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Barking Dogs....by Bob Sanders

 

Like most municipalities, Bellingham has a barking dog ordinance that ranks right up there as conversational material along with some of the more exciting aspects of life here including discussions about anticipated rain, great gully washers of the past, debates about how to watch moss grow plus taking photographs of significant rainbows claimed by far too many to shame anything Kansans have ever crowed about.

Crowing is a timely word at this junction of today's report offered in response to the Bellingham Herald's story the other day about word that roosters, turkeys and peacocks are likely to wedge their way into recognition by those who enforce the barking dog ordinance.  It appears animal control officers are receiving an increasing number of complaints concerning boisterous feathered friends.

The situation is now on the docket of the City Council and, as we head into the home stretch of November elections, there is little doubt that council members and Mayor Dan Pike (he's up for re-election along with four councilmen) will be either for or against the birds.  Pike, at times a canny politician, likely will not come down on the side of winged creatures knowing that a Pike for the Birds headline might be a bit too accurate in a close City of Subdued Excitement election.  Regardless of the tacks to be taken by politicians, all will be mindful of Sarah Palin's insensitivity toward turkeys during one of those strange aint-Alaska-a-really-you-betcha'-kind-of-place-to-live moments three years ago.

We may have thought we've heard all there is to hear about New Jersey lifestyles but such is not the case in Hopeful Township, an unlikely place for roosters to be unhppy.  Their rural displeasure is due to chicken legislation enacted this past April with the announcement that all the township's roosters will be limited to 10 days worth of conjugal visits each year.  The dramatic council contemplation took three years to bring to fruition and was full of commands to randy roosters including a restriction limiting "purposes of fertilization" to no more than five days in a row.  A headline in The Times of Trenton, a newspaper much more inclined to carry news about the Real Housewives of New Jersey, positive aspects of Gov. Chris Christie's obesity and denials that Frank Sinatra was ever mob-connected, used the word poppycock, not bad for the Garden State.

Dogs that bark is a much more complex matter that not even Palin's wisdom could be of much help although she undoubtedly has thoughts probably connected in some dithering way to woofing Russian wolfhounds owned by neighbors known to fly overhead.

Perhaps some highly random dog data is worth mention.  The U.S., with over 52 million, has the highest dog population in the world; 87% of dogs curl up beside or at the feet of TV viewing owners; the all-time top grossing film ($142,992,475) is Marley and Me (2008); 15 people die each year from dog bites; and more than one million dogs thus far in this country have been primary benefactors in wills made by their owners.  Britain now has its first mobile pet blood bank.

In further examination of the barking dog, there is increasing evidence that dogs and other animals can sense and predict earthquakes and other natural disasters.  While there is no conclusive scientific evidence that a dog can sense and predict earthquakes, animal owners tell us otherwise.  The Web is loaded with stories including one from Alex who writes: "Dogs can definitely sense earthquakes that are about to occur--or feel the vibrations under the earth hours before earthquakes surface.  We have 2 earthquakes in the last 6 months where I live, and on both occasions the next door neighbors dogs and other dogs from further away were howling non-stop like crazy--they sounded like wolves that were howling all through the night and in the morning.  I thought it was freaky but didn't have a clue what was wrong with them, and then there was an earthquake, this happened once in August and once in February.  It is not a coincidence--as I have been living next to them for 3 years and they have never howled before--only those two times before the earthquakes happened.  Just before a storm hits they start running around and crying and barking--so dogs sense these things for sure."

An old journalistic saw suggests that while dog bites man is not a story, the opposite is decidedly newsworthy.  Something of a first cousin slant on things occurred not long ago in Mason, Ohio.  Police in the Cincinnati suburb charged a man with a misdemeanor for barking at a police dog.

According to Officer Bradley Walker, he heard his dog barking uncontrollably inside his patrol car while investigating a car crash outside a pub.  Making barking and hissing noises was a 25-year-old, described as appearing to be "highly intoxicated."  One wonders if the Man Barks Dog guy was doing something highly original or if he first practiced using Partners in Rhyme's one-hour classic CD, "Dogs Barking."  Originally created to provide background ambiance for radio plays, the CD ($14.95 plus $4.95 for shipping & handling) also can be used by the mean spirited to get even with neighbors without going to the trouble of buying a barking dog.

