History

Discovering Fire (Again): The Innovation of Love

Steve · May 14, 2025 · Leave a Comment

Although I took the bare minimum of science and math courses in both high school and college, I am in these elder days a bit of a science geek. And by that I don’t mean that I understand the underpinnings and the “math” of science as much as I relish and pore over each new issue of National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines as they arrive each month and watch longingly for new episodes of Nature and Nova on PBS. So I’m a spectator scientist, at best.

I am particularly drawn to the storytelling of scientific innovation — to the documentaries, essays, articles and podcasts that give us insight to those brilliant scientists and thinkers who are addressing the very real problems faced by the world today. Last month’s National Geographic featured profiles of 33 “visionary changemakers who are striving to make the world a better place” in a diverse range of areas such as climate change, wilderness preservation, economic opportunity, and mental health, among others. At a time when it’s easy to turn away from such troubling horizons, editor Nathan Lump writes that these 33 individuals (for the 33 men who founded the National Geographic Society in 1988) are “decidedly not looking away.”

The past century has been a long and broad season of innovation, to be sure. Just consider that the Wright Brothers first got a few feet off the surface of Earth in 1903 and, just 66 short years later, we landed on the surface of the moon. Consider, too, the advances of medicine, technology, energy and architecture. Heck, consider that I’m sitting here on my back porch typing on a laptop computer, checking a few facts (like the date of the Wright Brothers first flight) in an instant on my cell phone. In college, I thought I was dealing with pretty advanced technology with my Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter and a bottle of Wite-Out®.

So we’ve made some great global strides, to be sure. We have found new ways to care for our Earth and those people and creatures that live on it. And yet, it seems we have failed (and keep failing) when it comes to the most elemental thing that God asks of us: To love one another as God loves us. We, as a society, so often fail to love in ways that would put human lives and dignity before wealth, corporate gains and political strength. We measure success in all the easy but wrong ways.

These early morning thoughts bring to mind the wisdom of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a 20^th-century French Jesuit, Catholic priest, scientist, theologian, and teacher. In his 1934 essay, “The Evolution of Chastity,” he wrote: “The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

We’ve done so much in such a short period of time. And, no doubt, some of the world’s greatest innovations were done out of love for the Earth and humanity. But imagine — just imagine — what might be accomplished if everything we did began with the kind of power, influence and great innovation akin to the love that God has for us. The change that kind of power would bring to the world would tower over the elemental innovations like rockets, the wheel and even, as Teilhard writes, fire.

For in the end, it will be on our ability to love and not turn away from those in need that we will be judged, both by God and by those who will circle our coffins and graves trying to speak a few words of remembrance. For it’s not what we accomplish and earn that matters. It’s not the financial or social legacy we leave behind that will endure. It’s how much and how well we loved.

I’ll give the final word today to St. Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who was martyred while celebrating mass in 1980: “In the evening of life, you will be judged on love.”

Games We Played: Fuzzball

Steve · April 15, 2020 · 12 Comments

Welcome to the first installment in an occasional new series of blogposts called “Games We Played.”

The idea behind this series is to — in a quick and hopefully fun way — pass on to my grandchildren’s generation the games we played as kids. And by games I don’t mean Monopoly and Chinese Checkers and I certainly don’t mean any game that can be played sitting on the couch with a computer, tablet or phone in your hands.

I’m talking about the games we played outside with friends in the neighborhood. For me, that was in the late 1960s and early 1970s in a North St. Louis neighborhood called North Point, nestled up against Walnut Park, Baden and the St. Louis County line with Jennings. But what I’ve learned talking to some friends and family about these games is that our memories of the rules of these neighborhood and schoolyard games are widely inconsistent. Even the names of the games varied by when and where they were played.

But that’s kind of the point. We all remember the games and the rules differently not because we’re all old people losing our memories — although that most certainly is true in the case of some of my friends (naming no names here and present company excepted) — but because there were NEVER any firmly established rules to begin with. These were the games we made up ourselves or inherited from older siblings and changed to meet our own needs and abilities. Making up or adjusting the rules was all part of the game and, I think, that made us smarter, more resilient and more creative kids.

Today I begin with THE seminal game of my childhood. Fuzzball was one of many, many derivatives of baseball that we played in North Point. No doubt kids in other parts of the country played some version of this game, but this one has a distinct St. Louis heritage because its roots are tied to another St. Louis-born game called corkball, which was originally played with broomsticks and roundly carved and tape-wrapped pieces of cork from beer barrel bungs. That game became so popular that official bats and balls were eventually manufactured to meet the needs of the many who played it. According to a Wiki page, the game was played in the streets and alleys of St. Louis as early as 1890, and as time went on the game travelled around the country as St. Louis servicemen taught it to their buddies during World War II and the Korean War.

But enough about corkball, other than to say that little ball was hard and could blacken an eye or knock out a few windows if not played in a big old field (like the corkball fields at several city parks like Hickey Park in Baden) or inside a rectangular cage like those that popped up adjacent to taverns around town. It also hurt like a dickens when it hits you.

So for brevity, which is already waning I realize, let’s just say that in the interest of safety, the cost and hassle of window replacement and childhood innocence, someone eventually replaced the corkball with a tennis ball, which is, of course, how fuzzball got its name. The game could now be played in backyards, alleys and schoolyards without incurring the wrath of neighbors and principals. Usually. By the way, some kids burnt the fuzz off the ball to make it go faster.

