ALAN writes:

I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. — Pascal, Pensées 139

That statement, often rendered as “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”, was written nearly five hundred years ago. But it applies especially well today to a population drunk on distraction, commotion, and noise-making.

Pascal’s thought occurred to me when I read the following remarks written in 1991 by St. Louis radio announcer and amateur historian Ron Elz:

“A couple of years ago while working on behalf of Dr. Charles Bryan, then director of the Mercantile Library, I occasionally spent some time late at night long past the library closing hours, just sitting alone in that darkened two story balconied Victorian era room contemplating how close we can be to what’s past.  There, six stories above the street and out of reach of the eerie rays emitted by our modern streetlights, it was easy to imagine you could almost travel to days gone by.  ….I recommend such an experience to help add perspective to the meaning of life and just to offer deep relaxation in these trying times…..”

[Ron Elz, “The More Things Change in St. Louie, the More They Stay the Same,” St. Louis Inquirer, January 1991 ]

Ron Elz was writing about the Mercantile Library, the oldest subscription library in St. Louis. It was not “open to all”, as today’s public libraries describe themselves.  It was exclusive, not “inclusive”.  It was open to those who purchased membership for an annual fee.  Men who spoke in the Mercantile Library Hall during its early decades included Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oscar Wilde, and Matthew Arnold. 

I, too, once had the pleasure of sitting in that wonderful old room, six floors above Broadway and Locust Street in the heart of downtown St. Louis.  That was in 1968 when my father bought me a one-year membership.  It had been at that location since 1854.  And, I, too remember the peace and quiet in that setting, as Mr. Elz described it so perfectly, with its tables, chairs, statues, paintings, and windows looking down on Broadway.

I remember taking the elevator to the 6th floor. It opened right into the Library. I browsed among the bookshelves and periodicals, used the card catalog, and borrowed books now and then. Thankfully, it was years before cell-phones were invented. The staff were attentive and helpful, but it was a different culture then. They did not giggle or gush in response to questions, as many younger staff in public libraries do today. Dignity and self-control were still evident in American life and speech in 1968 and were part of the setting in that room.  The Mercantile was run by grown-ups for grown-ups. The quiet, the orderliness, the rules, the expectations, and the self-composure were what made them grown-ups.

There was a time when most Americans understood such things.  In the early 1900s, “The old parlor was a kind of sanctuary for the home and kin…  The parlor was seldom used, but when it was, children spoke only when spoken to…  The parlor was just the place for a reviving and refreshing experience, a hideout from the outside world…”

[Liz Lynch, “Inside the Parlor”, Reminisce, April/May 2007, p. 63]

A woman in South Carolina recalled: “About a half hour before bedtime, we gathered in the living room, turned off the lights, and lighted candles or a fire in the fireplace.  Then we just sat quietly, or talked quietly….  When we were small, we sat on our parents’ laps.  But as we grew, we sat quietly by ourselves.  This simple little ritual had an important place in our home.”

[Marie Kovitch, “Quiet Time Ritual”, Reminisce Extra, Feb. 2001, p. 66]

One day nearly thirty years later, I went back to that same library room in the same building. Librarian Mary Ellen Davis was most helpful in finding clippings and articles I requested about two men who were among my mother’s favorite entertainers in the 1940s-‘50s in the realm of music and operetta.

That library is now long-gone from downtown St. Louis. (What isn’t?) It moved to St. Louis County in 1998.  I can recall four large stores within a block from that library building in 1968, of which there is not a trace today.  .

Now in his mid-eighties, Ron Elz is well-known and loved by older folks in St. Louis. I first heard his voice in 1962 from radio studios that were torn down many years ago. That was the year when I began to discover the magic of radio.  One day that summer my mother drove me to that radio station’s building on a wide boulevard in north St. Louis so that I could see the setting in which he worked and from which the voice I heard nightly originated.  The building was in a park-like setting on the same street as the printing company for which my grandfather had worked as a pressman. Nearby restaurants included the Parkmoor and the Toddle House, of which today there are no traces.

I got out of our car and walked right into the outer office in the building.  There was no one there to stop me or question me.  As I said, it was a culture vastly different from today. I had no ulterior motive.  With all the innocence of youth, I wanted only to satisfy my curiosity about what the radio station looked like. As I recall, a woman at a desk gave me a pocket-size photo of Ron Elz, whose on-air character name was “Johnny Rabbitt”.

In 1962, his program appealed to the younger generation. I was one of them. What he writes and says today appeals to the older generation. I am one of them.

Since the 1980s, he has written hundreds of articles and columns about St. Louis as it was when he grew up here in the 1940s-‘50s.  He writes well and packs a lot of information into his essays.  “Travel to days gone by” is his usual topic.  He understands the importance of local history and memory.  He knows that the past is never past but is always here, if we are wise enough to realize it and learn from it.  “Better than almost anything is a walk through an old neighborhood,” he wrote in 1994. “The exercise is good for what ails you, and so’s the remembering…”, judgments whose wisdom my father always understood and which I discovered decades ago.

He writes about his memories, long-gone newspapers, streetscapes, businesses, houses, buildings, people, events, bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, factories, streetcars, and daily life in those years…..about the good things in St. Louis, of which there were many when he and I were young.

And would he have written any of that if he did not understand that thought and memory function best in a quiet room?

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