Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas -- Remembering December, 1944

When Gus was transferred to a search light battery in San Diego in February 1942, the United States, and really the rest of the world were braced for a long war and were gearing up to fight it.

When he enlisted, the term of service was one year. Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, on December 19, the term of service was indefinitely extended to the duration of the war plus six months. All men between the age of 18 and 64 were required to register. At the time the U.S. Army wasn’t much. When Germany invaded Poland, the U.S. Army had 170,000 soldiers, and another 200,000 served in the National Guard.

When the U.S. entered the war, it would take a while before the U.S. could mobilize the sort of armed force necessary to engage in a sustained offensive war. For most enlisted men already in the army, and those being inducted, their immediate prospects were for a long and indefinite period of training and waiting – mostly waiting.

“In the middle of February, [1942], I was sent to San Diego. I was assigned to the coast artillery battery. We were quite fortified there. We had as much as 16 inch guns up there. Point Loma was tunneled. They had the machine gun nests up there and then they had the 16 inch guns on railroad tracks. They could hide them in the tunnels. I worked in the plotting room where they tracked the target . . .” Gus recalled.

It seems the army was in certain state of confusion and flux. When a country begins mobilizing there is no choice other than to begin with what you have. Point Loma is a sand stone peninsula on the ocean side of the San Diego Bay. Its cliffs rise more than 400 feet above sea level and offer an unobstructed view along the far southern U.S. coast to Mexico. Fort Rosecrans, on the south side of the peninsula, was a natural home U.S. Army’s Coast Artillery Corps in both World War One and Two.

Gus never said anything about it, but a nearly two year billet there couldn’t have been an altogether bad thing.  It was southern California – a pleasant climate after all. He had long established California connections. There were not too many targets to track.

In entering the war, Fort Rosecrans was an asset the small military had at hand. It was one of a handful of starting points.

In early 1942, military assignments for enlisted men were unavoidably haphazard. Point Loma was one of those places to begin building a military force from a few hundred thousand into what numbered over 12 million by the war’s end in 1945. Of those 8,300,000 were in the Army.

No one had written a field manual on doing that.

“When I got to San Diego, they didn’t need bakers or cooks. So I was assigned to a gun crew. First I was a gun commander on a 10 inch gun. I had a sergeant’s rank.

“I was in “F” battery and we got orders to go to Alaska. Since I had just come back from Alaska I was transferred into ‘K’ battery. When I was transferred to ‘K’ battery, I was moved to the plotting room. I was shipped to Europe in December 1944.”

Gus’s war began with a long wait. In early 1942 it was apparent it would not only be a long war, but it would be brutal too. The Allied forces had been evacuated from Dunkirk in May 1940. In 1941 Hitler marched almost at will across Eastern Europe to the suburbs of Moscow. From December of 1941 through May of 1942, Filipino and U.S. forces were engaged with the Japanese in the Philippines. By the time battle concluded with the infamous Bataan Death March, of the 150,000 Filipino and American combatants 25,000 were killed, 21,000 were wounded and 100,000 were captured.  

About the only bright spots were the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy, in June, at Midway, and a victory at Guadalcanal, following a hard battle that raged on from June 1942 until February 1943. The nature of the war ahead was clear. There were 60,000 U.S. ground forces at Guadalcanal. Overall the battle left 7,100 dead.

On all fronts and among all belligerents, including the U.S., they were more than willing to wage a war of attrition. The war on the Eastern Front, between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht, kind of set the tone for things to come.

Winston Churchill met with Stalin in the middle of August 1942, to lay out Brittan’s overall near term war plans which focused on a large attack in North Africa hitting Rommel from the east. Stalin wanted a second front in France and he wanted it now.

Churchill recounted the meeting in his history The Second World War, volume IV. This is how it went:

“I told Stalin that I was well aware that this plan offered no help to Russia in 1942, but thought it possible that when the 1943 plan was ready it might well be that the Germans would have a stronger army in the west. I then said I had good reason against an attack on the French coast in 1942. We had only enough landing-craft for an assault landing on a fortified coast – enough to throw ashore about six divisions and maintain them...

“Stalin who had begun to look very glum, seemed unconvinced by my argument, and asked if it was impossible to attack any part of the French coast. I showed a map which indicated difficulties of making an air umbrella anywhere except actually across the Straits…

“Stalin, whose glumness had by now much increased, said that, as he understood it, we were unable to create a second front with any large force and unwilling even to land six divisions. I said that this was so…

“Stalin, who had become restless, said that his view about war was different. A man who was not prepared to take risks could not win a war. Why were we so afraid of the Germans? He could not understand. His experience showed that troops must be bloodied in battle. If you did not blood your troops you had no idea what their value was…”

Importantly, Stalin’s view about war was different. A soldier either fought to the last bullet or was a traitor. 

