The Oyster Papers

Compiled and edited by Stephen Banker

Foreword by David Levering Lewis

August 2002

Friends and Members of The Oyster Foundation:

This is a commemoration of our meeting on May 26^th, 2002, in Paris, focussing on the brief speeches presented at the pre-dinner reception.

We were 17 attendees from 9 cities on 3 continents:

Stephen Banker (Washington, DC)

Lucas Banker & Deva Sharp (Amsterdam)

Eric Britton & Bettina Geraudel (Paris)

Albert Hahn (São Paulo)

George Klein (Geneva)

David Levering Lewis & Ruth Ann Stewart (New York)

Ed Marks & Vera J. Barad (San Francisco)

John & Anita Meeks (Washington DC)

Peter Riddleberger (Washington DC) & Catherine Baumber (London)

Joe & Betsy Schildkraut (Boston)

In advance of the occasion, I asked several members to prepare brief remarks bearing on their lives, their work or their interests. I received a mixed response. John said no worthwhile subject came to mind.  Peter said people would want to eat, not listen to speeches.  But everyone else I solicited acquiesced, albeit with some arm-twisting. This booklet is the measure of my idea.  So here, beginning with David’s foreword, is what the speakers had to say, along with my comments.

—S.E.B.

Aw, Shucks

Stephen Banker

I have always been fascinated by the subtle, sometimes trivial, links among people I know from completely different contexts. Although the members of The Oyster Foundation were drawn from different times, activities and places in my life, six degrees of separation would be much more than necessary to establish connections between any two of them. My remarks were intended to emphasize both the diversity and the commonality of the group.

Members of The Oyster Foundation, we have come together this evening in this backwater of civilization to celebrate what we have in common, such as an appetite for good food and good company. If things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, then anyone present here can assume a strong and friendly relationship with anyone else. And yet future scholars examining us through their telescopes might first notice our diversity. We have an almost 70 year range in age. Some of us live right here in Paris, others in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington, Amsterdam, London, Geneva and São Paulo. We are at the beginnings, middles and ends of careers. We have degrees in medicine, philosophy, economics, chemistry, literature and many other disciplines. We speak English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Hungarian and possibly a few other languages. And yet with all that diversity — strangely, we don't have any Republicans.

The best description of us was provided by Geoffrey Chaucer in noting the makeup of the Canterbury Pilgrims:

Of sondry folke, by aventure yfalle in felawashipe,
(a mixed crowd, by pure chance fallen into fellowship)

That theme of coincidence will be extended by George Klein in a few moments.

The title of my talk, "Aw, Shucks," refers to the process of peeling the shell off the oyster and revealing the meat. So what are the particulars, the specifics, of our lives, that will provide essential footnotes to a history of the Oysterers?

Here are some of the salient matters that characterize us and may be of interest to others:

1) One of us made a detour on his way to the airport only a few hours ago to pick up an honorary degree. (DAVID)

2) One of us met another one of us in a subway car during the Montreal World's Fair in 1967, but they later found out that they had met earlier in another city, Washington DC, 500 miles away. (PETER, STEPHEN)

3) One of us has a brother who, after several terms in the U.S. Congress, was so into the glad-handing, backslapping routine, that he absent-mindedly greeted her with a handshake and "Glad to see you again." (BETSY)

4) One of us has a daughter who was so attractive in her teens that the avid son of another one of us feloniously broke into her house in the wee hours to continue a conversation. Tonight, the two fathers meet for the first time. (PETER, DAVID)

5) During a bitter Boston winter, one of us formed a compassionate group to buy a coat for another one of us, only to find that the coatless one already had a coat but was just too dumb to wear it. (JOE, STEPHEN)

6) Two of us have devoted large parts of their lives to helping people around the world who have been displaced by war, famine or other disasters (ED, GEORGE)

7) One of us has demonstrated that clinical depression could not deter him from an exciting journalistic career that took him around the world, and finally back home to the realization that the disease could be addressed and disclosed, and that the history of his personal voyage could inspire those who saw his reporting on it. (GEORGE WATSON in absentia)

8) One of us was about to accept a contract to write a book about a famous American figure, but almost turned it down when the man was murdered, because he feared the book might be too popular. (DAVID)

9) One of us, while living under a military dictatorship, harbored a group of political refugees in his basement, Anne Frank-style, until the military police put them — and him — into prison. (ALBERT)

10) One of us was a musician with professional potential, but after witnessing how balletically another one of us fell out of a chair, she devoted her full energies to the other's education and career. (ANITA, JOHN)

11) One of us made the greatest introduction since Stanley presented himself to Livingston. It was many years ago at Heathrow airport. He said, "Jane Russell, I'd like you to meet Ambassador Titman." (ED)

