War and Pax

The clock hands crept slowly past ten and lagged intolerably thereafter. The rapid beating of your heart, telling off the minutes, brought eleven finally very near. Then the clock, your heart, all the world, seemed to stand still. The great moment was there. Would the announcing cannon speak? Such a terrible silence as the world kept during that supreme moment of suspense! It was the quintessence of all the moral torture of four nightmare years.

And then…like a shock within your own body it came, the first solemn proclamation of the cannon, shaking the windows, the houses, the very sky, with its news. The war was over. The accursed guns had ceased tearing to pieces our husbands and our sons and our fathers…

…I think there can never have been such a day before, such a day of pure thanksgiving and joy for every one. For the emotion was so intense that, during the priceless hours of that first day, it admitted no other. Human hearts could hold no more than that great gladness.

Dorothy Canfield, The Day of Glory (1919)

It was 90 years ago today – on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – that the guns were silenced. Peace, however fleeting or illusory, was to be found at last as The Great War, World War I, came officially to a close.

Though Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s novel The Day of Glory was fiction*, the sentiment  expressed was both real and widespread. It was joy – but an exhausted joy, relief from a brutal, devastating, and all-consuming four year ordeal.

Siegfried Sassoon, who is among those Poets of the First World War memorialized at Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner, wrote of this Armistice Day in “Every One Sang.”

Every one suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom 

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark green fields; on – on – and out of sight.

Every one’s voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away…Oh, but Every One

Was a bird, and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Those feelings were echoed again by Nobel Prize winning writer John Galsworthy in the closing lines of “A Green Hill Far Away” (a chapter from his 1920 novel, Tatterdemalion):

Man is a fighting animal, with sense of the ridiculous enough to know that he is a fool to fight, but not sense of the sublime enough to stop him. Ah, well! we have peace!

It is happiness greater than I have known for four years and four months, to lie here and let that thought go on its wings, quiet and free as the wind stealing soft from the sea, and blessed as the sunlight on this green hill.

The deliverance that came on this day of glory may have been met with some measure of joy; that it did not bring with it an enduring optimism can hardly be surprising. What optimism there may have been when the war began was forever extinguished. The sheer numbers associated with the war are terrible to ponder and difficult to fathom:  By some estimates, the war caused 20 million civilian and military deaths. There were single days with death tolls in the tens of thousands. 

“Across the lives of those who survived the war stretched the long shadow of the millions who did not,” writes James J. Sheehan in Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?. “Serbia lost more than a third of its army, Turkey and Romania a quarter of theirs, and Bulgaria more than a fifth.”

On July 31, 1914, the graduates of the French military academy at St. Cyr received their commissions. Caught up in the fervor of the moment, Gaston Voizard, one of the freshly minted subalterns, called on his classmates to swear that they would go into battle wearing their dress uniforms, complete with plumed hats and white gloves. Over the next few weeks, the splendidly attired St. Cyrians fell by the score as they led their men against German machine guns; not one member of the class of 1914 would survive the war.

It was a war of dubious origins, fueled by fatal missteps and miscalculations, sustained by some tragic combination of hubris and surrender to war’s self-perpetuating character. It was neither the war its participants wanted nor the one they expected. It was not, as hope demanded, the “war to end all wars,” but a war that foretold of greater horrors to come. 

On this Veteran’s Day, we honor our military veterans. The fallen, and those left standing. The veterans not just of World War I, but of all conflicts. We applaud their courage, and venerate their sacrifice – as well we should. But as we recall the holiday’s origins as Armistice Day, we embrace not war but the struggle for peace.

It is a somber day for a beer, but a fine one nonetheless. Brouwerij Sint-Jozef’s Pax Pilsner – first brewed in 1937, as the transient truce won on this day in 1918 was beginning to crumble – is crisp, refreshing, but not unguarded in its hopeful clarity. It offers, in the words of late beer connoisseur Michael Jackson, an “almost stony, austere, dryness.” With solemn restraint, we drink to peace.

*And thus attributed to Dorothy Canfield, as was her practice for fictional works. An educator, social activist, and prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction, Dorothy Canfield Fisher is best known as the namesake of a children’s book award, and most notable perhaps for bringing the Montessori Method of teaching to the United States.

NOTE: All war images are taken with implied consent from Wikimedia Commons, and are in the public domain.

Galloping Gertie and three-legged Tubby

As suggested in proverb, it’s best not to bite the hand that feeds you. 

As suggested by the lessons of this day in 1940, it’s also best not to bite the hand that is attempting to rescue you.