Up to that point in the war, the Soviet dead and missing in action numbered nearly six million, according to G. I. Krivosheev, in Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Of those nearly five million had been taken as prisons of war. The Red Army had been all but crushed in 1941, but held a line and turned the German Army from the outskirts of Moscow in the winter of 1941-42.

It’s understandable why Stalin was so insistent on an immediate second front in France, but ultimately saw the logic of Churchill’s near term focus on North Africa. Churchill continued later in that passage:

“At this point Stalin seemed suddenly to grasp the strategic advantages of “Torch.” He recounted four main reasons for it: first, it would hit Rommel in the back; second, it would overawe Spain; third, it would produce fighting between Germans and Frenchmen in France; and fourth, it would expose Italy to the whole brunt of the war.”

U.S. ground forces didn’t engage the German land force until the end of 1942 with Operation Torch in North Africa. This was followed by the Invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and Italy with American forces landing on Italian peninsula in September. Rome fell to the Allies in June 1944. Operation Overlord, the invasion of France in Normandy, was launched on June 6, 1944. American forces were fully mobilized.   

So things went. While Gus was stationed in San Diego, waiting, by 1944 the mood of the nation was dark. The uncertainty of those serving in the armed forces, and by extension that of their families, loved ones, and friends, was overwhelmingly breathtaking. That is, as in literally breathless, as if having had the wind knocked out of you.

The lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas expressed the dark limbo in which enlistees and civilians alike drifted.

The song was written by Hugh Martin for the 1944 movie Meet Me in Saint Louis. Here’s what he wrote:

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Pop that champagne cork
Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

The business of “It may be your last” and “Next year we may all be living in the past” were too dark for Judy Garland, who had those lines rewritten to “Let your heart be light” and “Next year all our troubles well be out of sight.” A recording of the song, released at the same time as the movie, became hugely popular with U.S. troops.

Gus shipped to Europe in December 1944, at the age of thirty-five, as a sergeant and presumably an infantryman. . .

Before Apple Pancakes Refinishing the Floor

The third rule of refinishing a floor is not to step in the Varathane while laying it down. The contingency plan to mitigate this possible eventuality is to lay it down in stocking feet and to carry a fresh pair of stockings in one’s back-pocket. When changing stockings be sure not to sit in wet Varathane. This will only make matters worse.

The floor came out reasonably well. I’m happy with it, but there was a steep learning curve along the way. Stepping in it is no good.

The first rule is that you cannot sand enough and never be stingy with tack cloth. Go over it twice. The corners can be cleaned with a sharp chisel. By the time you have finished rough sanding, you will have taken off 1/16 of an inch wood. You can shave that with a sharp chisel. But here’s the thing about chisels. Most come from China and even brand new, they are not sharp. Hone the chisel on a diamond stone some before going at the corners. From there take everything down to 320 or 400 grit sand paper with an orbital sander.

The second rule is not to trust the manufacturer’s instructions for laying down Varathane. They are sketchy at best and almost misleading to the point of fooling you into believing the job will be a piece of cake. But they do warn you not drink the stuff, to be careful with fumes and to evacuate the area should you get lightheaded and dizzy. You probably don’t want to get the stuff in your eyes either.

They say on the can you can lay down a second coat after 5 or 6 hours without sanding. This is a hopeful lie. After five or six hours the stuff doesn’t flow smoothly. It pools unevenly.

Lay down a coat. Let it dry and harden for 12 hours. Sand it out and tack cloth and repeat three or four times. (It should be noted the Rust-Oleum people who make Varathane offer no suggestions on their WEB site as to how best apply it. The instructions are a scant three tiny sentences in the smallest of type on the back of the can. (Even with my “readers” on, it was hopeless. I needed a magnifying glass.)  

The final and forth rule for refinishing a floor – do it in good light. It’s impossible to evenly coat a surface if you can’t see how the finish is laying down.

Once again a life’s lesson is relearned. There are no shortcuts. The same thing is true with apple pancakes. (Next post. And oh, such more tasty.)

Idaho Style Cream of Potato Soup: If the Shoe Fits Wear It

My vision of cream of potato soup was informed by the classic version – Vichyssoise. It didn’t appeal to me. Think of it, warm or cold, watery mashed potatoes with leeks just doesn’t conjure up a vision of culinary delight. My pantry would have to be pretty bare before I’d make something like that.