12) Before tonight, the most satisfying meal one of us has ever had was ripped from the carcass of a horse killed by a bomb. (GEORGE)

13) One of us was assigned to work with another one of us when both were finishing their education about 40 years ago, and haven't seen each other since, until tonight. (VERA, JOE)

14) One of us is the recipient of Dartmouth's Lester Granger Award, given this year for the first time, for a lifetime of humanitarian achievement. Another one of us mentions Granger, a civil rights leader of the 1940s, in one of his books, and recalls that Granger was a friend of his father. (ED, DAVID)

15) One of us spent almost all of his college years in pajamas. And ended up at the top of his class. (JOE)

16) One of us comes from a family that followed the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, known as Osho, and when she was 7 years old, went with her parents to live with the Sanyasin in India, but never made the jump to Oregon, where the cult gained worldwide notoriety. (DEVA)

17) One of us is a mild-mannered physician during the week, but on weekends displays his plaid-jacketed self as the owner of a stable of racehorses. At Pimlico a few weeks ago, he bet $156 on various races and left with winnings of $8,000. (JOHN)

18) One of us, traveling for the World Bank, gave a stem-winding, hands-across-the-sea speech to what he thought was a luncheon of the Polish Manufacturers of America, only to find out later that he had actually addressed a group of shoe-polish makers. (PETER)

19) One of us had so striking an appearance in his youth that when he strode down Fifth Avenue on his way to a game of squash tennis at the Harvard Club, beautiful young women rushing to their modeling assignments would pause, put their portfolios down on the sidewalk, and stare. That changed for a time when another one of us hit him in the eye with a racquet. (ERIC, STEPHEN)

20) When one of us was two years old, a doctor told his mother, "This child will never walk." His mother said, "Yes, he will." (PETER)

21) One of us was an all-state high school basketball player in Arkansas, whose childhood nickname was "Hurry-up". (JOHN)

22) One of us once heard a ghost story that was so frightening that years later he wrote a compelling song about it, thus freeing himself of his fears. (LUCAS)

23) Finally, one of us said, in discussing this event at which we find ourselves tonight, "I have reached a stage where I am willing to do bizarre and quirky things, even if they involve entering the fantasy life of my friends." (GEORGE)

---

 

THE BIVALVE MONOLOGUE

By George Watson

We are here tonight under the auspices of The Oyster Foundation which, of course, is the brainfood child of our estimable Stephen Banker. At the founding of the Foundation, Steve quoted one of his sons as asking whether its purpose was the conservation or the consumption of oysters, and the answer seemed to be either or both.

But why oysters? I have done lunch with Steve on innumerable occasions, and never has he ordered an oyster. The sole exception occurred at a Chinese restaurant when an oyster casserole was served along with a variety of other dishes. In fairness, Steve has mentioned to me his interest in sampling a plateau de fruits de mer, the seafood platters featured at beaucoup French eating places. But these are not comprised solely of oysters. So why not call ourselves the Crab, Shrimp or Clam Foundation, not to mention Mussels, Cockels, Winkles and Whelks?

Whatever Steve's peculiar connection with oysters, I think it's probable he consumes very few. And some of us none at all. For years, I frequented the venerable Oyster Bar at Bentley's Restaurant on Swallow Street, off Piccadilly, in London. Other cold seafood, and a delicious lobster bisque is served, but I have never, ever, consumed an oyster there. I do enjoy watching the shuckers -- ecalliers, as we say in Paris -- deftly wielding their little curved knives. Or sometimes not so deftly as the scars on their hands attest. Shakespeare boasted, "the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open." But please, be careful.

Perhaps the attraction or repulsion accounts for some of the peculiar passion for oysters. Going back to the 17th century, the words are attributed to James I, "He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters." That's, of course, a variant of the old wheeze about erecting a monument to the person who first ate one. Ugly and slimy...who would say otherwise? "Than an oyster, there's nothing moister."

But, I shall say no more about the appearance or physical attributes of the oyster. But, I think we are approaching the crux of the matter. Oysters are an "amatory food," said Lord Byron, who was famously amatory himself. Byron may have picked this up from the Greeks, as he did much else. Recall that Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the god of Love. Oysters were implicated and, over the centuries, they have been the very incarnation of an aphrodisiac.

Casanova is said to have been a firm believer in the power of oysters, eating 50 of them every morning in the bath, together with the lady he fancied at the moment. The oysters, I mean, not necessarily the lady.

Oysters themselves are notoriously promiscuous. The other day, I opened a Snapple bottle and the message under the cap read, "Oysters can change from one gender to another and back again." I'll refrain from further preprandial discussion of their shocking habits.

In the copious material Mr. Banker has provided in advance of this gathering, he has already circulated an article by M.F.K. Fisher entitled, "Love and Death Among the Molluscs (sic)." An oyster, Ms. Fisher concludes, "leads a dreadful but exciting life."

