My Basement

C. Anderson Hedberg

March 21, 2011

It has been awhile since I presented a paper at our Literary Club, and it is nice to be back. As the deadline approached to submit a topic, my wife and I were in the beginning stages of a long delayed chore that eventually faces most of us. That is rediscovering, and hopefully discarding, as much as possible of what we have stored in our basement during 35 years of living in our house, and fifty years of marriage. I impulsively decided that my topic would be “My Basement.” I hoped that I might find some interesting things to say as our task progressed, and so here I am tonight.

To begin the task of clearing out, it is first necessary to have a plan, and I can think of three possible attacks. The first, I will call the Mike Ditka “Back up the Truck” or “The Coach” approach. It is forceful, as is Mike, and maybe even requires a little bit of anger. Sometime after Mike was dismissed from his job as head coach of the Chicago Bears, a story appeared in the local newspapers describing that he had engaged a truck to take away and dispose of certain items from his house. The trucker was surprised to find that the items being dispossessed included awards and other significant memorabilia from his illustrious career as player and coach. He asked Coach Ditka if these items were really to be permanently removed and he confirmed “yes.” Later, it was reported that the trucker held a sale of the interesting materials to the public. I do not recommend the Coach’s unconventional throw-away approach, because you may miss the pleasure of reliving some of the more memorable times of your lives, down the road.

A second approach is also not recommended. A couple moving out of their large home decided not to sort through any of a huge amount of saved material, but to transfer all the boxes, voluminous files, and other objects they had accumulated to a rented private storage facility. When asked who would eventually review and make decisions on these items he replied, “my children will do it later.” Even though his children were fully grown adults, this struck me as a case of delayed child abuse. To leave such a task to your children seems almost criminal.

The only right solution is to face the task, take it in stride, and do it in bits and pieces. A surprise finding in my wife’s possessions was a poem written years ago by her late mother Ruth Gratiot and published in her hometown newspaper in California, the Monterey Herald. It describes the types of items that may be saved during a lifetime, and the emotions they can elicit.

And you?

I went to the cupboard today to sort again

And throw away the stacks of “things” that have

Been piling up for oh, so many years.

Boxes on the shelves were neatly, clearly marked

As John’s or mine, our trips abroad or near,

Or children from their earliest days to now.

But most were marked “etcetera,” bulging fat with

Pictures, letters, odds and ends galore, old bits

Of poems and notes too dear to cast aside;

Receipts, tax papers which I’ve dared not to destroy.

I saw in these the story of my life.

And as I riffled through a few of them

I knew again the joys, the hopes, the tears,

Good times and bad that had so slowly wound

Themselves around my unsuspecting heart.

How could I ruthlessly cast them away,

To be lost, though no one else would care a jot?

Yes, some I threw away without the least regret,

And others only after stern debate.

But most of them are right back on the shelf.

I am not ready yet to say “goodbye”

To cherished memories of a varied life.

Thus some of Ruth’s items were put back on her shelf, and were sent to reside in our basement ten years ago, after she passed away. It became our turn to look them over, with some fascinating results, as I will describe later.

The Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman wrote a recent column entitled “What does your basement say about you?” I am indebted to Clark Wagner for calling my attention to this. The article was stimulated by hearings to examine if mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel was still a resident of the city, even though he rented his home during the preceding two years while he worked in Washington. Part of his argument for residency was that personal possessions of his and his family, including his wife’s wedding dress, were stored in the basement during the rental period. Brotman writes:

What if the rest of us faced public hearings about what’s in our basements. You can practically hear the shudders. A basement is a private space, or maybe a hazmat site, where we can shove anything we don’t want people, including ourselves to see. Unless it is a finished space, it is often a hall of shame, a repository for stuff we haven’t gotten around to throwing out, a limbo for possessions. If people had to open their basements to public scrutiny in order to seek elected office, maybe fewer candidates would run.

Our basement has a large finished recreation room built by the previous owner which provides a comfortable place for kids to play or adults to relax. There are stuffed chairs, a couch and a sparsely used television set. Adjoining is a laundry room with the usual paraphernalia, but also shelves to place books and toys from my and my children’s early years, a large miniature train set from my youth mounted on a table, and considerable floor space to stack storage boxes. Our first task was to get rid of items that fit into the category of “stuff,” things of little value that over the years you just wanted to get out of sight, and then ignored. For us this was a relatively easy task.