The restaurant in the Boise airport changed my mind on the subject. Understand, the default motto on Idaho’s license plates is “Great Potatoes.” My first impression of the city set a number of years ago, after disembarking from the plane the first marvel that greeted me was a vending machine that cooked up hot French fries. How could you not plug a couple of quarters into a machine like that? 
Once again, upon leaving Boise while in the airport, another potato dish bid me farewell. Cream of potato soup was menu item at airport’s restaurant. Setting aside any Vichyssoise prejudice, I ordered a bowl of it. If anywhere there was a perfect bowl of cream of potato soup I reasoned it would be in Idaho, in the Boise airport. It was very good, a kind of Rocky Mountain ham chowder.
 
God's Potato Garden

Idaho’s identification with a lowly russet potato is an instance where general rule of “if the shoe fit’s wear it” has been followed. God, it seems, intended southern Idaho to become his potato patch. The climate and rich volcanic soil in southern Idaho are perfect for growing potatoes. While the climate is semiarid, Rocky mountain snowpack acts as a huge fresh water reservoir. Water from that reservoir is distributed across southern Idaho via the Snake River and its tributaries.

In the early 1920s, irrigation and agricultural mechanization gave birth to industrial agriculture in southern Idaho. Idaho is now the overwhelming to potato producing state in the U.S. In 2009 roughly 350 thousand acres were planted. Potatoes are a $2.5 billion industry.

 J.R. Simplot caught the crest of that gathering wave. He founded the J.R. Simplot Company in 1929 to process potatoes and other vegetables.

According to Wikipedia, he made one fortune during WWII supplying the armed forces with dehydrated potatoes and onions, and another after that following the invention of the frozen French fry by one of his food scientists. By the early 1970s, Simplot was a primary supplier of frozen French fries to McDonald’s.

The J.R. Simplot Company is headquartered in Boise, as was Ore-Ida until 1999. Ore-Ida invented the tater tot. It also invented the French fry vending machine. It had 50 hand built prototype machines made in 1991, for test marketing [Full Text]. More than likely I encountered one of these original magnificent machines in the Boise airport.

Potatoes, a “new world” food, are cropped all over the world. I once had the good pleasure of having a couple of Indian students prepare a traditional Indian meal at my home. The menu included curried potatoes. The Germans plant more acres of potatoes than Idaho does. It is the home of German potato salad, potato dumplings and potato pancakes. Despite this, Germany does not claim to be the potato nation.

Against this backdrop, Idaho proudly makes claim to the state of “great potatoes.” Well if the shoe fits, even in ordinary things like potatoes, wear it. Increasingly, in ordinary things we are forced into shoes that don’t fit and are painfully troublesome. Increasingly, even in ordinary things, we are painfully shoehorned by politically correct think.

Groupthink Ill-fitting Shoes

In a recent essay, Victor Davis Hanson wrote about the troublesome fit imposed upon us by groupthink in regard to the Boston Marathon bombing. In the name of politically correct thought which he linked to the Star Trek era Cyber Borgs, we’ve have decided to ignore radical Islamist thought is the primary source of global terror. [Full Text]

“The result has been that ever since 2009, various members of the administration collective have sought, each according to his station, to bring us into the network of not associating Islamism with terror. And the Borg have certainly been diverse, as all sorts of political appointees, opportunists, and career officers plugged themselves into the hive. Obama may have killed ten times as many suspected Muslim terrorists by drone as did Bush, but we were to assume that the fact that there were no Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist victims of Hellfire missiles was irrelevant.

”Shortly after assuming office as the head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano associated the prior “war on terror” with a “politics of fear”: “In my speech, although I did not use the word ‘terrorism,’ I referred to ‘man-caused’ disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.” Again, one wishes to ask her how many Christians have been targeted by Obama-administration Predator drones.”

He went on to observe:  

“After the Fort Hood shootings, the Defense Department characterized the murders as “workplace violence,” despite the known fact that Major Hasan had been interviewed by the FBI because of his correspondence with the radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki, and even though he yelled “Allahu Akbar!” as he killed twelve soldiers and one civilian and wounded more than 30 others. The military was absorbed into the non-Islamic groupthink to such a degree that Army Chief of Staff George Casey editorialized of the mass murder of his soldiers: “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” Dismantling the “diversity program” would be worse than the slaughter at Fort Hood? These days our martyrs are to die not on the altar of freedom, but on the altar of diversity?”$

He then concluded:

What will break up the Borg? Tragically, it may take another Boston-style bombing to send enough rogue voltage through the system to explode the circuitry and free the drones from the hive.

It should be remembered, following the bombing, all of Boston was “locked down” in informal martial law while government authorities conducted a massive search for the remaining suspect fugitive. The shoe didn’t fit. Communities are relatively self-policing. The bomber wasn’t found until after the lockdown was a lifted and a local homeowner saw something amiss with his boat in his back yard.

