A Final Word

March 25,2016

The Wise and Foolish Builders

Matthew Chapter 7

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Our dad...He Built on Rock.  For over 89 years he built on rock.  

He married well,

He Served His Country

He raised a nice marginally functional, loving family and

He stayed faithful

To his wife, his family and his God.  

He built on rock.

Our family is “funny”, but not always that sensitive or bright.  For years I gave my mom a hard time about the age gap between myself and my brother and sister who are 7 and 8 years older than I am. After a time, as an adult she said to me…

“You know I had 4 miscarriages trying to have all of you so maybe your not so funny”.

So maybe we are not so funny.  

But that was a classic example of the two of them building on rock together and raising this “funny” family.

He Married well.  He knew he needed to marry my mother.  He went AWOL from boot camp to come home and visit her.  She sent him a Dear John letter while he was serving in Europe.  He came home and he got her back and married her because he knew.  HE KNEW!  That relationship was formative in everything he became.  She humbled herself to him and supported him from the start, sometimes even when he was wrong and over time, she changed him.  She and God and life made him kinder, softer, better. In the end she was the strong one that HE needed but the sweeping arc of their marriage was and is humbling to anyone who paid any attention and especially to their children, and their grandchildren.

As I said earlier, together they raised a marginally functional loving family.  I didn't have the same dad my brother and sister had because of that age gap.  When I was little my dad was scary.  

He was the authority.  

“My House, MY RULES” were words that flowed easily and “wait till your father gets home” was no idle threat.  He was tough, successful in business and dominated every situation and every room.  But life and God and time dealt him some setbacks, educated him about “strength” and by the time I reached adolescence he saw that he was not always right and that maybe he was a little too hard on my siblings and… I benefited greatly. Which makes me laugh.

My best memories of dad were when he was taking care of me sometimes. My mom went back to work and I would be dragged along by my father to meetings to see and listen to the men who were seeking him out for advice and counsel.  Advice about work.  Advice about their marriages.  Advice about their investments.  Advice about their kids.  People came to him because my father gave good counsel.  When you sat with him he listened intently and then he told you exactly what he was thinking.  It was rarely what they wanted to hear. He helped people figure things out and it was fascinating to watch.

But God...he was fun to watch too.  We travelled a lot and he owned a travel club and a plane or 4 or 5,  with friends. I remember flying all over the place.  I remember him playing cards on the plane and laughing.  Going to Florida or Mexico and him renting a sail boat and watching with my concerned mother as the sail disappeared over the horizon… hearing her mutter under her breath that he really had no idea what he was doing, making jokes about the Cubans picking him up as a spy and perhaps him missing dinner and causing my mother a little more distress.  And he would laugh.  He flew, he sailed, he gambled, sometimes he drank, he laughed and his eyes… his blue eyes twinkled….

A LOT...especially when he was messing with you.  He was a hard man to bring your date to home to meet.  Traditional conversation gambits were, “when are you two getting married?” after you had been dating for a month or “when are you two having a baby?” After just returning from your honeymoon.  He liked to stir it up.  He especially liked to give my wife Sandy a hard time about almost anything and messing with my wife is not for the weak of spirit.

But he also lived a life of faith.  That spirit of quiet faith affected all of us.  One of my best friends in the world has memories of my dad as a Sunday School teacher back at Ascension Lutheran.  We lived 3 blocks from there and you went to church every week.  “You have time to play, you have time to pray.  I want to hear those feet on the floor!” He would holler from the first floor.  And one of the ways he showed his faith was by teaching Sunday School.  Some of you don't know this but our dad was bald and he had some growths removed that left scars on the sides of his head and he relished telling small children, “That is where I had my horns removed”.  The kids laughed uncomfortably because there was always the unspoken possibility that my dad was actually the devil… or at least a former bull.  His example… his spirit helped me become a Sunday School teacher, youth leader and husband and father.  But he never talked about how he served.

That spirit of quiet faith allows my brother to more than occasionally occasionally pass some unmarked bills to pastor Seidler to spread out where he sees a need… or perhaps to pay for his green fees… and that spirit of faith allows along with Naomi, his wife to teach couples Bible study here at Concordia….forever.

That quiet certainty of faith and family allowed my sister through some adversity to raise two fabulous children of her own and with her husband Gerry to serve here at Concordia in numerous capacities….also forever.

Wife, family, faith.  He put in the time.  He built on rock.  