So, for that matter, do we all.

A Single Contribution

Albert Hahn

Oyster Foundation, Paris, 26 May 2002

I will tell you about my one mission successfully accomplished, the recollection of which, more than four decades later, never ceases to amuse me and even, as it says in Iolanthe, "fill me with legitimate pride."

During my last year in graduate school in the late 1950s, conventional (meaning parental) resources having dried up, I had to look for some alternate means of support.

Luckily, via the M.I.T. grapevine, one soon turned up: teaching Math, Physics and Chemistry to the senior class of a seamy institution situated in the nastier section of Orchard St. run by a louche Italian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Aiello, for the educational benefit of youngsters from less-favored Catholic and Jewish strata of the Greater Boston population. The Cambridge location endowed it with a certain gentility, so the school was able to draw its clients from as far away as Roxbury or Mattapan, kids from families well-off enough to finesse their local high schools, but not nearly ready to face a New England prep school.

The job, by the way, was extremely well paid – 2 hours a day at $4.00 an hour was enough then to keep a grad student going.

It didn't take me long to realize what I had gotten myself into. On the first day I chalked out the first degree equation ay + bx + c = 0 on the blackboard, and told my thirty seniors that anyone unable to solve this would probably be better advised to look for another subject. At this signal about half the class made for the door – some eventually returned, but several were never heard from again.

The first element of my pedagogical strategy was to "sir" and "miss" every one of them, and of course to get sirred back despite the minimal age difference between us. To balance this formal style, I became (so I claim) the first teacher in the U.S. to use obscene language in class and to allow the students to do likewise. It worked well, often relieving the tension caused by academic standards to which, to put it mildly, they weren't remotely accustomed.

I once asked a notorious non-performer if there was anything at all he was good at, and he launched into a hilarious description of certain, shall we say, ambidextrous exploits of his that brought down the house, and, after a moment of hesitation, me along with it.

I taught my three subjects without any condescension, as if I truly believed that any of them could get into M.I.T. were they to apply. Since only a small group could cope, I tried to make the classes lively enough to keep the others at least amused. But mainly, I made it clear that nobody was going to fail since it would have been hardly fair to hold the students responsible for stuff way above their head.

Everyone was allowed to cheat during exams, take their papers home for a day or two before surrendering them, or else bring textbooks to class – there were always one or two questions that an M.I.T. freshman wouldn't have sneezed at, and anyone getting one of them right earned a goodly amount of peer-group respect, plus a coveted pat on the back from the teacher.

In order to breathe some life into my arid subjects, I would enliven my chemistry classes by producing foul smells and toxic precipitates in the Aiello's private kitchen - they lived on the premises – which I was able to terrorize them into letting me use as a lab. Physics produced a memorable class when I began by asking the students what it took to knock a ball over the left-field fence at Fenway Park. Even the girls were able to rattle off the three prerequisites: a heavy bat, wrist action and follow-through. So I wrote Newton's motion equation on the backboard – M x V = F x t and asked them to match symbols and requisites. It took them a while to realize that M was simply the mass of the baseball, hence invariant. But it is difficult to communicate their joy when they realized that all three fundamentals were clearly represented by the other three symbols. One of them launched into a thoroughly Newtonian analysis of the art of the bunt; another explained how certain types of pitch (I believe Sal Maglie's submarine pitch was one of them) made it more difficult for the batter to achieve follow-through, thus reducing t and hence V, the initial velocity of the ball. A huge success.

Seven years after graduating I was back in Boston on some business trip-cum-sentimental journey when, on the MTA in from Logan, a large figure in tailored jacket and bow-tie began walking towards me. I recognized him as one my better students. I had, he told me, changed his life for him: he had gotten an engineering degree from Boston College, was holding down a city job somewhere in Public Works, and had married Angie, a fellow-Italian in our class he had already been stalking at the time.

But my greatest satisfaction came from a fairly advanced theorem of Euclidian geometry, which I had given them to try to demonstrate. Next day I showed them the solution on the blackboard; one of the students then got up and said "Sir, I think I've come up with a more elegant demonstration". There was no time to check this out – I had about 15 minutes left to cycle all the way to Sloan for a class and had to hurry off. But in the evening I did take the time to look at the boy's variant – sure enough as I expected, there was indeed a flaw in his demonstration, something he had assumed to be true that didn't necessarily have to be. Next day I had to give him the bad news; but I also told him that, had his demonstration been correct, it would indeed have been more elegant than the textbook path. And that to see someone who at the beginning of his senior year had no idea what a theorem was at all now use the word "elegant", and quite appropriately at that, meant much more than would have any amount of acquired book learning.

Occasionally, I ask myself what was the greatest single contribution of my life so far. As I look back, I doubt that I managed to do a great deal for the people who read the books I wrote during my professional career. But as for those 30 youngsters, I'm sure to this day that I made better people of them all.