Early on we identified materials of a personal nature that we decided had been stored much too long and should be destroyed, including financial records, minutes from committee and board meetings, drafts of papers, certain letters, etc. We realized that shredding materials was itself a chore, so we engaged a company that came to our house with a huge truck that houses an industrial sized shredding machine that works while you watch. The price is steep – 100 dollars for every twenty minutes they spend working at your site. Usually they are called by huge businesses, such as banks and stores, but they will service homes as well. We measured our stacks to shred, and it came to 23 feet total – a mountain of papers. We facilitated the process by loading our cars with the materials, and backing them down to our curb. When the shredders arrived, they turned on their grinder, threw the materials into the machine, and we were done in less than 20 minutes. Hurrah!

Since then we have mainly focused our attention on many sealed cardboard storage boxes. They contained saved materials from our late parents, and from our own lives. What a variety of items! They include selected personal letters dating from when we were at college, historic and favorite articles saved from publications, some birthday and holiday cards, high school and college mementoes, family and travel pictures, programs from plays, concerts, and sports events we attended, and other items. We are still in the midst of this discovery, which is time consuming because it is impossible to resist reading many of the letters and examining mementoes from long remembered times. In total, it sums up as a history of experiences, places, thoughts, and relationships through the various segments of our lives.

When I reviewed my materials, I found particularly interesting the mementoes of people I met early in my life, who introduced me to a compelling slice of the world. For example, a gentleman I met when I was very young became a cherished acquaintance. He was Bob Elson, a close friend of my father, who was his doctor. They met in the mid nineteen twenties, when both were beginning their careers in Chicago. Bob became a sportscaster and he is one of the first to describe the play by play of baseball games on radio from the site of the game. He invented the feature of on-field pre-game and post-game interviews with players. Bob was hired by WGN in 1929 and for 13 years broadcast both Cubs and White Sox home games. In the early days, home games were transmitted from the site, but away games were re-created in the Chicago WGN studios from information sent from the ballpark over a Western Union wire. The information transmitted was very brief: ball, strike, single right, home run left, out at home and so on, and the announcer filled in an imagined scenario – such as “the pitcher stretches, winds up and here comes the pitch – it’s a strike” or “Luke Appling is racing to the plate with the winning run - he’s out on a close play!” In 1930 Bob described the World Series nationwide for the first time for the Mutual Broadcasting System, and continued that assignment for twelve consecutive years. He enlisted in the Navy during the Second World War, and produced entertainment shows for the sailors stationed around the world. Post war he returned to Chicago to broadcast Sox games, home and away, for 24 more years.

Like any city kid growing up within a few miles of a major league ballpark, in my case Wrigley Field, I was entranced by my local team. In my basement I found many souvenirs Bob Elson gave me, including baseballs and pictures signed by star players. I even saved a primitive battered old glove used by Lou Novikoff, a barely remembered outfielder nicknamed the “Mad Russian.” Knowing well the Cub mystique, I can only imagine the havoc he wrought in the Cub outfield in the early1940’s to deserve that label.

Bob occasionally invited my father to the ballpark to join him in the radio booth to watch the game, and when I was old enough he invited me. He continued this for me when I was in college in Boston and medical school in New York, so I got a good look at the Red Sox in Fenway Park and the Yankees in Yankee Stadium during the 1950s.

You may remember that Bob Elson also was the host of a network show called The Twentieth Century Limited – The World’s Greatest Train. He interviewed celebrities who were coming and going on the famous Chicago-New York train, before the era of jet travel. Bob loved this job as much as sports casting. He was a personable and intelligent interviewer, and relished knowing many national celebrities. He had many stories to tell, like Gabby Hartnett’s famous home run in the dusk at Wrigley Field that won the 1938 National League pennant for the Cubs, and the time when at Comiskey Park he introduced his friend the Yankee star Lou Gehrig to the woman who would become Gehrig’s wife.

In 1979 Bob received the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, given to media figures for a lifetime of meritorious service to the game. He was the third broadcaster to receive the annual award, preceded by Mel Allen who broadcast for the New York Yankees and Red Barber, who worked for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees. Bob invited us to attend the Hall of Fame Ceremonies in Cooperstown, New York where the award was presented. Cooperstown is a lovely town on the shore of a beautiful lake -- green and lush on a warm July weekend. Willy Mays was the main player being inducted that year, and he and Bob Elson gave stirring speeches about the grand old game. The afternoon before the ceremonies a cocktail party was held on the back porch of the Cooper Inn overlooking the lake. For me, it was like entering the equivalent of baseball heaven! Present were members of the Hall of Fame, players I recognized from collectors cards, sports pages, and games at Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park. We met players like Charlie Gehringer, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, and Ernie Banks.