He showed up.  He did the work.  He built on rock.  

He did it quietly and humbly and he took care of business, his faith, his church and missions.  He built on rock.  

He left his children, their spouses, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren with a DEEP line up of faith, family, church, responsibility and JOY.  He built on rock.  

We will miss you paw paw but hopefully we will build as well as you and when our time comes perhaps if we are lucky we will leave a legacy of marriage, family and faith. The Beckers, the Ebests, the Gates, the Daniels, Mulvihills and the Burbridges all appreciate all of you coming to celebrate this man and his life as we try and take the best part of him into our own families and to also remember that it is important to have that foundation of faith under everything we do.  

Bob Becker.

He had a good run.

God was good, and Bob Becker built on a rock.

Robert G. Becker

Obituary Becker, Robert G. passed peacefully on Thursday, March 17, 2016. He is survived by his wife of 69 years Doris (nee Thompson), daughter Lyn (Jerry) Ebest, sons Robert J. (Naomi) Becker and Michael (Sandy) Becker, grandchildren Greg (Jessica) Gates, Megan (Tom) Mulvihill, Elizabeth (Brian) Daniels, Jennifer (Drew) Burbridge, Jonathon (Lydia) Becker, Patrick (Kyle) Becker and Laura Becker, great-grandchildren Allison, Colin, Will, Alexandra, August and Cameron, brother Don (Mary) Becker. Robert was a loving man, respected for his principles and joyous in his Christian faith. Every day was The best day of my life. Services: Memorial service will be held Saturday, March 26, at 1:00 p.m. at Concordia Lutheran Church, 505 S. Kirkwood Rd. Visitation 12:30 at church. Interment will be private. Memorials may be made to the Alzheimer's Association , Lutheran Children and Family Services, 9666 Olive St. Suite 400, St. Louis, MO 63130 or to the charity of one's choice .

- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/stltoday/obituary.aspx?n=robert-g-becker&pid=178265865#sthash.F7WDKizJ.dpuf

My Documents: Alejandro Zambra

A Beautifully written, perfect book of longish stories. All connected by nothing other than Chile and a male narrator. I could travel to Chile and in fact hope to, and never will experience the depth of the culture Zambra paints of a beautiful and historically rich culture with a serious politics problem.

He paints beautiful pictures with each story of a place that has confused Orwellian juxtapositions of meaning, without all the other aspects of an obvious police state. Most of these political aspects are background noise related to the fall and return of Pinochet. 11 stories in 5 sections and translated by Megan Mc Dowell.  The narrator is inevitably either a boy or a young man negotiating the complexity of family, school, computers, smoking, sex, soccer migraines, writing and relationships sometimes with a feeling similar to the lead character in the novel "Being There".  His story of a writer quitting smoking made me want to take it up myself. He does the math on the cash outlays for cigarettes in his life and determines that he is the type of person who chose to smoke, rather than to buy a house.

The writing is just... perfect and the lines resonate as do the confused processes of adolescence when one of his characters insists on classifying everything in his life as "true" or "false".  The narrator is at once involved from all the action and removed from it. He creates worlds inside and outside of his characters' heads and allows us to... Fall in.

A great vacation book. I found it on Mc Sweeneys. Always a great filter for the new and the bold. Your welcome.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net

Between The World And Me

I have read the most glorious books so far this year that I am hesitant to keep reading for fear of breaking the streak.

The Tsar of Love and Techno

Between the World and Me

My Documents

David Benem Excerpts

All very different and all written by people different than me (other than Benem, who is only bigger than I am and drinks Bud Select in I unfathomable volumes. But all brilliant.

I love to travel because it opens my eyes to the beauty and suffering in the world and helps me appreciate my easy (albeit hectic) life. But reading is almost better because writers can take us to places with depth and forethought that my scattershot "travels" often lack. I can observe the poverty of the Deep South but I cannot experience the lack of opportunity for someone born there without reading about it from someone who has lived it. I can visit Ferguson but not experience the loss of a mother who invested he love and 18 years of time and treasure in a son, only to see this asset gunned down and gone forever. But writing takes you there.  

The book "Between The World and Me" is Coates letter to his son. Toni Morrison called it "required reading" and while initially suspicious, I can only echo that sentiment. Coates refers to people like me (and probably you) as "dreamers" who have had an entire reality system constructed around us to keep us from waking up and having to confront the the obvious truth and ugliness of what we have created and profited from. He derides me for my obliviousness and pushes me, but not to action. He makes very clear that what has been done by our country in regard to the black race cannot be "fixed”, at least not quickly and by half measures.  Instead he shoves me to thought and conversation, intolerant of denial and remaining in the comfortable sleep of a dreamer.