Another step backwards for canines is a recent Barking Dog Hotline that grew out of Phoenix (Arizona) City Ordinance 8-2 which classifies excessive bow-wowing as a Class One misdemeanor.

In spite of the vast number of dogs in the U.S. alone, there are very few studies on vocal communications.  Before Sophia Yin entered the barking dog scene, there were but two papers, published more than 40 years ago, plus a popular press article in the early 1990s.  It is Yin's contention, following study of her digital recordings of 4,672 barks covering three situation tests, that owners should be able to recognize the barks their dogs make in specific contexts.  I guess that's the kind of break-through conclusion that comes with 4,672 barks ringing in your ears.  It wasn't easy for Yin who converted her barks to visual displays called spectrograms, then took 60 sequential frequency (pitch) measurements and 60 sequential amplitude measurements along the length of each bark and then recorded values (still with me?) such as minimum, maximum, mean frequency, start slop, finish slope, frequency range, amplitude range, bark duration and interbark intervals for each bark.  Yin, unfortunately, does not provide a time frame for the interbark intervals but, then, nobody's perfect.   

We're so crazy about dogs in this country that there's a Dog Bark Park Inn in Cottonwood, Idaho.  The whimsical bed & breakfast features two connected rooms in a huge wooden dog.  One of the features is a toilet disguised as a fire hydrant, an accoutrement that must be confusing for visiting Fidos.

Then there's Lele of Chengdu City, China who puts his owner's money where his mouth is.  When hungry, Lele barks, then puts one yuan in his mouth and heads for neighboring shops where sausage awaits at a number of possible stops.  Lele will not let go of the money until given the sausage.

Leana Beasley owes her life to Faith, her Rottweiler with a talented nose.  When Beasley went down for what would have been the count, Faith raced to the phone, pressed speed dial and barked.  The operator understood what was going on and Beasley is with us today.

Sometimes dogs don't have to bark to save a life.  Take Buddy, an Alsatian, whose owner was susceptible to seizures because of a brain injury suffered while in the U.S. Army.  Joe Stalnaker is his name.  Joe programmed the buttons of a cell phone so that Buddy could pick up the phone with his mouth thus activating a 911 call.  It worked and Joe's life was significantly extended.

While we tend to connect dogs and Paris with what they leave behind on sidewalks, it took an American to create a Bakery for Dogs and who says we're losing our entrepreneurial spirit?  Harriett Sternstein, an award-winning pastry chef who makes very special bacon biscuits for Sophie-Marie, decided to create them for other Parisian pooches; a typical day finds her making about 300 biscuits in the shape of cats and dog bones.

Those of us whose ownership of a barker puts us in bad paper with a barkee can go in a number of directions.  First step could very well be Bark Busters which operates world-wide out of Sydney, Australia.  Managed by Sylvia Wilson and husband Danny, a Bark Busters franchise costs $71,000 if you want to get into the world of canine behavior modification ("Prince, sit up") and behavioral psychology ("dogs love their friends and bite their enemies").  The Wilson claim 500,000 woofs of approval.

Other possible solutions include dog collars that vibrate plus a spraying contrivance which, when filled with citronella, is activated by (guess what?) barking.  Any old bark will do whether it originates in the throat of a Chihuahua or a Great Dane.  Speaking of throats, there is a procedure called chordectamy which is a last ditch effort whose ballpark cost is $2,500.

I owe thanks to a gentleman named George Hammond for a charming Website story about a tired and elderly dog who would show up nearly every day around mid-afternoon.  Upon admission to Hammond's home, the dog would flop on what became his favorite spot on a hallway where he took a nap of about one hour, then left.  One day, Hammond wrote the following and affixed it to the dog's collar: "I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap?"

The dog returned the next day with a different note attached to his collar.  "We live in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of three and he's trying to catch up on his sleep.  Can I come with him tomorrow?"

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Pushing the Sweepstakes Envelope...by Bob Sanders

 

With dire predictions about the future of the U.S. Postal Service rampant, it seems a bit odd that solicitations by mail appear to be both more numerous and of greater weight as we approach the holiday season.  Further, there seems to be something of a shrill quality to requests for monetary funds.  The economy is probably to blame but it's as if the old standby mail service is being used in more aggressive ways by many non-profits in what may be a kind of farewell salute.  As a great philosopher once suggested, "Get it now."