ONE OF THE WETTEST JUNKETS IN HISTORY

EDWARD B. MARKS

—from Playboy magazine.

In that still-Depression year of 1937 my salary as associate editor of the American Wine and Liquor Journal was a pittance, but attractive fringe benefits went with the job.

I particularly enjoyed the time spent around the town interviewing the greats and near greats of the trade that was being re-established in the United States following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Many of these were the representatives of foreign wine and liquor concerns seeking to restore the name and fame of their brands. I remember several talks with Charles Martell and Maurice Hennessy, who were striving gamely to kindle a taste for fine cognac in palates deadened by bootleg rye. And I recall an especially lively session with the Right Honorable Andrew Jameson then 81 years old who told me he had once shot buffalo on the plains with Teddy Roosevelt. A man not easily daunted, Jameson cherished the notion that quality whiskey-drinkers would prefer John Jameson's Irish to Scotch. In this hope, alas, he was deceived. Irish got off to a slow start in the post-repeal market, though the invention of Irish coffee has since helped make up some of the lost ground.

In those days, André Simon, doyen of the world's gourmets, came from abroad to preside at the tastings of the Wine & Food Society, which generally took place at the Plaza. I hardly qualified as a gourmet, but my crass connection with the trade got me in. I succeeded in impressing an up-to-then skeptical young woman by escorting her to a superb tasting of oysters and champagnes. A trial of port wines and cheeses greased the way to another romantic triumph.

I also recall, through a haze for which the interval of years can only partly be held accountable, the graduation exercises of the first bartenders' school to function in the post-Prohibition era. Behind a brightly burnished bar that had been bountifully provisioned by a thoughtful distiller stood a dozen confident young men. The exercises differed from most commencements in that the graduation ceremony and final examinations took place simultaneously. In their gleaming white uniforms, the graduates awaited your drink order and your critique of their performance. The guests rose to the challenge. In a freeloading session probably unmatched in academic history, they conscientiously tested the virtuosity and versatility of the fledgling barkeeps, recording their judgments (for as long as they could) on the official rating forms.

My work took me to all forms of distilling, rectifying and winemaking establishments, including some of whose hasty veneer of respectability thinly concealed their more dubious status in Prohibition days. By way of encouragement, I was usually invited to sample the newly legitimized products, and what I have referred to as fringe benefits came perilously close at times to being occupational hazards. One languorous spring afternoon, after a morning visit to a Brooklyn winery topped off by a heavy Italian lunch, I was interviewing an important distilling executive. I asked him a provocative question, leaned back expectantly for his reply, and immediately dropped off to sleep.

Lest the reader be mislead by these bibulous accounts, let me hasten to say that most of my days were grubby ones, spent in the business publication's dirty, drafty office on Lafayette Street. There I wrote up my interviews, phoned trade sources for market quotations, edited correspondents' copy, shamelessly cribbed relevant news items from the dailies, and spent long, lugubrious hours compiling entries and reading proofs for the Red Book of the Wine and Liquor Trades, first directory of the resurgent industry. Our business manager had an idea a minute, and most of them involved more work for the harried editorial staff, which consisted mainly of me. I badly needed a holiday, but saw no chance of a respite until summer. Suddenly, deliverance came from an unexpected source.

For some months, our advertising columns had carried advance notice of the Good Will Tour to France. The basic idea for the tour was a sound one. The French wine and liquor interests were anxious to extend their market in the United States. Americans traditionally crave to visit France. Why not charter the Ile de France, take over a shipload of American wine and liquor dealers to see the sights of Paris, visit the vineyards and distilleries and sample the goods at the source? The enterprising American promoters went the next step and persuaded the French to pick up most of the tab. The tourists' outlay would be limited to the round-trip ship passage at minimum rates. All living expenses in France — hotels, meals, transportation, Paris entertainments — were to be defrayed by the French.

I began to salivate when the first ad for the three-week tour appeared in our magazine, but there seemed little hope of making the trip. Our business manager had staked it out for his very own. But the winds of chance changed his plans shortly before the take-off date and I fell heir to a first-class cabin for the journey

In a burst of generosity, I invited my sister along, at her expense. I gave her my cabin and she put down the minimum fare for a tourist accommodation which I occupied. On a glorious April morning our friends and relatives came to see us off, my brother brandishing a bon voyage bottle which proved wholly surplus, since one of the importers had ordered up drinks for all hands.