He starts the letter when his 15 year old son retires to his room to be alone after hearing that the killer of Michael Brown will not be charged… with anything.

To begin,  he outlines his own life to his son, negotiating violence in his home, in his school and on the street. Never having the luxury of being asleep but always awake to the possibilities of harm should he ever not be alert, afraid, paying attention. To always be awake to the taking of his body and the bodies of others.  Then he recounts how he went to Howard University (the Mecca) and first experienced the depth of black culture and community. How he had to be awoken from that by a fellow student, unarmed and gunned down outside of his suburban home by an undercover police officer.

He displays the lessons for his son not to call his son to anger and violence but to incite awareness and understanding that he will not, cannot and should not ever be a dreamer but by the necessities of our societies plunder of his race and his body must instead be vigilant, and appreciative and also... most importantly to find joy.

This is a humbling letter and many of us don't want to read it but we should. We cannot "fix" our nations history of enslavement, rape, and systemic, organized, relentless exploitation and marginalizing of black people in America. We can seek to understand it amd discuss it and OWN it.

It is a sad book to have to write to ones own son. But it is a beautiful picture of a father urging a son, his son, his joy, towards a life of understanding, meaning and appreciation of his own beauty and the beauty of an ugly, broken sinful world.

Not for the squeamish but an important book never the less.  To read it is to be humbled and perhaps to be called to greater understanding, a non-dismissive understanding iof what it is like to e called “equal” and yet find over and over again that you are “other”.

The Sellout

Soooo.... this might just be a book review this year.  But probably not.  Politics is exhausting, Iowa is tomorrow and for all the passion, all the talk of precipice and disaster... I would rather read something.  My law school classmate Richard Dooling recommended this to me.  He knows my tastes and in the first ten pages I admired the authors style... his..."patter".  Beatty immediately establishes a tone and a cadence which separate his prose out from the pack.

I don't know if it s "post Ferguson" book.  I rather doubt it because it is too lovingly scripted to have just come about in the last year and a half.  The story is narrated by a young black man who recalls growing up in urban LA in a town that has since been swallowed up, called "Mitchell".  If this were not odd enough the man's father and then the narrator himself farms land in this urban wasteland and he takes pains to point out through the book, is not a wasteland at all.

The book revels in blackness.  I cannot recall if there is single white character other than perhaps the police who wade in occasionally and with impact.  His father is a self schooled intellectual and an expert on the black struggle who raises his son on books and pop quizzes about America, racism and history and is a great case for the premise that no one impacts a child's upbringing like his or her parents.  His father holds court in the neighborhood with a group of like minded characters at Dum Dum Donuts and they hold forth, big time one another and solve the worlds problems.  This west coast, black Algonquin Round Table features his fathers cohort and nemesis, Foy Chesire who rights blackcentric rewrites of American classic literature. for example, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn becomes “The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.”  You get the idea.

When the narrators father is "Accidentally" shot by the police he takes on his fathers mantle locally and also has a sidekick who is the narrator's slave named Hominy.  Hominy is the sole surviving "Little Rascal" and he adds sadness, humor and weirdness to an already offbeat story as the narrator attempts to date, surf, recreate the town of Mitchell and re-segregate schools to challenge ALL thoughts on race, racism and the American dream. 

It is a funny book and sad book and above all a well written book which causes people like myself, who have the best intentions, to evaluate where this intentions and instincts come from and whether they are real empathy for the sufferings of others or does that empathy just serve to allow us to maintain the status quo and feel bad about it with our half hearted hearts.  There is nothing half hearted about Beatty's book and it a really good literary read.  It is also an easy read.  Buy it.

"The Tsar of Love and Techno"...the Diner Review

Soooo…. the Diner Review has been absent and perhaps…. unmissed.  Perhaps 2016 will be different.  Perhaps not.  The future with this writer is as always…. sketchy.  We are coming up on the year end however and that leads to some reflections, some lists and perhaps even some new year's resolutions.  While not getting to the other two as of yet, you should resolve to read “The Tsar of Love and Techno”.  This 332 page tome by Anthony Marra is the best thing that I read in 2015 and I am grateful that it will be the last thing I finish for the year.  I will bo go back and read his previous novel, “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” because this was just so good. My devotion to the book is evidenced by my continuation of reading it, even after my dog devoured a portion of it.