Five days earlier at the University of Washington, wind tunnel tests on a 54-foot long scale model of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge had offered possible solutions to the seemingly minor – if disquieting – design flaws that had been evident since the world’s third longest suspension bridge opened to traffic on July 1 of that year. Conceived by renowned engineer Leon Moisseif, the bridge was expected to withstand winds up to 120 mph – but it was quickly apparent that even light winds could cause waves in the roadway.

As recounted in the Washington State Department of Transportation’s history of the bridge, “Thrill-seekers drove to the Narrows from miles around when the ripples started.”

Some motorists became "seasick" and avoided using the bridge. But, for adventurous spirits the bridge became an amusement ride. Drivers crossing the span at times saw a car in front of them suddenly disappear into the trough of a wave. Moments later it reappeared as the roadway rose. According to one report, a couple of times drivers experienced waves 10 feet high.

It wasn’t long before the undulating bridge earned the nickname “Galloping Gertie,” but not even the wind tunnel tests led by Professor F.B. Farquharson predicted what was to come. Shortly before 10:00 a.m. on November 7, the bridge was closed to traffic, as 40 mph winds were causing more frequent oscillations than usual. Still, the bridge had survived stronger winds before. While driving conditions may have been unsafe, there was little reason to expect the dramatic twisting that would lead to the bridge’s stunning collapse.

Quoted in Richard Scott’s In the Wake of Tacoma, Farquharson traces the unfolding calamity:

While checking the frequency from a position on the roadway to the north of the toll plaza a few minutes later, a violent change in motion was noted. This change appeared to take place without any intermediate stages, and with such extreme violence that the span appeared to be about to roll completely over. The most startling condition arose out of the fact that from a line of sight very nearly parallel to the bridge the upper side of the roadway was visible while what appeared to be a nearly perpendicular view of the bottom of the roadway was offered on the Tacoma side. The motion, which a moment before had involved a number of waves (nine or ten), had shifted almost instantly to two.

“Moments earlier,” it is noted in Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori’s book Why Buildings Fall Down (not to be confused with Salvadori’s later work, Why Buildings Stand Up), “a newspaperman, Leonard Coatsworth, trying to cross the bridge, had to stop his car near the quarter point of the span when the motions made it impossible to continue further.”

As the bridge pitched violently, the car careened across the pavement, and Coatsworth, jumping out of it, was thrown to the pavement. He tried to get up and run back off the bridge but was forced to crawl on all fours, while struggling not to fall over the edge because of the wild gyrations of the deck. Suddenly Coatsworth remembered leaving his daughter’s cocker spaniel in the car and tried to go back, but by that time the motion was so violent that he couldn’t. When he finally reached the shore, his hands and knees were bruised and bloody. Arthur Hagen and Rudy Jacox had also just driven onto the bridge when it began to sway. They jumped out of their truck and crawled to one of the towers, where they were helped to safety by the workmen as (in the words of Professor Farquharson) the bridge crumbled beneath them “with huge chunks of concrete flying into the air like popcorn.”

At is at this point that the old axiom could use some updating. Out of compassion or compulsion, the good professor made a daring run for Coatsworth’s car in an effort to rescue what Scott less forgivingly refers to as “a recalcitrant dog.” By varying accounts, Farquharson was unable to reach the car, or not only reached the car but briefly attempted to drive it to safety. By his own account, he merely opened the car door and tried to rescue the dog. Sadly, the recalcitrant – or more likely petrified – three-legged pooch, Tubby snapped at the hand of his emancipator. 

Forced to abandon his efforts, Farquharson scurried to safety as cables snapped and the roadway rapidly fell and rose again beneath his feet. The professor narrowly escaped the bridge’s capitulation to the forces of nature. Three-legged Tubby was not so lucky; though his bones were never recovered from the wreckage, he most certainly plummeted to his death as the bridge disintegrated into the Puget Sound.

Or did he?

Holding out hope for a miraculous getaway (or at least a painless release from his earthly existence) for poor Tubby, we turn to Flying Dog’s Old Scratch Amber Lager. As a ghostly off-white head melts into rich copper shades, its inviting butterscotch and toffee undertones lure its patrons to the safety of a dry finish. Riding a wave of carbonation, the spiciness of Perle hops and a faint, citric sourness break through Old Scratch’s initial sweetness before fading gently into oblivion. To drink from Old Scratch’s dish is surely better than to bite the hand that would rescue you.

An election day postscript

Here at It’s A Fine Day For A Beer, it is our firmest political conviction that people should think for themselves, make informed decisions, and vote as they see fit. We encourage open minds and respect differences of opinion in politics just as we do with people’s particular tastes and preferences in beer. This is something that we hope has been made abundantly clear in our Election Day missive, our writeup on the final day of the Democratic National Convention, and anyplace else where politics may have intersected with our love of quality beer. 