As the sleek, immaculate ship churned out of its berth and made for the harbor, Phyllis and I joined the throng on deck. Though our own transatlantic travel had been limited to student trips, we sensed, early in the game, that this was going to be different from most luxury voyages. The passengers somehow lacked the soigné look of characters shown in the cruise-ship ads or depicted by Noel Coward in Private Lives. The bulk of the 700 on board were wine and liquor wholesalers, retail store owners and tavernkeepers making their first crossing. In dress and deportment they fell somewhere between an Atlantic City convention crowd and the Appalachian mob. First class did contain a few affluent importers and industry leaders, but most of those in the better cabins had landed there because an indulgent distiller had ponied up the higher fare to accommodate a favored customer.

In addition to the Ile's superb cuisine, passengers were offered gratis an aperitif and a choice of fine vintage wines at luncheon on the first day. We took this as a commendable initial gesture on the part of one of the better-known importers, and were agreeably surprised when selected beverages of another importer made their appearance at dinner. Imagine our pleasure when still another merchant played host for the evening's gala, with all drinks on the house. Besides all this, expensive favors were freely distributed. The following day three different firms gratuitously stocked the beverage side of the menu. And so it went for each of the six days of the voyage. The ship was afloat in more senses than one. I rode the tide happily until the evening Chauvenet's Sparkling Red Cap and a rolling sea did me in.

But even in the privacy of a stateroom, one was exposed to the temptations of the bottle and other sybaritic enticements. Each cabin received daily injections of miniature and not-so-miniature gift bottles of brandies and liqueurs, cigarettes and cigars, chocolates, flowers and perfume for the ladies, and other lavish souvenirs.

We reached Le Havre in a comatose state, and looked forward to a few relaxing days in Paris before visiting the wine districts. But any hopes of resting up were dashed when our tireless leaders plunged us into the daily schedule. In addition to large doses of the usual sight-seeing, we previewed the Paris Exposition of 1937, lost our francs at the greyhound races at Courbevoie, and took in the Folie-Bergères and several fashion shows.

Conditioned by their shipboard experiences, many of our group enthusiastically pursued their new penchant for collecting souvenirs. If no souvenirs were provided, they carried off what was portable, and for some of our more acquisitive types not even the Louvre and the Palais de Versailles were off limits. The log for the three-day stay also included an official reception and banquet, a lunch at which the growers of Burgundy uncorked some of their best bottles for our pleasure and, on our last night, a gay but exhausting finale offered by Cinzano at the Bal Tabarin.

Slit-eyed and bone-weary, we left Paris early the following morning in a fleet of buses headed for champagne country. At a brief ceremonial stop at Chateau-Thierry, we split up for visits to the leading champagne établissements. Phyllis and I went with a group of about 30 to the Bollinger caves at Ay. A tour through the cellars was followed by an exquisite luncheon catered by Prunier of Paris, which included Le Jambon de Bayonne Le Brochet de la Lane dens sa Gelée with a Sauce Gribiche and Le Canelon Lamberty washed down with copious draughts of Bollinger's Extra Quality Brut (1914 and 1920) and topped off with a masterful Marc de Champagne, 1917. As a special souvenir of the visit, each guest was presented with a graceful shallow silver tasting cup engraved with the date.

We remounted our bus in a pleasant haze. Next stop was Reims where we rejoined the main party for a tour of the cathedral and a reception and dinner tendered by the Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne. The Hôtel de Ville was adorned with French and American flags, the tables were piled high with all manner of delicacies for those who still cared about eating. I couldn't tell you what food was served, but I do have an indelible recollection of champagne, more champagne and still more champagne — the most, surely, that was ever gathered in one place for consumption at one time. The black-frocked dignitaries of the town and Syndicat never got off their prolix phrases on Franco-American friendship. There was no audience to hear them. The rivers of champagne, pouring forth in such ceaseless abundance, had carried away with them all remaining inhibitions. I hold the memory of a swilling, swaying, swinging, singing, dancing, prancing throng of my fellow travelers — their glasses long since discarded — who drank from their bottles and waved them about. Some took aim and squirted their neighbors with the golden fizz. Some left the hall with their bottles and wandered noisily up and down the streets. Some sang questionable ditties on the cathedral steps. An obstinate few perched atop one of the buses and kept spurning the driver's entreaties to climb down. I don't suppose it was more disorderly than some of our classic conventions, but imagine a convention with champagne in prodigal amounts served absolutely free!

Before the effects had fully worn off, we entrained for Bordeaux, where more goodies were in store. Again, our formidable company was broken up into smaller groups that were theoretically more manageable. Our visit to the old house of Cruse & Fils Frères was a happily uneventful afternoon of wine and sunshine. I found most appealing the lovely vistas of vineyards showing the first blooms of early spring. That evening the Bordeaux Syndicat des Vins, not to be outdone by its competitors of Burgundy and Champagne, produced a magnificent feast to the accompaniment of a glorious succession of Bordeaux greats that climaxed with a classic Latour '21.