Offhand, I'd say I've received at least twice my normal mail during the past six weeks and it's not just attributable to the buying of public office.  At the risk of being called a roadshow Andy Rooney, I'm certain some of these annual appeals arrive at least four times a year.  A new wrinkle is the holiday gift including such items as tote bags, jackets, blankets, note pads and more return address labels than I could possibly use in 10 decades.  Boys Town, American Heart Association and the Paralyzed Veterans of America have told me to look inside for my present.  Easter Seals has announced on the envelope that I've been a supporter since 2011 and that there's important information inside regarding my 2012 membership.  Wonder what it might be?

I can't recall who it was but I've received two checks for $2.50.  Implicit in the pitch was the suggestion that I, the original nice guy, wouldn't cash the check but would add to it.  My guess is that the most difficult aspect of being a legitimate non-profit is media coverage.  Hardly a week goes by without a story about either a mail scam or the sky-high overhead of yet another do good organization.  Yes, let's blame the media, today's All-American whipping boy, if you discount President Obama.

In a country whee greed is hardly limited to Wall Street, many of us buy lottery tickets as a solution to money shorts.  While I'm sure that the people at Publishers Clearing House think otherwise, a sweepstakes is a sweepstakes is a sweepstakes.  How unfortunate was Gertrude Stein not to have lived long enough to experience the Clearing House Follies.  What a musical that will make some day with an Ed McMahon-like character making house calls while proving what he was: Max Bialystock with carny blarney.

Publishers Clearing House caught up with me the other day and my reaction was one of wellwhadyaknow? things much like running into a friend of a largely forgotten ex-wife.  Curious, I opened the PCH envelope to a WARNING indicating that the Executive Offices at 101 Winners Circle in Port Washington, NY were letting me know about my ignoring prior notices.  The WARNING was further identified as a WAIVER that could very well be activated if I followed directions.   

The WARNING (capital letters, often in boldface type, are PCH stock in trade) became detailed indicating that a failure to return my official entry validation & order form would (a) automatically waive my ownership of Mega Prize Number 391112404319, (b) automatically waive my number's permanent admission onto the Final Winner Selection List for the November 30th Mega Prize and (c) automatically waive my opportunity to win Millions of Dollars from this Notice.  Fortifying these threats was a hand-written note: "Don't let this happen to you.  Respond today, before it's too late."  In the word of Jack Benny: "Well!"

As if to sound a note of reason, there was a five paragraph raison d'etre from Dave Sayer, Prize Patrol Executive Director.  I wonder what it's like running a prize patrol?  Probably full of logistics and, if you're a veteran of the biz, likely to harbor feelings of good fortune that you never had affable Ed McMahon on your team although, come to think of it, McMahon's efforts as spokesman for rival American Family Publishing, no longer in business, were often mistaken as being for PCH.  Confusion often is a word used in conjunction with the sweepstakes since the direct mail scheme, deftly promoted, was started in 1963.  Confusion may have peaked with McMahon's death when a great many articles and obituaries credited McMahon's efforts as being for PCH, a firm for which he never worked.

We have Reader's Digest partly to blame for PCH's sweepstakes.  It was in 1963 that the Digest, now the world's most read monthly magazine with a circulation of 17 million and 70 million readers, came up with a highly successful sweepstakes that inspired PCH to develop its own version four years later as a means of drawing attention to magazines.  Who can forget a greatly enhanced version in the late 1980s and those live recorded moments featuring the Prize Patrol, lurking on American streets, and not conclude the towering excitement was an early version of reality television?  All those balloons, flowers, champagne, and big checks are impressions not easily diminished by time.

Sayer's reassuring note largely concentrates on why PCH is so happy to give away so much money.  It probably comes with the territory that any Prize Patrol Executive Director would become excessively inclusive and it took Dave but five paragraphs to declare palship by signing his first name to a communique with two references to my full name while interjecting seven yous, one you'll, plus a your in addition to making it clear I don't have to buy anything to win.  It was a promise later fort of rescinded.