Throughout, we need enough rogue voltage to explode the circuitry that binds us in so many ill fitting shoes. The guy eyeing his boat was a spark of rogue voltage. We need the courage to say something’s amiss.

Affordable Health Care that is Anything But

The newly minted Affordable Health Care Act, is another type of ill-fitting shoe we’re forced to buy and wear. It is the exact opposite of what its title implies. It’s an ill-fitting shoe that will increase the cost of health services for most of us, and in to many cases dramatically so. Never the less, the president boldly announced at a recent press conference, "A huge chunk of it's already been implemented…and it’s working fine."

Investor’s Business Daily took exception to that [Full Text]:

“Democrats put off the bulk of the law — the massive market regulations, the government-run exchanges, mandates to buy coverage, and various taxes and fees—until 2014, both to hide its true costs and to avoid any unpleasantness before the 2012 elections.
 

"For the 85% to 90% of Americans who already have health insurance ... they don't have to worry about anything else."

Really? The Congressional Budget Office expects 7 million workers — and possibly as many as 20 million — will lose their employer coverage because of ObamaCare. That's plenty to worry about.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said millions of seniors will get dumped from their private Medicare Advantage plans by 2017 thanks to sharp payment cuts required by the law.

And small businesses now providing coverage face huge rate hikes thanks to ObamaCare's many market regulations and benefit mandates. Maryland's biggest insurer, nonprofit CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, said ObamaCare will force rates up by 15% next year.

"The other stuff's been implemented and it's working fine."

That's only true if you ignore the fact that ObamaCare's high-risk pools have been a disaster, attracting a third as many people as predicted while costing far more than the administration budgeted.

Or the fact that Obama had to issue more than 1,200 waivers to companies who said the law's initial insurance market rules would have forced them to cancel coverage for millions of workers.

The overly complicated small-business tax credit has also been a bust, with only about 5% of eligible firms taking advantage of it. And so on.

"We're going to be able to drive down costs ... and that will save the country money as a whole over the long term."

Except, Obama's own health care number crunchers say ObamaCare will force national health spending up 7.4% in 2014, and add billions in costs over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office says it will add massively to federal health spending.

And the architects of Obama's reform wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine about how, despite ObamaCare, "health costs remain a major challenge."

It all leads one to wonder: Is Obama just dangerously misinformed about ObamaCare? Or is he willfully misleading the country?”

Misinformed and misleading are two sides of the same coin. The operating word in the Investor’s Business Daily’s editorial is “willfully.” The president, government bureaucracies on all levels, academia and the press have “willfully” adopted a point of view that a vast centralized government can solve all of our problems. One size fits all. It drives Hanson’s Borg like group think. 

It's as if the only cream of potato soup we should be allowed to make or order is a cold, watery mashed potato soup with leeks.

With that, here is a proper cream of potato soup as if made in the Boise Airport restaurant. This will amply serve four, or six if served as a first course of a larger meal.

2 Ham shanks 1 pound each

3 or 4 Medium russet potatoes baked, peeled and cut into    bite sized pieces.

2 Ribs of celery cut to a small dice

1 Medium onion cut to a small dice
1 Large carrot cut to a small dice

4 Table spoons butter

4 Table spoons flour

½ Pint heavy cream

2 Pints of water

Ham soup base

Pepper, Onion powder and ground celery seed to taste. 

In a gallon soup pot cover the ham shanks with two pints of water, bring to a slow boil and cook for about two hours until the ham begins falling from the bone. Add additional water as needed. Remove the ham shanks and cut the ham from the bone and into bite sized pieces.

Melt the butter in a sauté pan and whisk in flour to make a roux. Adjust the ham stock for flavor with ham soup base if needed. Bring the stock to a boil gradually add roux to thicken. Add celery and onion cook until al dente. Add the diced ham, potatoes and cream. Season to taste with pepper, onion powder and ground celery seed. Serve when ham and potatoes are warmed.

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich Revolution

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup Revolution

National Grilled Cheese Day was met with wild enthusiasm across nation. Too often I dourly write about our troubling times (more so than I like). This is a significantly hopeful turn of events.

The grilled cheese sandwich tells us our troubling times are not necessarily so dour. We can still take a humble sandwich and in an outpouring of human exuberance raise it to on object of celebration. (I do believe mankind’s job is to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and to joyfully celebrate it. Think of taking the time, and we all do now and then, to watch an everyday sunrise unfold. Taking the time to enjoy a masterly crafted grilled cheese sandwich is in the same higher order of things.)