The next day we staggered on to Cognac, a busy town of 16,000, for a visit to its famed brandy distilleries and, heaven help us another sumptuous banquet. The higher proof of the local liquor posed a new challenge to our tosspots. The French did not appreciate it when one of our number, in a sudden fit of chauvinism, pulled out a bottle of Old Taylor and loudly acclaimed its virtues.

France's liqueur and cordial makers were our hosts on the final day. Phyllis and I were in a party of 100 or more who headed for Fécamp, on the Normandy coast between Le Havre and Dieppe where the Benedictine Distillery is located. Although it had been a commercial enterprise for some years, the plant retained the lugubrious air of the monastery it once was. In one room — possibly a vestigial link with its religious past — pallid teenaged orphans were patiently wrapping each bottle in its tissue enclosure. We dutifully went the rounds, and were about to leave with the inevitable gift bottles when an officer of the firm that imports Benedictine to the United States beckoned to us. Mme. Le Grand, truly la grande dame of the establishment, had invited a privileged few to join her for a commemorative glass in the family's private chamber.

About a dozen of us were guided to a high vaulted room heavy with rich tapestries and massive oak furniture. In this setting, flanked by two of her sons, Mme. Le Grand looked frail and tiny, but she carried herself with surpassing dignity. At her command, a flunky opened a huge cabinet, bringing forth an ancient bottle and a set of magnificent fluted glasses. Mme. Le Grand filled the glasses, pouring with a steady hand, and handed them to the guests. The venerable lady spoke briefly in French, then, in English that was quaint but lucid, she offered a toast to the company, imparting a special warmth to her words. It was a sentient moment and we all stood silent. I was standing next to a beret-clad New Jersey retailer who had wandered in by mistake. He seemed awed by the occasion, but was the first to break the silence. "Bottoms up!" he shouted, drained the liqueur at a gulp — and put the glass in his pocket.

That evening a jaded, droopy, souvenir-laden band boarded the lovely Ile at Le Havre for the return voyage. Again, the daily schedule called for the wine and liquor firms to play host on every possible occasion, but the sauce had lost its savor. The more durable passengers went through the motions of party-going. They were joined by replacements for a few members of our original group who had fallen by the wayside somewhere in France. These fresh recruits had been unaware, at the time of booking passage, that their crossing to New York was to be other than routine; they were wide-eyed at the wonderment of it all. Meanwhile, some of our seasoned drinkers, bored with conviviality en masse, sought solace in the ship's bar, where it was actually possible to pay for a drink.

Throughout the trip the ship's gym and steam room were crowded with penitents frantically trying to get themselves back in shape. Morning and evening the decks were crowded with determined walkers. Some of our shipmates released their energies in a last burst of uninhibited souvenir collecting. Silverware, ashtrays, demitasse cups — almost anything that wasn't tied or welded down — disappeared from view. The situation got so bad that the day before our arrival in New York the passengers were warned by the line that unless pilfered items were returned, there would be an intensive search of each cabin. A rumor also went round that a certain French museum had cabled the ship demanding the return of objets d'art which had vanished the day our horde of locusts had swept through the premises. The threats were never publicly carried out. Perhaps some of the missing loot was returned. But the Customs men at the New York pier were confronted with a conglomeration of curios rivaling those of Citizen Kane, not to mention a stupefying amassment of bottles ranging from miniatures to jeroboams.

When we finally stepped from the pier into Manhattan's spring sunshine there was an added meaning to the old cliché, "to set foot on dry land." I can't honestly say that my days of wine and liquor made a teetotaller out of me, but they did help keep me out of the gutter. The next year a second shipload set sail on the Good Will Tour to Italy. When I heard about it I had twinges of nostalgia, not to mention nausea. But by that time I had put the American Wine & Liquor Journal and its temptations behind me.

Rembrandt and Depression

Joe Schildkraut

I'm going to be talking (because Steve asked me to) about a particular etching of Rembrandt called, "St. Jerome in a Dark Chamber," which the artist produced in 1642. I first saw this etching some 20 years ago at a print exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At first glance, this was a very dark, black, printed etching with a very small corner of the sheet devoted to a rectangular white paper.

Since I am attracted to black in art, for reasons that I don't fully understand except for the fact that I very often find on close exploration that black leads to a sense of mystery, which to my mind is one of the aims of all great art, I immediately headed toward this sheet that I saw on the wall. The etching itself is 5x6 inches, and at first glance it was virtually a solid sheet of black, with a white rectangle in the upper right-hand corner – the white, of course, being the paper showing through.

Upon close examination, one could see that within this black overlay there were some dim figures. It was a slight bit of light that exposed St. Jerome himself, seated in a position typical of melancholy, a book in front of him. Behind him there was a skull on a shelf on the wall. One could see a crucifix hanging in the window which was, perhaps, the most illuminated and clearest object in the etching. And, very little else could be discerned.