Here’s a quick, two-minute video that teaches the rules given below:

+ The game was usually played with four players, two to a side, a pitcher and a catcher. There were no bases to run. It was simply a game of pitching and hitting. Here are the rules as we played it:

+ There’s no ump so no “called” balls and strikes. Just throw the ball over the plate.

+ Two strikes and you’re out.

+ One strike and you’re out if the catcher cleanly catches a swing and miss.

+ Foul tip behind the plate and you’re out. And by “plate,” I mean whatever was laying around, usually someone’s glove or jacket.

+ Foul tip caught by the catcher is a double play, if there is an “imaginary runner” on base. More on this in a minute.

+ Ground ball or fly ball caught by either player is an out.

+ Ground ball bobbled or past the pitcher is a single.

+ That single gives you an imaginary runner on base, and these “ghosts” move around the base path one base at a time with subsequent hits. A double would move the runner two bases.

+ See rule about double plays above.

+ A pop fly or line drive past or over the pitcher’s head is a double.

+ If you’re playing in a schoolyard with a fence, over the fence is a homerun and off the fence a triple.

+ If there’s no fence, you can designate anything you want as the homerun marker, of course.

Three outs and you switch sides. If the innings seem to be passing too quickly, you can always call for “double innings,” but any imaginary stranded runners do not get to stay on base when you begin the second set of three outs. Unless, of course, you change the rules.

That’s it. You can play with more kids and put people out in the field. You can play with just three and just rotate between pitcher, catcher and hitter. You can do what you want.

Until next time:

Get outside (when you can)
Play with your friends (when it’s safe to do so)
Make up your own rules.
Most importantly, have fun.

Life and Death on Display: Midwinter at the Missouri Botanical Garden

Steve · January 11, 2019 · 6 Comments

climatron — The iconic Climatron and its reflecting pools. Opened in 1960, the Climatron was the first geodesic dome to be used as a plant conservatory. It was built following the principles of R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic system and has no interior support and no columns from floor to ceiling. It rises to 70 feet in the center, spans 175 feet in diameter at the base, has 1.3 million cubic feet, and encloses approximately 24,000 square feet, according to the Garden’s website. SJG photo.

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir

As I write this, St. Louis is in the midst of a winter snowfall that could leave somewhere between 6-12 inches of snow on the ground. It’s beautiful and all that, but I’m not amused.

Just a week ago, I spent several hours of an unseasonably warm day walking the grounds of one of our region’s storied treasures — the Missouri Botanical Garden, better and forever known to long-time St. Louisans as Shaw’s Garden. Named for the merchant and botanical enthusiast Henry Shaw, an Englishman who came to St. Louis in 1819 as an 18-year-old in search of customers for his hardware and cutlery business on the edge of the American wilderness, the “Garden” is today world renowned for its botanical richness and beauty, its architecture and the botanical knowledge its scientists continue to uncover on the grounds and at sites throughout the world.

Today’s Word: Discovery

Steve · June 26, 2017 · 5 Comments

1903 Wright Brothers Flyer, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. SJG photo.

“Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

This past weekend, Sue and I visited Washington, D.C., taking in some of the sights and museums. I usually enjoy just about any kind of museum, but I am often drawn to history and science museums because they present the discoveries and innovations of the world in such a graphic and accessible way. And whether some man or woman of the past conquered flight or disease, whether he or she discovered a new way of seeing the world, governing its people, harnessing the power of its natural resources or uncovering its ancient past to better understand our present, a museum gives us in a snapshot what a good book does in more depth over hundreds of pages. Both are important, of course, but a museum has the opportunity to grab our attention and nudge us toward the deeper end of knowledge. What we see in an exhibit can and should lead us to read, to research, to create, to think deeply and share with others.

On the Road: San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico

Steve · August 28, 2015 · 6 Comments

church1 — San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church, SJG photo.

Before even leaving for our trip to New Mexico, I knew one of our stops would be the majestic and oft-photographed San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church just outside of Taos. My good friend and mentor Fred Volkmann had shared his photos with me years ago, and I later learned that the mission church has been the subject of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe and photos by Ansel Adams and Paul Strand, among countless others.

Construction on this adobe masterpiece began around the time of the American Revolution and was completed in 1815 by Franciscan missionaries in honor of their founder and patron, St. Francis of Assisi. Like all mission churches, it held a dual purpose. It was both a place of worship and served as protection from attack, in this case from Comanches. Today, it continues to serve as a parish church in the Santa Fe Diocese and is listed as a National Historic Landmark and designated as a World Heritage Site.

church2 — San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church, SJG photo.

And like all churches of its era, this is a sanctuary built (and rebuilt) by hand. Spanish colonists moved to the area in the mid-18^th century from the larger settlement of the Taos Pueblo (unfortunately closed during our visit) and found fertile land for wheat and corn. They built their adobe homes from mud and straw around a central plaza to create community and for protection. The church, with its massive flowing buttresses and bell towers, occupies a place of importance and inspiration on the plaza. A thick adobe wall encircles the church and its small cemetery and forecourt.

The church remains in great condition, thanks to the continuing efforts of the parishioners, who have lovingly and authentically repaired and rebuilt it over the years. In fact, citizens, parishioners and visitors come together for two weeks every other year to re-mud the exterior, a job that can only be done by hand and with the knowledge that they are maintaining a spiritual and cultural home for generations to come.

francis — St. Francis, looking in. SJG photo.

For all the advances of modern society and advanced building techniques and materials, the sight of this old adobe church basking and baking in the New Mexico sun was a reminder that the works of our hands, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are meant for the service of others and for the glory of God.

[Thanks to the National Park Service website for historical information.]