The book is more than a little fantastic on a number of levels but follows some nine “related” individuals through 80 years from Stalin to modern (post Chechen) Russia.  It starts with an artist who has found himself in the job of correcting art and photographs of Mother Russia, post revolution where people were, purged, murdered or sent to Siberia.  He erases these individuals images from the state record and does it both quickly and artistically.  For reasons known only to him he replaces the images of these individuals with a picture of someone else, always the same person...artfully rendered.

When he is finally “reported” as a traitor and suffers his fate the story moves to the Arctic Circle and a community that produces nickel for the State in a way that is not totally environmentally friendly and we follow the actors, and a painting down through the generations and the Chechen War and love and death and drug dealing and panhandling and failures… and more failures with very little sense of triumph, other than the spirit or lack thereof of his characters and the sense that every life is a noble struggle, even if the face of relentless marginalization imposed by the State and meaningless related once again to the state.

His characters and tone perfect and he writes with seeming first hand knowledge of the Orwellian society imposed by Communism and even more insidiously… in post Communism.  The Russian people have never really suffered a day of Democracy and although it certainly is not a cure all one wonders whether a real representative government would have made a difference...or not.  The characters are dense and there are a lot of them to follow and with the Russian names and my limited brain plasticity it was sometimes a challenge but in the end… this is a great book and a great read that will take you outside your mind and outside the problems of our own country and maybe to the realization that we continue to be the luckiest people in the world, and yet our lives without all the imposed suffering, might be a little less meaningful.

The Kingside: A Diner Review

Sooooo….If Only I felt that these had been missed but it is time for an actual DINER REVIEW!  Places open, places close and sometimes they open and close without comment but it shall not be the case with The Kingside Diner.  The Central West End has long been underserved by decent breakfast places.  For most of my extensive adult life you could choose between Koppermans and The Majestic.  Koppermans has always been an interesting choice but with limited seating and a staff that was and is...eclectic in regard to their service (sometimes fabulous, often dismissive) it became harder and harder and once I was denied the pleasures of a bagel and cream cheese with smoked trout (due to celiac) to choose.  The Majestic was of course the classic Greek diner, bustling, average food prepared sometimes carelessly but great ambience and alas, now closed.  You could grab a hotel breakfast at the Chase (pricey) and occasionally other places would offer breakfast service but it was always a half hearted effort.

So there was a need… there is a need and based on my first trip I think The Kingside is going to fill those needs.  Although I generally despise the politics and am suspicious of the motives of Rex Sinquefield (our very own, home grown Koch brother) he has done something very interesting and possibly fascinating with his St. Louis International Chess gambit and the devil, indeed must be paid his due… but do not loose sight of the likelihood that he is indeed the devil….but I digress.

The Kingside is a relentlessly interesting, high quality place to grab a little breakfast.  It sits next to the Chess club in the place formerly operated by Lesters (an interesting gambit for a BBQ sports bar location) and Lester Miller did spend some money on a nice build out, a great deal of which still remains.  High quality lighting, televisions, a full bar and modern bathrooms are part of that legacy.  The place over all is very pleasing to the eye and seems very clean and well maintained.  You could do a business breakfast here or bring out of town guests and be very confident of the choice.  You can also sit at the bar which serves as a de facto counter if you want to dine alone and do not want to take up a table.

I visited on Labor Day and it was quiet but several people were availing themselves to the outdoor seating which seemed perfect on a hazy, holiday Monday.  I would imagine it picks up pretty heavy traffic for brunch and certainly for lunch but, breakfast it our thing here at the Diner Review. My server was very polite and paid good attention though he might have had slight Brit affectations.  I think my wife would have found him charming.  I was seated by the window with a view of the street and sidewalk and watched a lot of dog walkers and morning people putting on the CWE show which is just different than anywhere else in the Lou.  They quickly brought me my iced tea and it was properly brewed and delightful.  The menu for breakfast is ample…

http://www.kingsidediner.com/menu/

...including a Piggies in Blanket Sandwich, Bagels and Lox and Quinoa Pancakes and “Cheddar Drop Biscuits” all of which seemed interesting.   They also sport the:

Kingside Slinger

Hash

chorizo chili, your choice of toast $10

I will definitely give that a try some morning.