Deception, no doubt accompanied by an awareness that a large percentage of this country's citizens continues to be victimized by a lengthy and severe dumbing down, has alway been part of Publishers Clearing House's sales ethics.  Something of a breakthrough occurred in 2000 when, without admitting any wrongdoing, the firm settled with 23 states for $18 million.  Key to the settlement was a forced inclusion of a "Sweepstakes Facts Box" and disclaimers thast tell participants "Buying Won't Help You Win" and "You Have Not Yet Won."  The firm also was ordered to maintain a Do Not Contact list for those wanting nothing to do with PCH.  Things got a touch more expensive the next year when it took $34 million to settle with 25 states and, for the first time, acknowledged "harm done in the past by deceptive practices."  Settlement agreements during the next 11 months were reached with 40 states.

State settlements appear to be a sweepstakes minor irritant to PCH.  In September of last year, contempt charges of violating the 2001 Agreement were reached with 33 for a paltry $3.5 million, a sum likely found encouraging by PCH.  Each settlement has produced more ground rules seemingly still trespassed judging from what arrived in my mail.  Certainly, the spirit of ground rules corrections has been violated; one wonders if PCH has the kind of corporate sense of humor capable of giving rise to a yearly internal sweepstakes game within the game enabling home office types to buy in-house chances on the number of state settlements to be made plus the dwindling chump change fines since the new century began.  Corporations, as we've been told by George Romney, are people and there are something like 400 employees headquartered in Port Washington, NY.  Conspiracy theorists are probably wondering if there is any connection between a doubling of lobbyists during the glorious George W. Bush years and greatly reduced PCH fines meted out for obvious obfuscation and whose murkiness remains a hallmark of written chicanerey.

I couldn't help but notice an enclosed Official Entry Validation & Order Form.  Implicit is the declaration that my current PROVISIONAL ONLY status will remain just that unless I affix my Mega Prize 10-diget number contained on the FINAL WINNER SELECTION LIST ADMISSION NOTICE.  If my submission arrives by November 14, I make it to the final round should my number be selected.  It used to be simple before this winnowing process was deemed necessary.  The odds of winning as much as a mega prize of $1 million plus $5,000 a week for life are something like 1 in 1.75 billion, an increase of 23% from a year ago.  The odds have always been contention's bone with the 2007 chances, announced by PCH, as "1 in 333 million."

I kind of like the free postage envelope enclosed.  I don't recall such assistance before but, the passage of time and the fecklessness of my past responses may be to blame.  With the government critical of the continuing word games played by PCH, there is possible blatancy in a suggestion on the envelop0e that it be used to "enclose your official entry validation & order form and mail."  Critics wise to the ways of nuanced literature will deplore an ampersand certain to put lawyers to work.  

I do miss all those magazines that Publishers Clearing House sold in the early days.  What came in the mail the other day makes one wonder why the word "Publishers" remains in the firm's name.  It's one thing to flog a classy publication like The New Yorker, it's another to shill for such products as an NFL Football Monkey complete with your choice of team logos; a heart-shaped birthstone pendant with two pairs of pierced earrings, an irresistible 32-melody wireless digital doorbell (tunes include "The Yellow Rose of Texas, batteries not included) and three sets of glittery Santa window sticker that come with three snowmen stickers if four payments of $2.99 are made.  I counted 83 advertisers participating in what normally is associated with cheesy local mailings heavy on pizza parlors, automotive specials and sex shops.

It wasn't long before I learned these people never give up.  Deep within the PCH envelope contents was a "Fast Cash" bingo card adjacent to eight sticker chips that, somehow, gave me a matching row of numbers and the opportunity to slap the card on the back of my Official Entry Validation & Order Form and make me a $50 Fast Cash Winner.

I also stumbled upon an even greater opportunity that might win $100.  It seems that Bellingham resident Robert Sanders is on the LOCAL PRIZE WINNER SELECTION LIST, provisionally (there's that word, again) eligible to win the SEATTLE-TACOMA TV area major prize of $1,000.  TV stations KOMO-TV, KING-TV and KIRO-TV are guaranteed to be alerted to my windfall.  Of course, the entry must be validated by 11/14/11 or the provisional eligibility will be REVOKED.

It's tempting to inform PCH that Bellingham, located 100 miles north of Seattle, is not part of the Seattle-Tacoma area.  Also, I don't believe either KOMO-TV or KIRO-TV will be interested in me and my $1,000 prize.  That's particularly so should they learn Brian Williams will announce the name of the mega prze winner on the NBC-TV nightly news of November 30.

