On Bunker Hill

Major Undertaking at the Moore Cliff

March 31, 1912

That the Moore Cliff has glorious views, no one can debate. From her lofty perch sixty feet above Hill Street, midway between First and Second, she gazes over the business district, and every room commands a panorama extending to Boyle Heights. But her grand position is also her undoing; since she was built in aught-four, her inhabitants have had to trek up that dang‘d winding six-story staircase set into the retaining wall. Even Dr. S. G. Moore, who apparently added cliff to his eponymised hotel just so you‘d remember how high you were, has tired of scaling the thing. No view can compensate for the loss of revenue occasioned by those with an aversion to shlepping.

Dennis and Farwell were veteran architects–and what‘s more of a no brainer, in a rapidly growing city, than adding stories to a structure? D&F designed the Moore Cliff, and now here comes Moore again, wanting to convert her from a four-story apartment building to a nine-story hotel. But don‘t add these floors to the top, says Moore, massaging his aching feet–add them to the bottom.

No problem, say Dennis and Farwell. All we need to do is remove a body of earth fifty-five feet in width by sixty feet in height, and fifty feet in depth. This will stretch under the present building which we‘ll prop up until our five story steel-and-brick structure, with a façade to resemble the one up on the hill we designed eight years ago, gets slid in there. Dress the new lobby in mahagony-stained birch, throw on an iron marquise, and there you have your nine-story hotel, right there at terra firma, all blessed as it is with sidewalks and rail lines.

Everyone‘s quite excited that the length of Hill south of the tunnel is bursting with plans. (A stone‘s throw from Hill up Second, Braun‘s ten-story reinforced concrete hotel is pouring fourndations.) Judge Stephens intends to erect a substantial building of brick and steel just to the south of the Moore Cliff; and plans are afoot to build on the southwest corner of First and Hill, where a large cut was made years ago. “It is freely predicted that all of the frontage on the west side of Hill street will have been reduced to grade level within the next year or two.”

What do you notice here, from this 1932 image of the Moore Cliff?

It didn‘t happen.

(Nor do we witness Judge Stephens‘ proposed structure; no-one ever built on the SW corner of First & Hill, either.)

As can be seen, the Moore Cliff’s cliff has been almost, but not quite, brought down to grade level. (The tunnels up Hill were flattened something fierce, though.)

And the jurors who park there command a terrific vista of that building.

Hill Street image courtesy USC Digital Archives

You Know, For Kids! – The Bunker Hill Playground and Recreation Center

On May 27, 1947, Proposition B, a $12 million bond issue passed, allowing the city to sink some serious dough into its woefully inadequate parks, playgrounds, and municipal pools. One of the first neighborhoods slated to get a new playground and community recreation center was Bunker Hill, with a site at the corner of 2nd and Hope, just over half an acre, selected and purchased by the City. After a November 14, 1949 groundbreaking, the $121,646 modern recreation facility was dedicated on August 21, 1950.

In addition to grounds with a wading pool, basketball courts, and playground equipment, the nearly 9000-square foot recreation hall featured a stage for movie screenings and theatrical productions, classrooms, a kitchen, showers, and handball courts (on the roof, no less). Sure, it’s a little institutional-looking, and sure, it could do with a little less concrete, some foliage that doesn’t look so spindly and diseased, and maybe some wood chips under the monkey bars to protect tender young heads, but still, it’s a pretty spiffing playground.

And a long time coming, too. Residents of Bunker Hill had been clamoring for a neighborhood recreation area for over 25 years, lamenting the fact that children in the neighborhood lived in cramped quarters and had no place to play safely. A playground, residents said, would help alleviate the truancy, delinquency, and other youth problems in the neighborhood.

But the thing was, until 1923, Bunker Hill had a very fine recreation area for children… until the City tore it down to make way for the new Central Library.

After the Normal Hill School area was razed, Mrs. Harry White wrote to the City Council, pleading for a playground for the neighborhood’s children:

"They are not permitted to play in the streets, and as most of them live in rented houses without grounds there is no provision for any sort of recreation, or for the care of these children. Many of the parents are working people and the children are alone all day."