It is not our place to tell you what to believe or how to vote – and regardless, we would hope that you would take your cues on such fundamental and serious matters from someplace other than a web site devoted to the enjoyment of beer.

That being said, we are not without our own personal biases, opinions, assumptions, and beliefs – some undoubtedly to the left of mainstream, and others as clearly to the right.

As has been noted before, we are also not without advertisements. The minimal support of click-based and commission-based advertising dollars (and it is minimal) is a necessary part of existence. Some of these ads are of our choosing. Others are contextual advertisements largely out of our control.

Yesterday, our own private beliefs collided uncomfortably with some of this contextual advertising, as a handful of “Vote Yes on Proposition 8” ads appeared on the site. For those outside of California or somehow unfamiliar with Prop 8, it was, in a nutshell, a proposed amendment to the California state constitution which would eliminate gay marriage rights. This is, of course, a controversial issue (the ballot measure narrowly passed). It’s one which elicits a visceral response from many on both sides. And it is an issue over which we both expect and can accept some sincere disagreement. 

However, “Yes on Proposition 8” is categorically not a position that was ever endorsed, officially or otherwise, by this web site or any of the countless people on its editorial staff. We want to make that clear to anyone who may have seen the ads.

(Of course, so long as they are intruding upon our state of beery bliss, we don’t necessarily oppose any clicking upon such ads that you may choose to do. We’d be happy to see funds diverted from their cause to ours.)

And the winner is…

It’s a strange thing, democracy. 

When they eagerly accept such notions as “frost brewed” or “beechwood aged” as prime determinants of quality, we mock, scorn, or at least question the judgment of the masses. Their taste in music has made commercial terrestrial radio all but unlistenable. Their prime time viewing habits have enabled the viral spread of reality TV. It is the masses who have allowed Justin Timberlake to feel sexy, Paris Hilton to feel relevant – and perhaps worst of all, Matthew McConaughey to have a successful career. 

These same masses have given birth to a Starbucks on every street corner, an Applebee’s in every strip mall-adjacent location not already occupied by Chili’s or T.G.I. Friday’s, and an office birthday cake for every day of the week. They pluralize words with apostrophes. Obesity is on the rise, consumer debt is on the rise – and math skills, of course, are on the decline.

Yet in the face of all this, we repeat the refrain that everyone who is eligible should get out and vote. Not just we the masses, but we here at It’s A Fine Day For A Beer. It’s a sacred right, a tremendous privilege, and an awesome responsibility. While in this office we’re less enthusiastic about John McCain than we were 8 years ago, less enthusiastic about Barack Obama than we were 8 weeks ago, and altogether less than enthusiastic about the empty promises of far too many local ballot measures, we nonetheless urge those of you who have the opportunity and have not done so already to get out and vote. Make informed choices, make sincere choices, and leave no chad hanging.

Today history is made. Perhaps the United States elects its first female Vice President, and its oldest first-term President. More likely, polls would suggest, the sun will rise tomorrow on the country’s first African-American President-elect. It will, regardless, be history not only for whatever “notable first” may come, but for the circumstances that surround it: a nation at war, an economy in flux, a changing population, a changing place for America in the global community (and, of course, a Planet In Peril).

What that history portends for the future remains to be seen. On this fine Tuesday after the first Monday in November, then, there is little more to do (after voting, that is) but to sit back, let the ballots be counted, and say Ale To The Chief – whoever he may be. On the eve of Avery Brewing’s Czar Russian Imperial Stout release party, grab a few bottles of this more democratic brew – one for today, and one to age until Inauguration Day. 

Bursting with hop aroma, this formidable double IPA has the courage and character to stand up to the special interests and greedy corporations that would have you drink flavorless swill. Avery's Ale To The Chief is the change we need. It has malt sweetness. It has notes of pine and grapefruit in its lingering hop flavors. Flavor first. A time for unity, a time for beer. Hops. Malt. Yeast. Peace.

Vote.

*Barack Obama and John McCain images taken with implied or licensed consent from Wikimedia Commons.

The Po8's last score

I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tred,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.

These words, scrawled on the back of a Wells Fargo waybill, made a marked man of stagecoach bandit and poet (Po8, to be more precise) Charles E. Boles – aka Charles E. Bolton, but best known as Black Bart. Though the self-described Po8 would leave verse at the site of only one other robbery, he is thought to have robbed more than 25 stagecoaches in an eight year span from 1875 until his eventual capture.