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Pale Hose Humbuggery....by Bob Sanders

 

Those of us who love baseball are aware this is the very best part of a year whose disappointments have been many.  The world is in the process of going broke, the Republicans are having difficulty determining if two of their candidates belong to a cult, Netflix has given DVD viewers the streaming meemies by showing signs that Aunt Sue's somewhat retarded kids (the ones who run a failing lemonade stand) might do a better job than the current CEO, and Wall Street, none of whose criminal denizens are yet in prison, is getting Grant Park-like treatment reminiscent of Chicago circa 1968.  Despite all the travail, those fortunate enough to care have the playoffs and the World Series to take minds off what has become both increasingly benumbing and, yet, mundane.

Although there are no gutsy awards for superior play during September, the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals gained entry to the playoffs by overcoming huge odds.  Trailing the Boston Red Sox by nine games with the month barely underway, the Rays captured the AL Wild Card while the Cardinals, always full of spunk and solid play, erased a September deficit of 8 1/2 games to overtake the Atlanta Braves on the last day of the season.  Tony La Russa's teams always have an abundance of character and the ability to do the small things often taken for granted.  Cut-off throws are accurately executed, bunts delicately placed, conservative decisions made when appropriate, and base runners unselfishly moved along by ground balls hit to the right side.

It was the second consecutive playoff appearance for the Rays in their 14th franchised year.  It also was the second straight time the team has lost in the playoffs to the Texas Rangers.  Qualification was gained the last game of the season against the New York Yankees who led 7-0 going into the eighth inning.  Tampa scored six runs, then tied the game in the ninth on a two out pinch hit home run.  Tampa third baseman Evan Longoria, author of a three-run homer in the eighth, hit a walk-off home run in the 12th.

Mostly a follower of the National League, I have done little thinking during recent years about baseball in central Florida, a state with little charisma and even less height.  My rare thoughts about Florida have tended to concentrate on whether or not a state, whose mean elevation is 100 feet, will some day be entirely flooded by a hurricane with a funny name and whose fury will be such that all those still- boxed hanging chads will be washed out to sea.   

It is true, however, that I once had an actual Tampa/St. Petersburg experience in 1988 in 1988 involving a possible move by the Chicadgo White Sox to the land of oranges and the elderly infirmed.  A story goes with it.

I had moved from Field Enterprises in November, 1980 to the Chicago Tribune.  The following year I did the first of a number of Tribune Tower galleries about Chicago and the vibrancy of the highly unique city.  Timed with the opening of the baseball season, it was about the ineffectual Cubs whose inept pursuit of a World Series championship has now reached 103 years and counting.  Using pictures from the newspaper's vast library, I portrayed the team--warts and all.  The warts included: a pitcher who sought hypnotism in an attempt to overcome wildness; a shortstop who made four errors in one inning (his first son was born that day and the parents nicknamed him "Boots"); and the remarkable Babe Herman who once, while adjusting his belt, set sail after a ball hit into the right-center field gap.  His run for the ball was impeded by pants that had fallen to his ankles.  The Cubs colorful? Yes.  The Cubs effective? Rarely.  My gallery also paid homage to Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ferguson Jenkins and others of sterling repute.  I titled it "Those Lovable, Laughable Bums of Summer."

Further proof of my being the master of timing occurred two months later when Tribune Company bought the team.  I doubt that I had inspired the purchase.

Flash forward seven years.  As it turned out, I was within six months of completing my work for the Tribune when the White Sox began threatening to leave Chicago unless a new ballpark was built.  While the Cubs continue to fill Wrigley Field's 40,000 plus seats, the White Sox have always had difficulty in spite of fielding superior teams.  There are lots of reasons and one of them is racial although, technically speaking, what used to be Comiskey Park is located in Bridgeport, a small white enclave.  Bridgeport, once home of "da Mares" Daley until Richie moved out, is immediately north of the center of an area whose crime statistics are severe enough to make many baseball fans stay home.  Sun-Times  sports writer Bill Gleason once pointed out the awful truth in a column and soon was writing for the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune.

To no one's surprise, it was Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf who began making demands for a new ballpark.  He wanted a replacement for rickety Comiskey Park, completed 78 years earlier.  It appeared likely the Cubs would have Chicago all to themselves.

Enter Tribune marketing director Bob Dickey who rarely had an original idea although he was working on one that would land him in prison.  More about Dickey and the nearly $1 million corporate scam will be found in a future blather.