In the 25 years without a recreation area, kind-hearted Bunker Hill residents did their best to fill in the gaps. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Abbott of 220 S. Bunker Hill Avenue organized beach outings, holiday parties and free movies for hundreds of children in the neighborhood, while Mrs. Pearl Alcantara founded the Children’s Community Garden in a vacant lot at California and Grand, after her son was killed by a car while playing in the street. About 50 boys and girls helped her to clear the lot of trash and rocks (although some adult neighbors who weren’t keen on the idea would scatter more trash and rocks at night).

During the 12 years that the Bunker Hill Playground served the neighborhood, its facilities were tremendously popular, and its programs well-attended. However, it wouldn’t last long. In 1962, the Department of Parks and Recreation recommended sale of the playground and recreation center to the CRA for $325,000. Within a year, the City Council would approve the sale, cash the check, and soon, the playground was just another Bunker Hill ghost.

Image from the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

Second Street Cable Railway

Many an Angeleno has heard of the legendary Pacific Electric Railway, or Red Car system which transported passengers to locations well beyond the city limits. Those who have brushed up on their local history are probably familiar with The Los Angeles Railway (LARy), aka the Yellow Cars, whose routes journeyed within city line. However, most are probably unaware that the City of Angels briefly sported a couple of good old fashioned cable car lines that ran right through Bunker Hill. The first cable line to maneuver the hills of Downtown ran along Second Street, delighted travelers, and lead to the westward expansion of the city. Despite its fantastic success, the Second Street Cable Railway survived for only a short period of time.

During the real estate boom of the 1880s, the area just west of Downtown was what the newspapers referred to as a “howling wilderness,” largely because the hilly terrain rendered navigation by horse drawn carriage virtually impossible. This slight obstacle did not discourage local land owners who sought to make the area attractive for development. By this time, the cable cars in San Francisco had been successfully operating for over a decade and some enterprising businessman began to consider this mode of transportation as a solution to Mother Nature’s challenges.

Plans for two separate cable lines sprang up at the same time, but the Second Street Cable Railway Company was always a step ahead of the alternate line which would eventually run up Temple Street. Land owners with holdings west of the city provided much of the capital for the Second Street Line, along with business owners on Spring Street near Second, who hoped convenient transportation would boost retail in the area. Some of the main backers and promoters of the railway company included Edward A. Hall, Henry Witmer, I.W. Lord and John Hollenbeck. Lord, who would later found the city of Lordsburg (now La Verne) broke ground on the project, and the first tracks for the new cable line were laid at the intersection of Second and Hill on the morning of April 27, 1885. Five days later the first advertisements promoting real estate near the proposed line began appearing in the local newspapers.

Construction on the line continued at breakneck speed, which was no small task considering pieces of hillside were cut and removed at some parts of the line. The Second Street Cable Railroad was completed in the early fall and made its inaugural trip at 4:05pm on October 14, 1885. The line ran approximately 6,770 feet, or a mile and a quarter, up Second Street and through Bunker Hill from Spring to Belmont. A one way trip took between twelve and fourteen minutes and the line was open from 6am to 11pm. At its steepest, the cable cars ran over the hills of Los Angeles at a twenty seven percent grade between Hope Street and Bunker Hill Avenue. The total cost to construct the line was roughly $100,000.

The Second Street Cable Railway was an immediate success and did indeed spark development on the land west of Bunker Hill. Investors originally expected the line to serve around six hundred people a day, but by the end of 1886, the cable cars were carrying more that three times that number. In January 1887, Edward Hall and Henry Witmer, President and Treasurer of the Second Street Cable Railway Company, decided to get out when the getting was good. They sold their company shares to James M. McLaughlin for $130,000 and he became the primary owner of the Second Street Cable Railway.

McLaughlin had ambitious plans to connect Downtown with the area that would eventually become Hollywood, by connecting the cable railway with a steam line called the Cahuenga Valley Railroad. The plans turned sour when the Cahuenga Valley Railroad was barred from operating within the city limits because of the noise and air pollution. McLaughlin’s attempts to get the Second Street Line extended soon failed. Add to this the end of the boom times and McLaughlin soon found himself and his company in the red. By the end of 1889, McLaughlin was virtually bankrupt and the line stopped running while legal matters were straightened out. That winter, torrential rains severely damaged portions of the line and by early 1890 McLaughlin had lost the company, and the first cable line of Los Angeles was permanently abandoned.