Here’s a sample of cheese sandwich enthusiasm:

ABC News tracked down the best grilled cheese sandwich in New York City. It’s from the Malt Shop and make with aged cheddar, a blended Wisconsin cheese spread, bacon and cranberry chutney.[Link]

In San Francisco nearly a dozen food trucks converged at a local park, each serving up their version of the grilled cheese sandwich, and created something of grilled cheese festival. Here is a sample of grilled cheese that will be offered. The Fish Tank truck will offer a sandwich of smoked salmon and watercress brie on sourdough. El Calamar’s features Peruvian pepper jack with tomatoes and jalapenos. And Adam’s Grub Truck will be servings what is described as an “Insane Cheese Lover’s Grilled Cheese sandwich: Triple Decker grilled cheese with a plethora of oozing pepper jack/muenster/Havarti cheese smothered in our own blend of Cheez Whiz…definitely not for the lactose intolerant .”  [Link]

The LA Times posted 12 grilled cheese recipes on its web page to honor the month. The Huffington post featured 26. [Link] & [Link]

This unfolding praise for the serendipity of grilled cheese sandwiches is from New York, Los Angelis and San Francisco and celebrated by the likes ABC News, the LA Times and the Huffington Post. That’s hopeful. These are the very places and very publications where progressive, activist government intervention is favored. Increasingly, public health policies are being advanced to address obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. And increasingly, restaurant and cafeteria menus are becoming objects of regulatory focus.

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich Revolution

I think we are witnessing a grilled cheese sandwich revolution. Grilled cheese lovers, and they are apparently legion, are drawing a line on excessive regulatory intervention.

I mean how could Mayor Bloomberg, who has trouble tolerating super-sized sodas, tolerate a “Triple Decker grilled cheese with a plethora of oozing pepper jack/muenster/Havarti cheese smothered in our own blend of Cheez Whiz”?  Yet, his political kindred spirits in San Francisco held an almost pagan celebration of such culinary delights.

While that went on, the State of California is considering legislation that would all  but do way with Adam’s Grub Truck and his delicious three decker cheese oozing sandwiches. They have proposed to outlaw the Garden of Eden, or rather the little patches that still remain – like Adam’s Grub Truck where nearly every menu item features bacon, cheese or both. [Link]

 

“This bill, known as the Public Health Epidemic Protection Act of 2013, would require department to require the manufacturer of a contributing product, as defined, to create, for approval of the department, a public health impact report (PHIR) containing specified information, including a list of adverse public health impacts and a mitigation plan for those impacts. The bill would authorize the department to enforce the PHIR and would authorize the department to restrict or suspend sales of the product in the state if the PHIR is insufficient or if the manufacturer is not complying with the terms of the PHIR. The bill would authorize the department to charge the manufacturer of the product for the reasonable costs of reviewing, approving, and enforcing the PHIR requirements.”

Sec. 1(c) states:

“California and its residents face a growing burden of largely preventable chronic illness, including heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes.”

Sec. 1(f) goes on to declare:

“It is the intent of the Legislature to regulate products sold in the state for consumer consumption that pose significant public health risks and mitigate their use in order to prevent chronic illness and improve public health.” 

[DraftLegislation via “Legislative Heads Up” Link]

The bill authorizes California’s department of public health to regulate all food products that contribute to obesity, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The reach of that authority extends to individual menu items. It would not specifically ban a triple decker grilled cheese sandwich. Instead it would impose an onerous regulatory burden on the likes of Adam’s Grub Truck that would likely result in triple decker cheese sandwiches in simply being pulled from the menu.

I’m pretty sure Californian’s enthusiastic participation in the National Grilled Cheese Day demonstrated there is less than overwhelming support for The Public Health Epidemic Protection Act. Could it be that even in the bluest of blue states we’ve grown weary of regulatory overreach – one can only be hopeful.

Retreating to the Grilled Cheese Underground

However, should my hopes be misplaced and grilled cheese sandwiches are banned from menus in California and across the land, here is a good one to make at home. (And there are many others. Let your spirit soar.) And with it I’ll give you a take on tomato soup.

The Half Baked Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Oven Ready

This sandwich draws upon an open faced “grilled” cheese sandwich my mother made and quite often served with Campbell’s tomato soup. Her sandwich consisted of a slice of bread grilled in butter on both sides, than layered with bacon, tomato slices and Colby or cheddar cheese. It was finished under the broiler until the cheese melted. Colby cheese provides a gooey melt. A sharp cheddar has a wonderful tang. Use either. For each sandwich you will need.

3 Strips of fried bacon.

2 or Three ¼ inch slices of cheese (enough to cover).