Dickey's germ of a notion in 1988 was for the Tribune to lead a campaign to Keep the White Sox in Chicago.  This was spin even before the term became part of marketing lexicon; the Tribune giving succor to a competitor was as unexpected as baseball's hidden ball trick.  It was enough to create upheaval in Col. Robert R. McCormick's grave although the newspaper's highly controversial publisher of yore never was much of a baseball fan.

Dickey's murky slogan was featured in a full-page Tribune ad and suggested that people drop off old white sox at a collection point in Tribune Tower's lobby.  When that phase of the project produced less than a dozen pair, Dickey then ordered public service manager Kevin Dabe to buy several hundred socks to make the lobby "collection" more impressive.  Following that bit of fakery, Dickey backed off telling me to take over the un-fulfilled scheme.  In the City of Big Shoulders, we had a badly focused campaign falling apart.  

The first thing Dabe and I did was take those pristine bunion wrappers downstairs to the dungeon where the newspaper used to be printed.  Pushing the sox around the filthy floor with brooms, we gave them a proper patina of grime and placed them in the lobby.

I then contacted Mike Conklin, co-author of the sports column Odds & Ins and, with his editor's approval, talked him into becoming a focal point.  A new slogan, You Can Have Our White Sox, was carried to the public by way ot radio, TV, the Tribune, and wire services.  My media contacts loved the story.  It was pure Chicago.

Those dirty, smelly, perspiration-soaked, athlete's foot-ridden white sox were going to be sent to St. Petersburg accompanied by Conklin.  Suddenly, the collection of sox in the lobby grew and the story, laced with humor, was about to take off-particularly on TV stations in Chicago, St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Suddenly, Chicago was aware that truly grubby, filthy, feted and foul sox were wanted and not just any qualified.  They had to be white sox worn by real Chicagoans and the grubbier the better.  Celebrities could contribute and that was a sidebar angle.  My press releases made clear our mission: to inundate St. Petersburg with what soon arrived: odoriferous hosiery in startling numbers.  The final Tribune Tower total was 2,600.  Here's one for you, Col. McCormick.

Midway Airlines, cooperating in our mischief, would fly the white sox in a Tribune crate as a public service.  Hugh Hefner's Big Bunny, which I had promoted in another corporate life, was an early consideration; unfortunately, the plane had been purchased by a wealthy Venezuelan.

Figuring there probably existed a Florida version of Minneapolis vs. St. Paul rivalry between St. Petersburg and Tampa, I called the latter's fire department and expressed public safety concerns about the germ-laden sox.  Surely, this called for a hazardous materials squad outfitted in gas masks.  My suggestion was met with approval.  My next call was to the St. Petersburg public relations department where I found a fellow prankster who agreed that a nice touch would be a scantily-clad sweet young thing armed with Lysol spray.  My only request was that she not put what doubtless was a glorious body between cameras and the crate's Chicago Tribune logos.

Every TV station in the three cities used footage that June 28 and a materials truck featured red lights flashing plus gas-masked firemen.  The firemen and the sweet young thing sprayed the crate before taking it away.  Conklin, asked how he felt while interviewed by TV, said: "I'm stunned."  He looked it.

I have a tape of the event's coverage.  It's part of a presentation that won first place for newspaper promotion in that year's American Newspaper Marketing Association convention.   Among the anchors using the story were Bill Kurtis and Floyd Kalber, both longtime Chicago television news kingpins. 

St. Petersburg, with a rich history as a spring training base, was long thought to have the inside track on a major league expansion franchise.  It lost out to Tampa, a more aggressive community much-appreciated by the flamboyant Babe Ruth who hit what may have been his longest home run--a 585-ft. blast during Red Sox spring training of 1919.  The Bambino, following his trade to the Yankees, had some problems in St. Petersburg including one in which he had to give up shagging balls in right field because some alligators had emerged from a lake bordering the outfield.

Tampa got its franchise as the 13th expansion team in 1995.  The White Sox remained in Chicago where this past season they finished 16 games behind the division leader while achieving an attendance of 2 million.  The Cubs, 25 games out, drew 3 million while the exciting Rays pulled 1.5 million.  Of the 30 major league teams, only Oakland drew less than Tampa.