Photos courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection and the USC Digital Archive

The Marcella – 223 South Flower Street

Today we discuss The Marcella, who once flaunted her classical order on Flower (she is Italian, please be advised the C in her name is not pronounced s as in sell, but like ch as in chin). See how her name beckons, proud but not haughty, from her entablature? She wants to take you in and protect you under that great cornice with her large corbels. Despite her imposing presence, she is warm, and welcoming; the wide porches bespeak grace, and the timberframe vernacular on the bays coo cozy by the fire lad, there‘s good feelings in mortise and tenon.

But don‘t speak of fire. Fire struck the Marcella in October of 1912, sending well-to-do ladies like Mrs. L. M. Harvey to Pacific Hospital after having leapt from upper stories. Other occupants hustled (stricken with panic; see below) and scantily attired into the street. Marcella owner C. F. Holland states he‘s looking at $3,000 ($65,983 USD2007) in damages, $2,000 to the rugs and furniture alone.

It is reported that a man was seen running from the building a few minutes before the fire broke out. The storeroom, where the fire began, was not locked. The mystery is never solved but Marcella, stout of bay and stalwart of column, cannot be burned away. She perseveres.

The Marcella is a building so lovely she attracts only the comeliest of patrons. She is home to Miss May Long, a lass so fetching that when in May of 1913 she turned her attentions to one Earl G. Horton, he is gunned down by another suitor outside of his apartment house near Temple & Victor.

Jealousy over a woman causes upset again at the Marcella on October 25 of 1922 when Emergency Patrolman Claude Coffrin went to visit Mrs. Tillie Smith in her Marcella apartment. Not long after Coffrin’s ingress, there appeared Emergency Patrolman Anthony Kazokas and a civilian, Joe Cummins. Kazokas had loaned Cummins his revolver and badge to settle his romantic score with Coffrin over Tillie.

Coffrin and Cummins fought, and Coffrin gained control of the gun; he phoned the Detective Bureau and over came officers Nickens and Ellis. Cummins at that point grabbed the gun back from Coffrin and stuck it in Nickens‘ side, and Patrolman Kazokas jumped on Detective Ellis. Ellis brained Kazokas out cold with the butt of his gun, but Nickens ended up shooting Cummins through the neck.

The lovely Mrs. Smith was arrested on violation of parole; she had been sentenced on the 18th to pay $50 and spend thirty days in jail–suspended–for “social vagrancy”. Apparently, quality of young lady was beginning to decline at the Marcella.

Other upstanding members of society to grace the Marcella‘s rooms were the Jacksons, of whom you read all about here.

And remember Barbara Graham? What helped send Barbara to the chair was hubby Henry‘s testimony on the witness stand. Her last-ditch alibi was that she and Henry were together that night of March 9, 1953–but Henry testified he had already moved out and was living with his mother”¦at the Marcella. (A mere two blocks down from the Lancaster, scene of Baxter Shorter’s abduction.)

Little Tommy Graham, now five, was living in the Marcella in 1957 when Wanger Pictures gave him $1000 for filming his executed mother‘s life story.

Fire again struck the Marcella, this time in 1962, and this time it meant business. On March 30 a blaze razed the upper two stories of the structure. Twelve fire units quelled the blaze in half an hour; She of 223 South Flower vanished from memory soon afterward.

Here we are looking north on Flower through the intersection of Third, 1965. See the little Victorian, left center? The Marcella was just on the other side of that.

Today Flower Street makes a sharp turn between Third and Second to avoid the Bunker Hill Towers. The Marcella stood just on the other side of this pool:

Interesting, and, what, perhaps a little unnerving, but certainly instructive, to consider that the image that began this post, and the one immediately above, were taken from the same spot.

Top image courtesy Arnold Hylen Collection, California History Section, California State Library; center images courtesy William Reagh Collection, California History Section, California State Library

A Stone Whodunit

February 28, 1954
205 South Figueroa

James Saul Pauge, a 60-year-old newspaper vendor and retired railroad conductor, was murdered in his apartment today under exceptionally puzzling circumstances. Help couldn’t have arrived any sooner, but it was still too late.

Pauge’s neighbor Louis Jaralillo, a former boxer, heard a shot fired and ran upstairs to Pauge’s apartment to investigate. Pauge stood in front of his open front door, swaying and gesturing towards his back, unable to speak. Almost immediately, he fell over dead of a gunshot wound. The can of soup Pauge was preparing for his dinner was still simmering on the stove.