2 Tomato slices, the riper the better.

2 Teaspoons minced garlic.

2 Tablespoons butter.

½ Loaf of mini, submarine style French bread slice in half length wise.

Spread each slice of bread with a teaspoon of minced garlic. Melt the butter in a frying over a medium high burner. When the butter begins to bubble grill the bread pressing it firmly in the butter until it’s gently browned. Layer the bacon, tomato slices and cheese on bottom slice of grilled bread. Bake the sandwich open faced and the top slice of bread in a 300^o oven until the cheese is nicely melted. Press the top on the melted cheese and serve.

Improved Tomato Soup

This is a vast improvement over condensed canned tomato soup and is just as easy to make. For four 8 ounce serving you will need.

1 Can of premium diced tomatoes preferably packed in tomato sauce.

2 Cups of chicken broth.

½ Cup of cream.

1 Teaspoon dried basil.

½ Teaspoon garlic powder.

½ Teaspoon onion powder.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Tomato paste (optional).

Combine all ingredients except the cream in a two quart pot, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and thicken the soup if desired with tomato paste and then simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning add cream and serve.

 

   

Connecting the Dots: Russell Moccasins, Economy of Scale and Regional Food

I wear good shoes. Women notice it. I do not wear good shoes to impress women. It’s about comfort and economy.

In my last post, I echoed G.K. Chesterton’s notion that when one loses their way it’s probably not best to keep marching forward until one plunges over a cliff, but better to backtrack some until one returns to the right path. We’ve gone horribly wrong somewhere when we settle for cheap shoes that do not fit properly and cannot be resoled -- throw away.

That notion, of needing to back track, is certainly true when it comes to our home food economy. The industrial food economy serves up low cost, abundant and convenient calories to satisfy our incessant hungers. It overloads us with carbohydrates, dietary fat and salt to the point where we tend to be somewhat overweight, and prone to diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. The solution of course is to keep marching forward and demand evermore federal dietary regulation. 

I wouldn’t say that. Instead, we have a choice. We can accept and try to mitigate the damage the modern diet unleashes upon our health. Or we can, borrowing once more Chesterton’s metaphor, return to that place where we lost way and from there pursue a more sensible path. That place would be the kitchen.

Similarly, the U.S. economy has lost its way. Just as the industrial food economy allowed us to turn our backs to our kitchens, globalization allowed us collectively to turn our backs to the sources of regional wealth. In doing so we’ve abandoned economic health by ignoring proportion and balance.

Economic Heart Disease

The symptoms of the resulting economic ill health are only now becoming distressingly apparent. Like heart disease resulting from an industrial diet, it’s something that becomes manifest in a sudden and dramatic way.

Counting those among us who have to settle for part time work, who have simply given up looking for work or have joined the ranks of the disabled, our national unemployment rate is in the neighborhood of fourteen-percent and maybe as high as twenty-two. In looking at labor force participation rates rather than “unemployment” rates, many believe this is the new normal. [FullText] Can you say Detroit? [Photo Essay]

Since the recovery officially began in June 2009, more than 9 million of us have dropped out of the labor force. And the labor force participation rate has declined to 63.3% from 65.7%. [Full Text]

Meanwhile, I should dearly love to have a cobbler in my town to make durable, comfortable shoes that fit my feet and that can be re-soled a few of times. Shoemakers are a something of the past. Their place is somewhere along the economic path from which we’ve lost our way.

I went to a Home Depot store today for a couple of twenty-four inch bar clamps. I returned with a pair of Irwin clamps. Irwin has long been a venerable name in hand tools. The product label informed me that Irwin is now a Newell Rubbermaid brand and that the clamps were made in China. I also looked at laminate trimmers. These are compact routers that can be held in one hand. The sales associate told me these like most hand held power tools were made in China. Am I to buy throw away hand held power tools?

Locally, Milwaukee Tool’s contractor grade power tools were once made in Milwaukee. Oshkosh-By-Gosh bib overalls were once made in Oshkosh. And Jockey underwear was made in nearby Kenosha. So it goes and so it’s gone.

Outsourcing and globalization has damaged my local economy. I’m not sure the corresponding value of low cost consumer goods adequately offsets the damage.

The Labor of the Poor

Worse yet, our consumer-industrial-global economy may be morally bankrupting us. So now maybe, some fourteen year old girl is toiling away for sixteen hours a day making my shoes and sewing my undies. So she is barely earning a subsistence wage while sardined in a factory dorm and possibly being sexually abused. And I’m supposed to be good with that.   

In the True Cost of Low Prices: The Violence of Globalization (2006, Orbis Books), Vincent Gallagher makes the case that consumer driven globalization has indirectly turned all of us into Twenty-first Century slave masters.

