Nov. 2024

Nov 1

I recently discovered that the poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was at West Point at the same time in the late 19th century as my grandfather Birch Oliver Mahaffey (1877-1958) and, like my grandfather, was asked to leave. Birch Mahaffey, who was unjustly expelled a few weeks prior to graduation, was subsequently exonerated by a special act of Congress.

He received a degree from the University of Michigan; was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army and was discharged as a captain. Carl Sandburg lasted only two weeks at West Point before failing a mathematics and grammar exam. He attended several colleges, including Lombard College in Galesburg, IL, but never earned a degree.

Sandburg’s failure to earn a college degree didn’t stop him from becoming one of the most popular poets of the 20th century. Most alert readers (ARs) probably read his poem “Fog” in a high school English class. Sometimes described as an “American haiku”, it reads in its entirety:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

The gentle fog that inspired Carl Sandburg in Chicago was a lot more benign than the reality that beset Donora, PA in October, 1948, when poisonous emissions from nearby zinc and steel plants mixed with fog to form a deadly smog that hung over the town for five days from October 26th to 31st.

While my mother was in a maternity ward in St. Louis after giving birth to me on October 28th, 20 of the town’s 14,000 residents died from the smog and between 5,000 and 7,000 were sickened. In the following month another 50 residents died from respiratory illnesses attributed to the smog, including Lukasz Musial, whose son Stan had just won his third National League MVP Award and finished one home run short of winning baseball’s triple crown.

While most ARs probably know that Musial was inducted into The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, some may not be aware that Ken Griffey, Jr., another member of baseball’s HOF, is also a native of Donora. I am not making this up. This tiny town, which now has a population of about 4,500, is the birthplace of two Hall of Famers.

To put this in perspective, the much larger Pennsylvania cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are the birthplaces of only one Hall of Famer apiece, respectively Bobby Wallace and Roy Campanella. Not only were Musial and Griffey, Jr. both born in Donora; they also share a birthday, November 21st. Musial was born in 1920; Griffey, Jr. nearly a half century later in 1969.

Given Carl Sandburg’s prominence in the American canon, it’s not surprising that he would have written a poem about baseball. “Hits and Runs” is about a 16-inning game between Chillicothe and Rock Island that was called because of darkness. It concludes with the lines:

And the umpire’s voice was hoarse from calling strikes and outs and the umpire’s throat
fought in the dust for a song.

One can imagine how the throats of the residents of Donora must have fought in the smog for a song.

Even ARs who were not English majors, as I was, might find inspiration in Sandburg’s poem “Happiness”:

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river

And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children and a keg of beer and an
accordion.

One need not live by the Desplaines River near Chicago nor be of Hungarian descent find happiness with a keg of beer. What better way to celebrate the birthday of two sons of Donora, PA on November 21st and Thanksgiving a week later?

Tom Schlafly
Chairman
Schlafly | The Saint Louis Brewery