The window in Pauge’s apartment overlooked 2nd Street, and had been left open. Police suspected that a sniper had fired in through the window, and hit Pauge in the back as he stood at the stove. No motive could be established for the killing, and no suspects were apprehended.

Dome Wrap-Up

After our initial report on The Dome, we promised there‘d be more, and there was–the Little BGirl Who Could, a couple of jumpers, a self-slashing Simons pilferer, even the owner of the Dome itself, who Fought the Power like an Eisenhower-era Radio Raheem, rolling his Grafanola down Grand”¦

”¦so now it‘s time to sew things up, recounting a collection of other Dome-flavored contretemps:

April 7, 1940. Mike Scaiola, 29, and Rocco Spagnuolo, 35, both cooks, were roomies at the Dome. Over what they argued in their Domeroom is lost to time; all that‘s known is what Scaiola later told the cops–during a scuffle he saw the .32 automatic protruding from Spagnuolo‘s shirt and attempted to wrest it from him. Oldest story in the world: accidental discharge, someone takes one in the chest, and Spagnuolo‘s DOA at Georgia Street Receiving.

September 18, 1941. Mrs. Cleo (Jackie) Wooten, 19, was a plucky gal, but take this as a warning: having pluck in spades gets the FBI involved. Cleo was visiting friends in Cunningham, Kan. for some time and was there driving the car owned by Eddie Palzo of that city. He had no objection to her driving the car around Cunningham, but swore out a felony complaint when the Dome resident decided to Dome home. She was picked up at Third and Figueroa when an officer noticed the license on his stolen car list.

July 4, 1942. The character of Dome resident Joe Barron, 28, cook (another cook? Too many cooks really do spoil the pot), did not reflect well on the Dome‘s nobility. He was strolling down Fifth Street and passed between one William O. Smith, 37, and Smith‘s 21 year-old wife Dorothy when he elected to make an off-color remark to the wife. That didn‘t go over well with Mr. Smith, a recent transplant from Arkansas, who slashed Barron‘s throat, severing an artery. Luckily, Dorothy instructed William to press his thumb on the artery to stanch the flow of blood, and they hauled Barron into a room at 107 E. Fifth until medical aid could be summoned. Barron survived, we trust, wiser and more gentelmanly.

December 21, 1942. Mrs. Leona Smith was followed home from a café last November 7, only to have her purse snatched–a purse containing $1600 in cash and checks and $4800 worth of jewelry ($6400=$89,216 USD2007). After a month of searching by cops based on Leona‘s description of the man and his car, they finally popped Clifford Allen Payne, 32, at the Dome. He took them to the 3500 block of Helms in Culver where he dug up a glass jar containing the checks and jewelry. The real mystery is what she was doing with that sort of booty in her purse.

March 11, 1961. Alfred Carrillo, 33, was a Dome resident in good standing who had the bad luck to be sitting in a bar at 301 South Hill Street one early Friday morning. Victor F. Jimenez, 26, unemployed truck driver, shot Alfred and then drove off, later to be arrested at his home. (The bar at 301 South Hill, by the way, was the bar at the base of Angels Flight–seen here with Lon Chaney Jr. in the 1956 outing Indestructible Man🙂

That‘s what we have for now. Can‘t promise it‘s the last of it, as tales and details may still bubble up from the cracked core of time. What about you? Remember your great aunt Nell? The one you socked away at Shady Pines? (The rest home, not the cemetery.) She may harbor descriptions of devious Dome debauchery from back in the day. Go find out before you have to shift Shady Pines.

Photograph courtesy the Arnold Hylen Collection, California History Section, California State Library

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Hotel Melrose

July 16, 1895

Miss Bertha Fisher, aged 14, had looked forward to dressing in the latest fashions and attending parties with her friends. Unfortunately for Bertha, her parents had other plans for her future. As strict Salvationists, they thought that she was old enough to don a Salvation Army uniform (which was definitely not Bertha”™s notion of a fashion forward frock) and begin trolling the streets of Los Angeles for souls in peril. Bertha preferred saving dance cards, party invitations, and lovely corsages to saving souls, so she ran away with a young man named Mr. White.

Frantic over Bertha”™s escapade, the distraught Fishers spent hours haunting the local police station hoping for news of their wayward daughter. Police were on the lookout for the reluctant missionary, but Mrs. Fisher became antsy and enlisted the aid of another Salvationist to help her comb the city for the missing girl.