Our most interesting happening at that reception was a prolonged conversation with Satchel Paige, one of the first African American players in the major leagues, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971. Joe DiMaggio, who played in exhibition games against Satchel Paige, called him “the best and fastest pitcher I’ve ever faced.” He played 22 years in the Negro Leagues, compiling fantastic pitching statistics, and then at the advanced age for a ballplayer of 42, was hired by the Cleveland Indians. A paragraph from the Official Satchel Paige Biography sets the scene:

In 1948, Paige’s dream came true. The Cleveland Indians were in need of extra pitching for the pennant race. Legendary Bill Veeck [the owner] tested Paige’s accuracy before offering him a big league contract. As the story is told, Veeck placed a cigarette on the ground to be used as a home plate. Paige took aim at his virtually nonexistent target. He fired five fastballs, all but one sailing directly over the cigarette. Veeck was indeed pleased, and Paige helped the Indians win the pennant.

He went on to several more years in the major leagues with the St. Louis Browns and Kansas City Athletics, pitching in his last major league game at the age of 60. During our conversation, he gave me his business card, which I discovered among my souvenirs. He was employed during his retirement with the Springfield Redbirds, a St. Louis Cardinals farm club, as Vice President. Satchel attributed his long and successful baseball career to staying in good physical shape, and he was proud of his rules for doing this which were printed on the back of his card. Of course, as a physician, I was quite interested in his health habits. The card says:

Satchel’s Rules for the Good Life

1. Avoid fried foods cause they angers up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lay down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowin’ by janglin’ round gently as you move.

4. Go very light on vices such as carryin’ on in society. The social ramble just ain’t restful.

5. Avoid runnin’ at all times.

6. Don’t ever look back. Somethin’ might be gainin’.

Most of this advice strikes me as sensible, except for eschewing running, since this has since become a staple of maintaining cardiac health. Satchel, who was famous for many quotes, added another comment on longevity. “Age,” he said “is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

During my search, I found that I saved a limited amount of material from my college and medical school years, mainly books and notes from lectures and research projects. One of the traditionally most difficult college courses for pre-medical students is Organic Chemistry, a year long course necessary for understanding the chemical mechanisms of living things, and mandatory for entry into medical school. It is regarded as a good test of whether a college student is capable of success with the scholastic rigors of medical school. I was surprised to find that I saved from that course a single page quiz requiring drawing from memory seven chemical structures. There was a large red X drawn through each of my answers, and a huge red zero at the top of the page. I had failed on every answer – zip, a grade of zero. I cannot even imagine how depressed I must have been at the time, or why I saved this disaster. Of course I must have worried that my dream of becoming a doctor was finished. Fortunately, the overall grade in the course came out fine, and I survived to enter medical school and residency training, and have a forty year career in internal medicine.

In our basement I found documents from a college course that was particularly interesting. The course was entitled The Social History of America, taught by Professor Oscar Handlin. It was unlike any history I had previously studied. It focused on the impact events had on people and their lives, rather than solely describing the dates and details of politics, wars, and other huge occurrences. His special interest was American immigration, and on this subject he received a Pulitzer Prize for his book titled The Uprooted. He was a spellbinding lecturer, and a great teacher. The course was especially interesting to me, having grown up in Chicago as the grandson of Swedish immigrants, where I experienced our large immigrant population and the ethnic diversity of many cultures. I have perused the lecture notes and book chapters that I first encountered over fifty years ago, and they form a rich background to assess the present immigration debate we are now having in our country.

In our saved material, we uncovered several boxes of old vinyl phonograph records from the post second world war era. Some were popular 78 records of the time, and we wondered if Bing Crosby’s original “White Christmas,” the highest selling recording of all time, or Gene Autry’s famous “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” might have some re-sale value. We found record stores who will such buy such relics, but for insignificant sums. One record dealer I encountered said “Are you kidding – millions of those records were manufactured and sold – and they are in everybody’s basement. For value, show me a Beatle’s disc in its original unscarred jacket that is in perfect condition.” My long-playing, vinyl, 33^1/3 classical music collection attracted a similar reaction, though I have been told that some of these records, if played on very sophisticated turntables, can be acoustically superior. However, most great classical recordings have been re-mastered and are sold in CD format. We have turned in all but a very few special vinyl recordings to a record store for a pittance, and will continue with our CD collection.

