. So we're actually driving northbound on the southbound lanes, as the northbound ones are closed so they can be rebuilt.

And, suddenly before my eyes, an hour or so away from the ELCA Churchwide Assembly that would be called to order in just a few hours, came this sign:

Unintentional Commentary

In the "Life in Grace" rollo I presented during the Via de Cristo I served this last weekend, I made mention of the Big Eight Accounting firms -- which reflected the state of accountancy in my university days. That link tells of how the Big Eight became the Big Four; a significant part of that story is how the accounting firms lowered their professional standards in search of greater profits. The collapse of Arthur Anderson in the Enron scandal, for instance, followed a couple of decades of abandoning the principles that, well, I was taught as an accounting major at CSUN.

Then there is the announcement that showed up in my inbox today from the Accounting and Information Systems section of the CSUN Alumni Association:

This message is to invite you to upcoming November events for the CSUN AIS Alumni:Association

Monte Carlo Night on Friday evening, November 7;

• Doors open: 5:30 PM, Games: 6:00 PM-10:00 PM, Raffle at the end of the evening
• Roulette ♣ Craps ♥ Blackjack ♠ Texas Hold' em ♦
• Refreshments / Appetizers
• Faculty and current Alumni Members: $30 General Public: $40

I'm trying to imagine those who taught me accounting sponsoring a Monte Carlo Night. Then again, I try to imagine those who taught me banking leveraging entire banking companies on home loans that clearly could not ever be paid off.

Apparently I don't have quite enough of an imagination to have been an accountant or banker in 2008. Given what's happened, I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of.