But I was there to same my breakfast staple of two eggs over easy, hash browns (crisp) and sausage or bacon. The over easy eggs are always a good test and these were perfect.  Also, their hash browns were shredded (as God ordained for “hash browns”) and properly browned.  The portion was pleasingly small leaving me satisfied but wanting more.  The sausage was frankly like the relatively bland but unobjectionable sausage of the old Majestic (small tear in my eye).  The whole plate was hot and delicious and I think if you can do this meal well it bodes well for the rest of the menu.

I am going to urge you to try this place.  Bring a date, bring a friend and come before the parking on Laclede goes to hell (so come early).  There is a paid lot next store but it increases the breakfast cost dramatically.  Tip well and become a regular, I am considering doing the same.  I think with the quality of food and service and the deep pockets of the owner that this has the possibility of becoming a long St. Louis tradition.  We need more them.

Taco Circus!

Sooooo….Long time no hear and I know...probably not missed.  I have been lazy and distracted and probably too opinionated to be doing my job and keeping the world safe for diners in St. Louis.  There have been a LOT of great developments in town in the last year on the low and intermediate “culinary” spectrum.  Today we discuss and disect Taco Circus.

If you had the pleasure (because it a delightful town for food, music and weather) and or misfortune (because it has become a city replete with traffic jams and angry Republicans) of going to Austin in the last few years you will hopefully availed yourself of the pleasures of their two GREAT taco chains.  Those are Tacdeli http://www.tacodeli.com/ and Torchys http://www.tacodeli.com/.  It is a matter of fighting words to chose one over the other but the fact is that they are both….absolutely fucking great.  Mexican street tacos… fanccified up for the family and made simple and exotic at the same time.  I would like to have the local franchise but… no one has called me and of course… I dont have any money.

So I eat a LOT of tacos in town.  Most of them are nice mexican places on Cherokee, up in Overland or over in beeeeeeutiful Fairmont City.  So when a culinary expert (Commissioner of my Fantasy Football League) told me about Taco Circus...on Morganford… I was intrigued.  Morganford by Bevo Mill has lapsed from its Germanic heritage and now is a bastion of Bosnian culture.  I dont know anything about Bosnian food but have not been impressed with my limited culinary tastes but tacos? In Bevo?  So I went.

I was… not impressed with the location.  It seems neither smart, nor particularly well thought out. I assume one of the partner’s mother must own the building.  It is slightly omantic just because it is positively off beat but… that front porch is positively not up to code.  

I was espcially intrigued however because they advertised “BREAKFAST TACOS!”  So I went and found their egg and chorizo was unstoppable.  Small and easily edible and easy to eat two.  They claim to have good coffee but I cannot speak to that.  There is on the other hand a slight problem with their brewed iced tea and their styro-foam cups but… the breakfast tacos were worth overlooking.  I cannot speak to the rest of the tacos in the morning but…

Everything they make is cooked right behind the counter.  There are normally two guys.  One cooking and the other taking orders and doing a little bit of prep.  Everything seems very fresh and they after several visits I believe they have good quality control as they turn out a consistent product and it is a nice quality product.I think breakfast tacos are only served until 10:00 and they dont compromise.  

Lunch...lunch is excellent at well.  They make their bones on a pork steak taco.  Obviously the pork steak taco is a St. Louis favorite and they sell a ton but I have a strong CHRISTIAN bias against the St. Louis pork steak.  There is always a tough bite and I have NO patience for anything tough in my tacos.  They were really good but… I also have a bias against ground beef tacos (I think Taco Bell) but these are to die for.  They reminded me of Delta Hot Tamales and i dont think they use Frank’s hot sauce but they make a hot sauce that goies on the ground beef tacos that make me eat 3 of them and three equals a belly ache… but damn their good. The chicken fajita taco is also excellent and flavorful as well.  

I have not tried the burritos because they flour tortillas (of course) but every taco is offered on soft corn, soft flour and hard corn.  They also seem pretty “clean” from a gluten free/celiac front.  I have not had any bad reactions other than the one brought on by eating 3 ground beef tacos.  

The place is not perfect.  It is small.  It has two picnic tables outside and likely seating for about 6-8 comfortably inside.  It is hot.  No airconditioning or weak air conditioning but over all, this place is a gluten free winner and I strongly reccomend!  

Additionally… here is a picture of my daughter with our late and much lamented rooster.