After Bertha had been gone for nearly two days, Mrs. Fisher and her fellow soldier in God”™s army got a tip. The two dashed to the cop shop where they breathlessly announced to the assembled officers that they “knew where she was at”. The women had found out that Bertha and Mr. White were occupying room 28 at the Melrose Hotel, and asked Officer Richardson to accompany them to the suspected love nest.

The landlady at the Melrose Hotel told Officer Richardson that the young man had engaged a room for his sister, and because she”™d had no reason to doubt his veracity, she”™d rented it to him. Mrs. Fisher was doubtless relieved when the landlady went on to say that even though White had rented a room for Bertha, he had never shared it with her.

To avoid arrest Bertha reluctantly went home with her mother, but it”™s unlikely that their difference of opinion was settled that day. Bertha was heard to remark, “I”™d rather go to the Reform School than stay at home if I have to become a Salvation Army lassie”.

Bertha may have won the battle with her parents, because this item appeared in the Los Angeles Times on March 7, 1897:

Party on, Bertha.

Whole New Meaning to the Term “Hollow Leg”

August 6, 1923
240 South Figueroa

Police came to the apartment of William Fisher and Walter J. O’Connell, responding to neighbors’ complaints of a loud party. When they arrived, they found seven men and a woman seated primly around a large round table, and grinning like mad. However, police could not help but notice "the odor of synthetic gin was in the air."

At first, police were stumped. There was no evidence of a party, and no bottles to be seen. But then, one of the detectives noticed a stream of liquid trickling out from the thick center leg of the table, and a sniff revealed it to be contraband booze.

Quickly, the detectives dismantled the table and discovered that its leg had been hollowed out, and a hooch tank and spigot installed. In all the excitement, some careless partygoer had neglected to twist the spigot shut, leading to the telltale leak.

A more thorough search of the apartment turned up two copper tanks, designed to be fitted into an automobile gas tank and used for the illicit transport of bathtub gin. Fisher and O’Connell were booked on charges of violating the Volstead Act.

The Richelieu Hotel – 142 South Grand Avenue

For nearly seventy years the Richelieu Hotel resided next door to the better known Melrose. The pair of Queen Anne Victorian buildings were two of the most stunning structures on the Hill, but the Richelieu always stood in the shadow of its counterpart. The Melrose once played host to President McKinley, was memorialized by artists like Leo Politi, and was covered by local press when the wrecking crews came. The Richelieu on the other hand, was far less celebrated but no less important, making its small mark on the history of a neighborhood that no longer exists.

The Richelieu Hotel was built by Richard E. Larkin and his wife Helen, and opened around 1891. Apparently the hotel was not particularly plush, for when the Larkins sold it to a Chicago business man a mere two years after it was built, the Times reported that “the purchaser will spend considerable money giving the house a thorough overhauling, and will run it as a first class hotel.” The overhaul was successful, and the Richelieu played host to society gatherings, and many local families and single residents would call the hotel home.

For the most part, the Richelieu maintained a relatively tranquil existence, with a bit of color thrown in here and there. In March of 1901, a bold burglar successfully struck Bunker Hill five times in one night, including the room J.F. Currier was occupying at the Richelieu. The cagey criminal was an expert lock picker who entered Currier’s room and made off with $150 in cash and a gold pocket watch without disturbing the resident’s slumber. The hotel was the victim of another burglary in 1904 when thieves entered the room of Mr. & Mrs. Bob Northam. The culprits were lucky that the Northams were out. The couple had been robbed a few months earlier and the Mrs had responded by lodging a bullet in the fleeing burglar. Of the more recent crime, Mrs. Northam expressed regrets that she was not around to take a shot at the thieves.

In May of 1949, the Times reported that a pair of detectives were investigating a narcotics lead at the Richelieu, when Ricardo Rameriez walked in on the pair. He attempted to quickly walk out, but was nabbed by the detectives who found $800 worth of heroin on him. One of the detectives spotted Rameriez’s wife waiting in a car down the street and asked her if she wanted to join her husband in jail. “Might as well,” she said and off she went. The next day, the detectives found the couple’s $36,000 smack stash at a hotel on Figueroa.

