Tall Tales To Go

Jesus Christ and World's Fair Beer

by David E. Booker

I live in an historic neighborhood. Originally built between the 1880s and 1940s, with a smattering of fill ins here and there, it is an inner city neighborhood that fell on hard times, starting in the 1960s and running into the 1980s. Many of the grand ol' houses had been chopped up into apartments and rooms for rent, some of them rented by the hour. There was even one house that burned to ground after it had been chopped up for quick apartments in anticipation of the 1982 World's Fair.

Since the 1980s, the neighborhood has been working its way back up into a viable, even vibrant (at least upon occasion) place to live. There are still a few rough houses showing the scars of neglect or abuse. Every now and then, one of these "homes with potential" comes on the market. When that happens, the curious among us in the neighborhood often take a tour. On one such tour in one such house, a portrait of Jesus Christ was discovered resting atop a stack of World's Fair Beer cans. I don't think there was beer in any of the cans. The cans themselves were probably the focus of the collector. At one time, they were a curiosity that held the potential of making money if not history.

Still, in light filtered through dirty windows and old curtains, it was a site that caused me to pause. I tried taking a clear picture, but only managed a blurred one. But maybe the blurred nature of the photo speaks to blurred nature of the history of neighborhoods and houses, and even our own lives. History far enough back in the past has an aura of fixed edges about it. History a little closer to the present, and even our own personal history has fewer clean edges, at least until we gain a little perspective on it.

Or maybe I am just trying to find meaning in a moment of bad photography, a reason to hold on to something of curiosity.

In this section you will find several things of curiosity: essays and illustrations, photographs and maybe even an idea or two that, like an empty beer can with an interesting label, you might want to hold on to, at least for a while.