Upon closer examination, there was a circular staircase and one could see St. Jerome's lion under a table. I will not go on with further details because they could only be seen in much closer examination or in very poor quality prints that did not have the black overlay so one could see all the details that Rembrandt put in. But somehow this whole etching gave me a sense of familiarity. I'd never seen it before, but the experience was one that I had had earlier and I returned to it numerous times during the exhibition and couldn't quite get it out of my mind.

Then it suddenly struck me. The familiarity that this etching was providing was essentially communicating to me in the same metaphor, in the same way, that my experience with depressed patients showed me through their style of communication. All was dark, it was very hard to make out the individual elements in their mind. They expressed this. Things were very dim. They couldn't bring them back. When they could, they couldn't relate one object to another. And most important, they would always say "I can see the light out there. It is light, but it just doesn't get into my brain. It is not there."

And then I realized, this etching, as Rembrandt produced it, was a physical impossibility, because in no way could one have had that bright light in the window in the upper right-hand corner, and maintained a chamber that was so terribly dark and black. Clearly, Rembrandt understood this. He must have done it for some reason. And I found myself interested enough in this to wonder what was going on in Rembrandt's life in the year that he did this etching, 1642.

To my saddened realization but intellectual satisfaction, I learned that 1642 was the year in which Rembrandt's young wife had died. They had been married for less than 10 years. A series of deaths had occurred in their families. Their first three children died very shortly after birth. Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, lost several of her close relatives in this period.

Rembrandt's mother died in 1640, and ultimately in 1642 Rembrandt's wife herself died. It is clear then that when Rembrandt is producing this work he had to have an awareness of the sense of depression, and I am not by saying this, making a clinical diagnosis. But it was obvious that he was going through a profound sense of grief, as would be normal under the circumstance. He knew at that time what the depressed mind was like. As a result, I concluded that this etching of 1642 was, in fact, Rembrandt's metaphorical description of the state of his own mind and this connection that I made with it by virtually having had a lifetime of experience listening to depressed patients seemed to carry some validity.

Rembrandt's "St. Jerome in a Dark Chamber" is itself a mystery, as I think all great art is. Here, a mystery of darkness, of shadows, of barely seen objects of the black chamber and the bright outside light that is shining in the window but not penetrating the chamber. In essence, then, I would suggest that "St. Jerome in a Dark Chamber" is Rembrandt's portrayal of the subjective experience of the human mind darkened by depression, turned inward, illuminating on itself the depressed mind, the dark chamber into which light cannot penetrate.

The Power of Coincidence

George Klein

Everyone's life follows a unique and largely unpredictable course. And I'm sure we can all point to unlikely incidents in our own lives that had a tremendous influence on who we are. Stephen, our founder, has asked me to tell you about some of the rather unusual links of my particular journey, which has been marked by quite a number of far-fetched but fateful encounters and coincidences. I agreed to do so with some reluctance, since I dislike speaking about myself in a public setting. But I had to admit that the incidents I'll be telling you about are rather out of the ordinary.

Paris didn't burn in August, 1944, as Hitler wanted, and was liberated with hardly a shot fired. My hometown, Budapest, was not so lucky and was largely destroyed during the four-month siege that ended in January, 1945, after weeks of house-to-house combat between the Germans and the Russians. I remember very little of the weeks that followed — I was only eleven — except that it was cold and food was scarce.

Sometime in March, along with hundreds of others fleeing the city to seek food and warmth, I clambered aboard one of the flat-top railroad cars of a freight train, leaving Budapest headed west. At the Austro-Hungarian border, which we reached after a day or two, Russian soldiers chased everyone off the train. The group I had attached myself to had just about resolved to head away from the tracks toward a distant village when a tall soldier wearing an unfamiliar uniform appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He stopped just as he came to where I was standing and turned his back to the wind to light a cigarette. It was then that he noticed me — surely not a pretty sight — and motioned that I should follow him.

As I learned later, he was an American lieutenant from Roanoke, Virginia, who had been detailed from his Army unit to meet the train at the border and to escort it through Austria to Passau in Germany. Once we reached Passau, he returned to his base and took me with him, which is how I became a U.S. Army mascot — cut-down uniform and all — and for the next year or so the most spoiled and happiest little boy in the world. That is how my American adventure began, and I am at a loss to imagine what might have happened to me if the wind had been blowing from another direction when Lt. McNulty stopped to light his cigarette.

The following year, in the spring of 1946, some of my Army friends and protectors decided that I ought to go to the States. They arranged with a Merchant Seaman to have me stow away on a ship then docked in Bremerhaven. The sailor fixed up a little cabin for me in an unused section of the ship and looked after me for three days while we were tied up in port. When we finally raised anchor, we went up the Weser River a few miles, then stopped to pick up ballast for the crossing. It was then that my hideaway was discovered by a sailor whose curiosity was aroused by the fact that the door of my cabin was closed, while all the nearby cabins had their doors wide open or had no doors at all. The crew couldn't have been nicer as they put me ashore.