Oh, yes.  There was a nice grace note to my St. Petersburg/Tampa story.  Those smelly, dirty white sox, whose totality of offensiveness surely would have qualified for Shakespearean comparison as "the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril," were washed by a Florida laundry and given to charity.

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"Prohibition"....by Bob Sanders

 

Fourth Corner TV viewers fortunate enough to have seen Ken Burns' absorbing documentary, "Prohibition," probably are unaware there's a second shoe that, understandably, never dropped during the fascinating look at Roy Olmstead, a featured bootlegger in part two of the three-part PBS series.  First a cop, then Seattle's biggest mover of booze, Olmstead received a lot of attention from Burns.

That second shoe involves what happened after Olmstead, a Robin Hood-like character, was finally done in by a series of events during the last four months of 1924.  It was in September of that year that a trusted Olmstead lieutenant turned informant revealing intimate details of Olmstead's operation.  A series of raids by federal agents, aided by wiretaps and surveillance on Olmstead's home, was followed by the bootlegger's arrest November 17 of that year.  Arrested with him: a wife and 15 guests.

Because of time constraints involved in packing a sprawling and complicated story into five and one-half hours, Burns was understandably unable to expand upon Olmstead's remarkable tale by including material likely of interest only to people of the Pacific Northwest.

Let's back up a bit while adding details.  Olmstead had joined the Seattle police force in 1907 rising through the ranks to be named its youngest lieutenant in 1917.  That was one year after the State of Washington became one of 23 states to enforce "dry laws" that produced Prohibition.  It was while making bootlegging arrests that Olmstead noticed a lack of "professionalism" among the criminals and decided he could do a better job.  Soon, as the Burns film indicates, he was making more in a week than he could as a cop in 20 years.  His entrepreneurial spirit was reminiscent of Willie Sutton who targeted banks because "that's where the money is."

Olmstead's rum-running success, whose key factor was proximity to Canadian liquor where there were no prohibitive laws, lasted nearly four years.  Early on, his criminal activities were discovered and his police career was over.  His only charge was a $500 fine; the experience strengthened a belief that bootlegging offered more advantages than police work.

Olmstead also changed wives marrying Elise Caroline Parch, something of a dazzler whom he met in the summer of 1924.  They wed August 5 of that whirlwind year.  Friends observed Elise as quite an improvement over former wife, Viola, and it was the young and vivacious Englishwoman (they met in Vancouver, B.C.) who maneuvered Olmstead into purchasing a knockout of a mansion in the Mt. Baker area.

Possessor of an agile mind, Olmstead had become interested in the possibilities offered by new-fangled radio broadcasting and a logical progression of thought produced an exciting use of extra space in his home.  Whether Burns chose to ignore Olmstead's creation of a radio station in his mansion (a matter of record) or because, as Seattle author Emmett Watson learned, all of the bootlegger's police records were destroyed, is anybody's guess.

Evidence does exist that Olmstead's radio station, KFQX, was Seattle's first; further, the station's broadcasts were from what had been a bedroom in the home the two often referred to as their "snow white palace."  The good times rolled in Olmstead's Gatsby-like existence with old-timers insisting that wife Elise's dulcet English voice was employed to signal rum-running boats in Puget Sound through codes sprinkled among Mother Goose rhymes and Hans Christian Andersen stories.

Alise's broadcast persona was as "Aunt Vivian" who read to "children" of the Puget Sound as twilight approached for the daytime-only station.  Those possessed of a sense of humor wondered if more appropriate station call letters might be KRUM?  It is now the venerable and all-news KOMO.

Since those were the days before radio newspaper columns and awards shows, there are no records indicating the quality of the programs originating in the Tara of Radio.  The only audience that really mattered: crews of rum-running boats.  In retrospect, it appears radio neophyte Olmstead was stumbling around in what would become the hallowed halls of broadcast narrowcasting.

During all of this, Olmstead was a popular member of a Seattle society aware that more than half of the city's police force was in on the game.  Although rum-running was hardly a walk in the park, Olmstead's employees were prohibited from carrying firearms.  He was often quoted as saying he would rather lose a shipment of booze than a life.