While assembling my record collection, I brought out an old fashioned turntable. My eight year old granddaughter had never seen a turntable and was very excited about this discovery. Used to more modern devices, one thing bothered her. She wanted to know how you could fast forward and reverse the record. I then showed her how to pick up the needle and carefully move it to another part of the record. Then I showed her that if I played a 78 record at 45 or 33^1/3 speed, the voice became very much lower and slower.

Model Railroad artifacts have much better re-sale value. We found a young man who owns a hobby store, and has a remarkable historical knowledge of miniature trains. When I showed him my old equipment, he held up items and said things like “American Flyer 1939” or “Lionel Diesel 1946.” He had the eye and the interest of a professional art collector or antiques dealer. The field of miniature trains seems to still be alive, and I was able to do a modest amount of business with him.

Sitting in a corner of our basement is one of my most cherished artifacts. It is a large and very heavy wooden trunk. My paternal grandfather and grandmother traveled to America from a Swedish village named Torsby in the north central province of Varmland in 1890. My grandfather was fortunate to be an accomplished carpenter, and thus had a trade to support him in the new world. This trunk is his personal tool chest that he brought on the boat. The destination was a small town named Newberry, in the center of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My grandparents immigrated there, my father told me, because “the climate was just like where they lived in Sweden,” meaning very cold with much snow. My father described the climate as “eleven months of winter and one month of poor sleighing.” After arrival in Michigan, Charles Hedberg built a sturdy house for his family, which has since been added to and remains handsome and occupied today, as do many homes which he built for the community. During the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, Newberry was mainly a center for the logging industry. Although logging has tapered off greatly, the town remains a picturesque but isolated community of about 1500 people, including an interesting museum devoted to the history of the logging industry in the Upper Peninsula. The tool chest, with its beautiful wood finish and its well-used classic tools of carpentry, will remain in my basement.

In our basement is a file cabinet filled with memorabilia I have collected during 27 years traveling with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a tour physician. That material was of course very helpful for preparation of my last paper for the Literary Club entitled “Notes from a Road Show.” It includes programs and newspaper articles about numerous international performances of this great orchestra, spanning major cities in Europe, Russia, South America, Australia, and Japan. I offered these to Henry Fogel when he was President and CEO of the CSO for their archives, but he pointed out that they already have all of this material in their own voluminous files, so my contribution would be superfluous. I am not ready to discard this collection.

While examining memorabilia from her family, my wife Junia came upon some amazing documents with fascinating historical content. Among them was a 300 page typewritten unpublished historical novel written by her maternal Grandmother, Mary Bates Rhodes, who lived in Buffalo NY. She and her husband, a minister and educator, spent summers at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, where they taught and refreshed themselves in the beauty of nature and the rich intellectual environment. In the summer of 1937, at the age of 70, Mary fell near their summer cottage and broke her hip. The only treatment for her condition in that era was immobility until it healed. She decided to spend this time examining material from her legacy. She describes this as follows:

There was, in our attic, a little wooden trunk filled with old family letters which I had never found time to read, but which I kept because they had been treasured in a previous generation but sentiment forbade their destruction. In a period of enforced leisure, my attention was called to these records of the past, the old trunk was drawn from under the eaves and its contents became a source of pleasure. The letters were bright and lively, revealing the thought and customs of their day. Some of them belonged to my father’s early years, most of them were much older and I found myself associating intimately with a long line of relatives, reaching down from pre-Revolutionary times until their lives mingled with those that had been a part of my childhood.

Mary then decided to write a novel based on her first ancestor to come to the new world, Edward Bates. She used papers and records from the trunk, but also researched events in the area where he lived, and the political and psychological forces of the era. Edward Bates was a Puritan and yeoman, who came to the New World from England sometime between 1633 and 1635 as part of a group led by John Winthrop, and then settled in Weymouth, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He lived until 1686 when he died at the age of 81, having worked hard farming the land he owned, and becoming part owner of a saw mill and corn mill. He married and raised four children, and was active in the secular and religious events and leadership of the community for many years. Today, a plaque from his era hangs in a church in Weymouth, thanking him for his service to the church and the village.