No Bunker Hill boarding house history would be complete without at least one suicide. The Richelieu’s came in 1933 when Sylvia Norris, a 55 year old trained nurse, strangled herself in her room with a hose. According to her husband who found her, Mrs. Norris was despondent over ill health.

One of the Richelieu’s more interesting residents was Walter Hallowell, who resided at the hotel for at least ten years. In the 1930s, Hallowell was president of the Bunker Hill Non Partisan Voter’s League and held meetings in his room. By the 1940s, he had established his Richelieu residence as headquarters for the California Shut-In Stamp Club. The club sought donations in order to provide the state’s some 60,000 shut-ins with stamp collections. Hallowell and the club also offered correspondence courses in short hand, as well as a complete booklet on a variety of ways to play solitaire. Hallowell hoped that the club’s efforts would “bring some pleasure to a shut-in.”

Unlike many of the Victorian structures on Bunker Hill which quickly fell into disrepair, the Richelieu was always well taken care of. In 1939, when the WPA performed a household census of the area, the Richelieu and its thirty-nine units were listed as in “good condition.” The hotel suffered a fire in 1954, but the damage appears to have been minimal.

In May of 1956, the Times reported that the interior of the Richelieu was being redecorated and modernized and “perhaps, once again will be a proud residence.” When the Times extensively covered the demolition of the Melrose a year later, the Richelieu was already gone.

All photos courtesy of the California State Library Arnold Hylen Collection.

More exquisitely apt advice

Greetings,

Eddie Quette here again, with another installment of my ongoing campaign for excruciatingly appropriate behavior.

Our first question comes from to us from a Carol Gwenn, who writes

Q. "Mr. Quette, you simply MUST help me! I’m a person of interest to
several major law enforcement agencies, for reasons you will deduce
below. I must beg you, under no circumstance are you to reveal my
identity in your blog!

A. Thank you, Carol Gwenn, I’ll see what I can do. Now what was your question?

Q. Oh, I am SO relieved! I knew I could count on you Eddie!
Anyway, when preparing to divest oneself of a troublesome tenant,
(those room renters of the lower sort), is it appropriate to arrive
bearing arms or is it acceptable to pick up whatever the lowlife have
to hand (gun, knife, etc.) Also, must one wear a hat – as well as
gloves — for such an occasion? These may seem like unimportant
issues, but it’s the small things, the grace notes, that make life
worth living.

A. You are so right! I opt for the BYOW approach (bring your own
weapon) as so often the gats and pieces encountered in such wretched
conditions are encrusted with microbes, bacteria, or even (in the worst
scenarios) COOTIES!

Gloves and hats are always tasteful in such circumstances, and this
being summer, you can’t go wrong with white, cream, or eggshell
shades. Whatever you do, avoid loud colors or horizontal stripes in
your attire, as in LAPD booking photos these simply SCREAM "I just
pigged out on white chocolate cake at Bernard’s at the Biltmore!" The
LAST thing you need is to draw even more attention to yourself, Carol
Gwenn!

Q. I’m the Mother Superior of the Monastery of the Angels, a
Dominican convent located near the foot of Bunker Hill. We are
considering moving from here to Hollywood, to escape the noise, sin,
and depravity of the downtown area. Do you think this advisable?

A. You’re moving to HOLLYWOOD to escape depravity? Isn’t that sort of like moving to Phil Spector’s house to avoid gunplay?

Q. I’m a wealthy oil baron here in L.A., with extensive petroleum
leases throughout California. Recently an acquaintance, May Otis
Blackburn, requested that I transfer all my oil stock to her at the
behest of the Angel Gabriel, who speaks to her occasionally on her
lunch hour. Is this wise?

A. Well, my expertise is in etiquette, not stock tips. But it just
so happens that last night I was channeling my own Spirit Guide, the
Archangel Michael, over at the Aetherius Center, and boy have I got the
straight skinny for you, Bud.

Keep half that oil stock in the ground, and invest the rest of it in
California real estate until around 2007, when something called the
sub-prime real estate crisis will render it worthless. But by that time
you will have put everything BACK into oil, which by June of 2008 will
be worth 135 smackeroos a barrel! Trust me on this, and pretty soon you
will be raising tankards of Pouilly Fuisse in my honor!

Do you have a question for Mr. Eddie Quette? Write him care of this
blog, and he will either answer, or, if he deems you beneath his
station, he will issue a hearty YAWN on your behalf.