Not to stray too far from the core of this story, but the online Encyclopedia of Washington State History insists Alfred M. Hubbard, a young inventor, built the radio station in a spare bedroom of the Olmstead mansion.  Highly mysterious, Hubbard has various online accreditations including being called "the Johnny Appleseed of LSD."  Apparently, he also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) later called the CIA.  It was Hubbard who informed on Olmstead in the fall of 1924, a career move for the young man who swapped life in the mansion to become a prohibition agent that led to the CIA gig.

Thanks to Hubbard, the booze balloon burst on Thanksgiving Day, 1924 when the mansion was invaded by gendarmes including Federal Agent William Whitney, long an Olmstead nemesis.  The November 27 date was big in New York as the first Macy's Parade and even bigger in Seattle with a scene that would have worked in The Untouchables.  Whitney arrested the Olmsteads and, perhaps inspired by the show business setting, began making phone calls to area bootleggers urging them to come to a party ("don't forget to bring some booze") by doing a voice impression of the rum-runner/broadcaster.  The heavily attended party saw 48 revelers charged with breaking the laws of Prohibition.  Details of the rollicking party and Olmstead's remarkable life are told in Watson's book, Once Upon a Time in Seattle.  

Olmstead was sentenced to four years in the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary and fined $8,000.  With his bootlegging empire in disarray, Olmstead dispatched an underling with orders to re-locate Station KFQX.  He chose Aberdeen, a particularly quiet community in the southwest corner of the state.  Enter Rogan Jones, a businessman and owner of the building chosen by the Olmstead lieutenant to house the station.  Within a few weeks, the station was closed down by the Feds and Jones, whose knowledge of radio equaled an ability to write Sanskrit, eventually inherited KFQX because no one wanted it.  He had become a broadcaster in the strangest of ways.

That was in 1928 and he quickly achieved success although Aberdeen had its limitations.  Looking about, Jones learned that Bellingham, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, had a dormant station available. 

Like Roy Olmstead, Louis Kessler had established a Seattle station in his home.  With call letters KVOS (Voice of Seattle), he began broadcasting in 1926 from an apartment on tony Queen Anne Hill.  A bit overwhelmed by the big city, Kessler moved the station to Bellingham where it folded.

Jones became a huge success in Bellingham.  The future member of the Broadcast Hall of Fame was a natural in his new-found career.  The public appreciated his approach to broadcasting--particularly his battle with the wire services.  While so much of broadcast news today builds its stories around published reports (the New York Times is the most utilized), it wasn't always so.  Back in Jones' time, the wire services refused to sell stories to radio stations.  Jones told his news staff to rewrite newspaper copy and in 1936 the Supreme Court backed him up in a landmark decision.  He then created KVOS-TV largely because the Vancouver area had but one station.  That was in 1953 and much of the advertising placed on the channel was Canadian.  A signal tower atop Orcas Island's Mt. Constitution (elevation 2,400 ft.) did not hurt.

Jones had become the recipient of what critics caustically called "a license to steal" but he became a much-loved and respected broadcaster because of his sense of public service.

The old KVOS radio is now KGMI, a station whose far right programming (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al.) is in stark contrast to its origins.  Burns would enjoy the abundant ironies as would Jones, an outspoken liberal, and Olmstead whose life took new direction even before his release from prison in 1935.  Franklin D. Roosevelt granted a full presidential pardon with the $8,000 fine and $2,288 court costs returned.  It would be nice to report that wife Alice of the dulcet voice continued her broadcast career and became "The Singing Lady" or some other significant performer but such was not the case.  She filed for divorce in 1943 claiming Olmstead "deserted her without just cause."

Olmstead wasn't finished with his already highly interesting life.  Having converted to the Christian Science faith while in prison, he spent a great deal of time visiting jails and working with prisoners while castigating demon rum.  Headquartering his ministry in an obscure downtown Seattle office, Olmstead lived an exemplary life his remaining 35 years.  He became everything he wasn't during the first 44.  

The twists and turns of the story are complex but certain conclusions are rather easy.  If Roy Olmstead had not switched careers and become a bootlegger, it's extremely doubtful that Rogan Jones would have become a broadcast pioneer.  Further, had Louis Kessler not failed as a Bellingham broadcaster, the city's FCC license would not have been available to Jones.  Taking another look backwards, the Aberdeen station location, hurriedly switched from Seattle, would not have become a reality had an Olmstead aide not turned informer sending the cop turned bootlegger to prison.

One wonders how our own lives might have been affected had those of greatest impact on us taken different turns in the road? 

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