If that sailor hadn't been so curious, I suppose I would indeed have reached the States, but only as an undocumented alien with a most uncertain future, or I might have been caught and deported by the Immigration Service — perhaps banned permanently from entering the United States.

I finally got to America, legally, in July, 1946, and had trouble adjusting — to civilian life, I guess. I first lived with a family in New Jersey that I thought I had to get away from, so I ran away to New York City, hopping the subway and turning up unannounced at the offices on 14th Street of the refugee agency that had arranged for my immigration.

While my case worker sat at his desk wondering what to do with this wayward 13-year-old, I suddenly remembered seeing an ad on the subway just a few minutes earlier for Griffin's All-White Shoe Polish — and I told the caseworker that I had once met and made friends with a Mr. Griffin (no relation to the shoe polish) who had come with his USO troop to Bremerhaven to entertain the American soldiers. Mr. Griffin had told me that he lived in Sunnyside, Queens and asked me to give him a ring if I ever was there.

The caseworker made a dash for a telephone book. Mr. Griffin turned up within the hour and took me home with him. A few months later, he and his family — and I —moved upstate near Albany, which is where I spent a good part of my teenage years — living a normal life in smalltown America, playing on the high school football team and so on, a very happy period of my life, that rested like so much else, on coincidence.

In 1954, after finishing my Army basic training in Fort Smith, Arkansas, I was just about to get on a train to Albuquerque en route to Sandia Base — one of the Army's most hush-hush installations — when the assignment was abruptly cancelled. A clerk had happened to discover that non-citizens, even if they were soldiers, were not eligible for a temporary security clearance, without which you could not enter the base. My Army superiors were embarrassed by what had happened and to make amends, quickly arranged not only to have me sworn in as a citizen, but also to assign me to Europe.

On my arrival there, the personnel clerk at the Processing Center in Germany glanced through my file and shouted, "Hey! You went to St. Ambrose! I went to Creighton!" And so he decided on the strength of nothing more than that we had both attended small, mid-western colleges that belonged to the same basketball league, to send me to U.S. Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, rather than to a remote logistics base in France, where nearly all the other new arrivals were being posted.

This gave me the chance to work with Iron Curtain escapees and refugee camps all over Germany and southern Europe — an assignment that involved professional contact with the refugee world (as distinguished from my personal experience), and also introduced me to the State Department's escapee program.

All the rest of my career — beginning with my work with Hungarian refugees who fled to Austria after the Russians crushed the 1956 revolution, my being hired by Sargent Shriver to work in the Peace Corps, my years of government service in Africa and Asia, including an assignment as Deputy to one of my closest lifelong friends, Ed Marks — our fellow Oysterer — meeting my wife, forming bonds with Stephen and other good friends, and now meeting all of you, all of it is directly traceable to this delicate string of happenstances that began with the way the wind blew on that winter day on the Austro-Hungarian border.

Vera J. Barad
(with assistance from Ed Marks
& The Oyster Foundation Chorale)

This song was written by Cole Porter for a musical called "Fifty Million Frenchman" that was a big hit in New York in the later twenties or early thirties. You can get the album and there are some lovely songs in it, including a song about Paris. But there is also this song about oysters. We apologize for our voices, we are not Kay Ballard -- or...Pavarotti.

We are just full of champagne!

The Tale of the Oyster From FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN by Cole Porter Click here to play the song. Down by the sea lived a lonesome oyster, Every day getting sadder and moister, He found his home life awfully wet And longed to travel with the upper set. Poor little oyster. Fate was kind to the oyster we know. One day the chef from the Park Casino Saw that oyster lying there And said I'll put you on my bill of fare. Lucky little oyster. See him on his silver platter, Watching the queens of fashion chatter. Hearing the wives of millionaires Discuss their marriages and their love affairs. Thrilled little oyster. See that bivalve social climber Feeding the rich Mrs. Hoggenheimer, Think of his joy as he gaily glides Down to the middle of her gilded insides. Proud little oyster. After lunch Mrs. H. complains, And says to her hostess, "I've got such pains, I came to town on my yacht today, But I think I'd better hurry back to Oyster Bay." Scared little oyster. Off they go through the troubled tide, The yacht rolling madly from side to side. They're tossed about till that poor young oyster Finds that it's time he should quit his cloister. Up comes the oyster. Back once more where he started from, He murmured, "I've haven't a single qualm, For I've had a taste of society And society has had a taste of me." Wise little oyster.

A Proposal: The Nobel Quotidian Prize

Eric Britton

Respectfully submitted,