He points out:

“Harvard  University. Women in Bangladesh are paid 1.6 cents for each $17 Harvard cap they sew. Their wages come to just one-tenth of one percent of the retail price. U.S. Customs records show that the cap is valued at $1.23 when it enters the United States. Then Harvard marks it up 1300 percent.”…

Harvard is good with that. He proceeds to bash Nike, then goes on:

“…Disney in Bangladesh. Young women sewing Disney shirts are forced to work fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. They are paid five cents for each $17.99 shirt they sew. They are beaten, punched, and slapped, denied maternity leave and benefits. When they reach twenty-five to thirty years of age, they are fired and replaced by younger girls…”

Disney is good with that too. It’s all about branding and profit centers.

Gallagher necessarily makes his case with dramatic examples of human exploitation but those are not necessarily the norm.

Nevertheless TACNA Services, an outsourcing consulting firm, points out while the wages for a typical 48 hour work week in Mexico are low but are livable. In China, 72 hour work weeks are not uncommon, often the wages will not support a family and employees are housed in factory dormitories. [Full Text]

Go the shopping mall, Gallagher says, most everything there comes from poor people who labor in poor countries:

83 percent of all of our clothing is produced in poor countries;

95 percent of our shoes, sporting goods and computers come from less developed countries;

80 percent of our toys are made in China; and

100 percent of televisions and 80 percent of consumer electronics sold in the U.S. are made in poor countries.

Maybe there is little difference in a Mexican garment worker earning a modest but a livable wage and his American counterpart pretty much doing the same. And maybe the garment worker’s wage in Mexico is far more important to the overall Mexican economy than the American garment worker’s is to our economy. Similarly, it could be the best the Chinese economy can do, as it develops, is offer workers a 72 hour work week, and in return receive a dorm room and a modest wage to help them support their rural and impoverished families.

If that’s the case, any moral pangs I might have about exploiting poor people in poor countries are pretty much assuaged. I am off the hook. Our outsourced jobs are, in the long run, benefitting the developing nations to which we send them. I can shop with reckless abandon and in fact, my family room filled with outsourced and pricy but cheap consumer electronics is not the heart of darkness. My $300 Nike stylish athletic shoes are okay.     

Unfortunately the moral calculus of the global economy isn’t quite that simple and there is a moral dimension to our cultural hyper-consumerism. Since the late 1980’s, individually and collectively, we’ve endeavored to borrow our way into increasing prosperity, and to stave off the consequences by exporting our labor.

A Deal with the Devil

Specifically, writes David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s President budget director from 1981 to 1985, in the New York Times: [Full Text]

“ …What became known as the “Greenspan put” — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stock-market crash — was reinforced by the Fed’s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

“That Mr. Greenspan’s loose monetary policies didn’t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of Asia.”

And there is our deal with the devil. Stockman continues:

“By offshoring America’s tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial assets. Mr. Greenspan’s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history, with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000 dot-com bust.”    

From the late 1980s on we’ve offshored entire industries in order to maintain what appeared to be a thriving economy and avoid the crushing burden of inflation. In doing so we’ve turned our backs to the value of work. And we’ve turned our backs to the source of native wealth.

In our economy there is work for the clerks, cashiers, fast food workers and custodians and all types low skill jobs at the bottom; and work for technocrats and bureaucrats of all sorts at the top. What’s left for workers in the middle? The number of jobs available for working and middle class Americans has declined and continues to shrink. In that same period of time, the number of Americans not in the work force has increased from a little over 60 million to almost 90 million. [Full Text]

What Had Been an Integrated Economy Disintegrated

All of this brings me back to the subject of shoes. I would like a neighborhood cobbler to make them. If that were the case I would be able buy properly fitting quality shoes, made to my preferences. I would be able to honor my cobbler’s craft by directly paying him a fair wage. And the shoes would be a product of an integrated local economy.

Not long ago locally raised dairy and beef cattle provided the raw material that supported local tanneries. The tanneries supplied leather to a thriving local leather goods industry. Most of that is gone.

A few small tanneries remain, but most of the hides are shipped to tanneries in China and return in the form of poorly made, ill-fitting shoes. Often they are not made in half sizes and come in only two or three widths. These are a throw away product that cannot be re-soled and are not leather lined.

A few local shoe companies remain. Allen Edmonds is a local company that makes premium men’s dress and casual-dress shoes. With the exception of one pair, in my entire adult life I’ve owned their shoes. Maybe I’ve been spoiled. These shoes wear like slippers and with two or three rebuilds can be worn for years. But they too have off-shored the production of their lower cost casual line of shoes to the Dominican Republic.