The last of those robberies took place on this day in 1883 – as Black Bart returned, for the first time, to the location of his original crime in California’s Calaveras County. In an embellished if not altogether romanticized account, historian George Hoeper sets the scene for that that fateful day in his book Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit:

It was barely sunup and a chill breeze was riffling the surface of the Stanislaus River on the on the morning of November 3, 1883 when Reason McConnell halted his stage in front of the Reynolds Ferry Hotel. Inside the hotel, in the glow of kerosene lamps, McConnell could see people moving about. He noted with satisfaction that the ferry was tied up on his side of the river. That would save him several minutes of valuable time.

A door slammed and nineteen-year-old Jimmy Rolleri, whose mother, Olivia Antonini Rolleri, ran the hotel, came dashing down the hotel stairs with several letters in his hand.

“Good morning, Mac,” he called, as he traded the letters for a bundle of mail for the hotel. Then, taking notice that the stage carried no passengers, young Rolleri paused before starting down the hill to operate the ferry.

“Mac, can I catch a ride up to the top of the hill with you? That last storm must have started pushing the deer down from the high country. Jim Baker stopped on his way to Sonora last evening and said he saw two big bucks up there on the flat above Yaqui Gulch. I’d like to get a shot at one of them – we could use the meat.”

Boles (who took his stage-robber name from the 1871 short story The Case of Summerfield by William Henry Rhodes) held up the stagecoach shortly after Rolleri had disembarked. Unaware of the hunter in his midst, Black Bart went casually about the  business of plundering the carriage after sending McConnell away with only his horses. As Hoeper tells it, it was while pausing to catch his breath atop a hill that McConnell spotted Rolleri in the distance and signaled to his former passenger. The pair rendezvoused and returned in pursuit of Black Bart. 

The outlaw spotted his would-be captors (or killers) in time to make a hasty escape, but was grazed by one of Rolleri’s bullets. Dropping some of his loot as he fled, Black Bart left behind the clue that would ultimately lead to his arrest.

“Sheriff Tom Cunningham of San Joaquin County was always at the scene of the robbery as soon as possible in an endeavor to locate evidence,” recalled former Wells Fargo agent James E. Rice some years later.

Cunningham’s staying qualities were finally rewarded after Black Bart’s holdup of the stage from Sonora to Milton on November 3, 1883. Arriving at the point where the stage was robbed, the sheriff examined the ground very closely. Suddenly he reached down and picked up a handkerchief, which incident marked the end of Bart’s career. Cunningham examined the handkerchief very closely and the officers who were with him eagerly waited to see what he would say. “At last we have a clew,” he said and directed his associates’ attention to the laundry mark “FX07.”

The handkerchief was taken to San Francisco and after a long search similar marks were found on other linen in a laundry, by Harry Morse, head of the Morse Patrol and Detective Agency of San Francisco. While Morse was in the office of the laundry investigating the marks on the handkerchief, he was told by the proprietor that the gentleman who owned that particular handkerchief was a respected customer, having mining interests in California, and he occasionally called at the laundry. By a rather remarkable coincidence, the “owner” of the linen walked into the building while Morse was there and the detective immediately engaged him in a conversation by stating he understood he was interested in mines. Incidentally Morse told him he had some property he would like to submit for his consideration and that he would be glad to show him sample of ore as well as give him other details of the mining prospect. Bart apparently “fell” for what his newly made acquaintance had to offer and agreed to accompany him to the latter’s office on Montgomery street. When Bart entered and took in the surroundings, he was satisfied he had been trapped for he threw up his hands and exclaimed, “Gentlemen, I pass.”

This portrayal, too, may stray a bit from absolute fact; BlackBart.com suggests a surrender every bit as civil but far less sudden and willing. What seems not to be in dispute is that Black Bart was a gentleman among thieves. Working alone – though at times cleverly using props to convince his quarry that he had others in his gang – he never fired his gun or harmed anyone while committing his crimes. While there was a coarseness to the pair of poems that made him famous, his reputation was as a remarkably polite highwayman.

A hero he was not, but a character he surely was. To this legend of the Wild West, on the anniversary of his final heist, a beer born not far from the many sites of Black Bart’s exploits: Hop Sauce double IPA from Sacramento’s Rubicon Brewing Company. Both poetry and mystery, Hop Sauce’s array of hop flavors wrap themselves around a rich and sweet malt flavor, while the faint suggestion of a velvety white head recedes into glistening amber. As we drink to the history and folklore of Black Bart, we drink also to the good health of Rubicon itself. The venerable brewpub celebrated its 21st anniversary this past weekend. Cheers, and here’s to many more.

Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse.

--Black Bart, the Po8

1878