Mary Bates Rhodes named her novel Edward Fenner, Ancestor, changing the name from Bates in the title and text “out of deference to his many descendants who may prefer their own conception of our common ancestor.” After Mary finished the novel, it was put away and forgotten. When Junia found it she was entranced by the manuscript. She undertook the task of typing the novel into her computer, with minimal editing, adding some background footnotes. Her brother, Robert Gratiot, a professional artist in Denver, provided drawings to accompany the text. The book has been published, and those who have read it have found it to be compelling and enjoyable. In the preface, Junia wrote:

Throughout this book, the most striking aspect of Grandmother’s writing is her understanding of human nature and of human love. You will find love, joy, sorrow, tragedy, birth and death in this book. You will experience how early Colonists lived and what they thought. You will meet many people and discover their great strengths and weaknesses. I hope you will be as excited about Edward and his experiences as I am, and that you will find the study of American Colonial History can be an eye-opening journey.

In another storage box Junia discovered letters written in the 1860s and exchanged between her great grandfather Dr. Carroll Bates who lived in Potsdam NY, and his father Dr. Roswell Bates who lived 35 miles north in Fort Covington NY, on the Canadian border. These letters included discussions about their medical practices (which are fascinating in themselves), but also lively observations on the dramatic political and military events of their day. They were delivered by the fastest conveyance available at the time – horsepower. I’d like to read some excerpts, which reflect attitudes in Northern towns at that time.

Potsdam, November 10, 1860

Dear Father,

Now that the election is over and Lincoln is elected, I hope the country will again become peaceful and quiet. A few rabid fanatics at the South, like our rabid abolitionists, will talk of seceding but no harm will be done. A new half-way-between party will spring up and the North and South will meet on more equitable terms than they would have done had any other than Lincoln been elected. We are all Republicans here and of course are much elated at the result of the election and last evening the victory was celebrated by the illumination, on no small scale, of our village. The Democrats united more or less in the illumination, showing that a good feeling prevailed.

Carroll

The next letter is dated five months later, just nine days after the firing on Fort Sumter. It shows that the hoped for spirit of cooperation between North and South did not materialize. The Civil War had started.

Potsdam, April 21, 1861

Dear Father:

Yesterday and today have been very exciting and solemn days to Potsdam. Indeed for several days our village has been full of excitement, watching the mails and twice a day receiving telegrams about the awful, unprovoked war which is upon us. Yesterday we had a gathering of citizens to see what we could do to assist our beloved country in her trouble and prevent the overthrow of those blessed privileges which were bought by the blood of our forefathers—which blessings were civil and religious liberty, free speech, free press and, what no other nation ever fully enjoyed, the right to choose our rulers or law-givers by our own voice through the ballot-box.

The love of our country was shown by some more substantial evidence than mere words. It was shown by actual sacrifice. Forty-nine young men, some of them the pride of our village, came forward and enlisted for actual and immediate service. Thirty-five hundred dollars were pledged to the support of the families of those who would thus fight for their country. Many an old man as well as the young bowed themselves in tears of sorrowful mourning for their country. There was no fictitious delusion. All was solemn, stern reality. All realized what they were doing.

Carroll

The final letter was written nearly a year later, after Carroll had joined the military, serving as a physician in Camp Union at Potsdam, and preparing men for battle.

Potsdam, March 19, 1862

Dear Father,

After five months incessant labor, I am just beginning to breathe once more. Two months and a half I was in camp examining men, writing records, prescribing for the sick in camp and out of camp…

As to politics, I am more than ever united to the Republican Party. I approve of its principles from beginning to end. The Administration deserves the most ardent support of every Northerner, or Southerner who is not a traitor to his country.

I do not say that all are at heart traitors who do not support the Administration but all who are not traitors should lend their aid in crushing this uncalled for and unprovoked Rebellion! Prejudice may and does warp men’s judgments.

Every man has a right to be a Democrat or a Republican in his mind, but no man has a right to endeavor to destroy his country or to befriend those who would destroy it because his party does not prevail or his choice for ruler is not elected.

Revolutions in this country…can and should be brought about by that means which a republican government always provides and which makes it so much better than all other governments. Kings cannot be dethroned without bloodshed. Presidents can be removed by ballots…If your choice for president is not elected you have no right to encourage the destruction of your government! You have a right to procure in a legal way the election of another to fill his place but not by destroying either church or state.

Carroll

As you can see, personal and family history have come alive for us in our basement. Our ongoing journey is not complete – more discovery is ahead. So far it has given us a review of many past times and aspects of our own lives, and insights about our ancestors. There is another room in our house that needs the same attention. I can guarantee one thing though, I promise not to come back to the Literary Club with a paper entitled “My Attic.” Thank you for your attention.