Rugged outdoor sport and work shoe and boots are another story. In my entire adult life I’ve only owned three pair of satisfactory boots. Most boots are made either medium or wide. An honest medium is a “d” width. I’ve narrow feet. Those made in China tend to run large. They sort of float around on my feet, sometimes causing me to trip.

http://qualityctrl.com/?p=2420

If I buy them a size or half size smaller, they feel all right at first but within a few hours various pressure points become painfully apparent.

A friend of mine solved the problem. He had a pair of Russell Moccasin hunting boots made, and raved about them. He liked them so much that he had pair chukkas made for daily informal wear. (Click on the photo link for a fascinating photo essay.) 

Based on his experience, I ordered a pair of their chukkas for year round walking shoes.

Russell Moccasins are “locally made” (within 70 miles of my house), custom sized to individual foot measurements. They are priced from around $200 for a simple moccasin to more than $500 custom hunting boots. My chukkas fell about mid-way in that range.

Pricey, but worth it.

For that: they are sized to my feet (the circumference of the ball of my right foot is an inch larger than my left and my heels are unusually narrow); they feature double vamp construction of a waterproof leather and kangaroo uppers; they are glove leather lined; have a sole of my choosing; and can be factory reconditioned.

It’s not that there isn’t room for cheap ill-fitting shoes from China is our economy. There is. The problem is that we’ve almost turned away from even considering well-made domestic ones. Russell Moccasin is a more than 100 year old remnant of an integrated economy. The company produces around thirteen-thousand pairs of shoes and boots a year. The lead time for them is almost five months. There is hope in that.

While Russell Moccasin is a remnant of Wisconsin’s historic integrated economy, it’s global.  Anyone anywhere can order their shoes or boots. Their “brand” is hugely popular in Japan. Maybe that’s how a local and regional economy can now bleed into the global market.

The Issue Isn’t Price

Nike owns between 40 and 50% of the U.S. sneaker market. Its high end styles retail for around $200 and more. These status sneakers might cost $20 to produce in Vietnam or Thailand. The greater costs are in branding, promotion and distribution. It demonstrates the degree to which real work in too much of America isn’t about making things. It’s about branding.

Unlike Nike sneakers, Russell Moccasins are promoted mostly by word of mouth. The price reflects materials and labor. Advertising, marketing, promotion and distribution comprise a small fraction of their price.

In our consumer economy we have to make room for a consumer ethic that values the quality of the product and the human labor that produced it. It is an ethic, for example, whereby I can take great satisfaction in my shoes, knowing that they will not be thrown away after a year or two and knowing the price I paid for them fairly represents the cost of the materials and a fair wage for a day’s work.

With that I’ll close on a positive note. That sort of consumer ethic seems to be emerging in the farmer’s market, the local food and slow food movement. It’s expanding to other consumer products.

The Challenge of Reinventing a Regionally Integrated Economy

But even with a consumer ethic that values the local economy, a fair wage and the quality products from it, there are obstacles. Financing is tough. Often local, state and federal regulations are too overwhelming for small economy enterprises to be viable. And finally, there are arbitrary “consumer” standards that simply don’t make sense. These are embedded in a politically correct, somewhat snobby and almost “catholic” like doctrine of “local.”

This gauntlet of challenges is illustrated by problems Jim Mansfield has encountered. Mansfield, a Kentucky farmer, along with a dozen other farmers raise lambs for the regional wholesale market.

In an essay for The Front Porch Republic, Katherine Dalton observes: [Full Text]

“The challenge is not supply, either. Mr. Mansfield says some of the farmers he works with would gladly increase the size of their herds, if the demand was there for the meat.

“No: the main challenges remain 1) price, because with a smaller scale comes higher costs, and even though New Zealand lamb travels eight thousand miles to get to Kentucky, it is still cheaper, and 2) access to capital for investment. Mr. Mansfield would like to expand his business, but he is too big for “alternative” ag loans in this state, too “alternative” for traditional ag money, too small for a venture capitalist, and the banks don’t know how to assess the risk of what he is doing, because around here his model is still an unusual farming business.

“But he mentioned a third challenge to me the other day, and I thought I’d mention it here, given that a certain number of our readers make an effort to buy local food. I’ll put it as a series of questions: are you buying local to save on energy use and shrink your carbon footprint? Or are you buying local in order to increase the network of food suppliers in your area, so that there is actually a local food economy, with local producers? Or both? What if one goal gets in the way of the other?

“Let’s say we define “local” as within a hundred miles, as many do. What if a food marketer/farmer needs a bigger circle than one with a hundred-mile radius in order to get his business on a solid footing? How do you feel about regional food?”