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Title
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The Editor Goes Roaming
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Date
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October 1940
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5
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en
The Editor Goes Roaming
Fencing in New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Portland
Whenever an editor gets hard up for something to write about he is as liable as not to pack his bag and start off on a trip to look for new experiences. He is recognizable by his notebook and his inquisitive look. This Editor went traveling but with little or no intention of having anything to do with fencing. He took neither weapons, equipment, fencing clothing nor notebook. He was on a business trip distinctly remote from fencing. There is, however, an old saying that blood is thicker than water and when that blood has been infected with the bite of the fencing bug its possessor becomes very thick.
My first stop was Asheville, N.C. With time to kill before an appointment, I wandered along the city’s main thoroughfare. There was a sporting shop with a sign in its window—"All types of sporting equipment." I doubted it and the first thing I knew I was inside asking if they had fencing foils. Their lack of fencing equipment didn’t surprise me, but there was surprise in the fact that such a thing had happened. Why inquire for fencing equipment in a place so far from home? There was a spare closet at home filled with equipment, enough to last a long time. My fencing blood and curiosity had drawn me into that store. It was only a taste of things to come, the many times I was to go out of my way to look up fencers and get into fencing discussions before this trip was ended.
That weekend found me but a few miles from New Orleans, a city whose colorful history and traditions intrigue every American. The temptation was too much. There were three people there whose names I knew, two amateurs and one professional fencer. Arriving early in the evening, I left my luggage at a hotel and started off immediately down brilliant Canal Street to turn left into the quaint French Quarter looking for the fencing rooms of Orest Meykar on the Rue Royale. It was a balmy evening and the experience of seeing New Orleans for the first time was proving too delightful to take in a hurry. I sauntered to my destination only to find a card in his doorway under the crossed swords stating that he was conducting a fencing class at the New Orleans Athletic Club that evening. It was tough to leave the French Quarter with its narrow quiet streets, its overhanging balconies and its quaint street lamps so soon after finding it, but the fencing bug was in me and drove all saner thoughts from mind. And so off to the more cosmopolitan surroundings of the New Orleans Athletic Club to search for fencers.
They were not difficult to find even though the fencing room had just closed. They were in the Salt Water pool from which they splashed to greet me. They invited me to join them but their tans made me self-conscious of my city pallor and so I waited until they dressed only to have to be introduced again to what seemed to be five entirely different individuals. Orest Meykar and James Janssen then took me by car on a neck-wearing tour of the city, particularly the older parts where every street, doorway and court had its own history. We stopped for coffee au lait near the old French Market, took a walk out to the levee and then back to the Court of the Three Sisters to sit out under the trees, drink beer and talk fencing until the moon began to yawn. We separated with a fencing date for the next afternoon (Saturday) at the N.O.A.C.
Meykar managed to fit me out with a jacket, a left-handed foil, a right-handed glove turned inside out and very chic green canvas trousers. Meykar, Janssen, Paul Ferguson and I fenced around in turn and then we alternated at judging and directing bouts between some novices to check our methods. Meykar challenged me for a final bout and we put on what was probably the noisiest fencing bout ever seen in that city, calling into play every spectacular movement in the sport short of fencing up and down winding stairways. Even though the fencing may not have been a la Louis Ronlette, it did two things: it gave Meykar and me a lot of fun and it attracted nearly everyone at the Club to the fencing room where they lined up around the balcony to see a free show of a sport in which they probably had had little interest previously.
Meykar and Mr. and Mrs. Janssen saw to it that I had a personally guided tour of New Orleans during the rest of my stay there. We had to see the duelling ground behind the chapel, the hulking oaks in the Park, Fencing Masters’ Row which is the street set aside in the past for the many salle d’armes in old New Orleans, Jackson Square and all the many old landmarks of this city with its romantic past.
Meykar himself is as colorful as the city. He is the acknowledged official fencing master of the city. Wherever he goes he is saluted as a personage by everyone from Mayor to resident. His life is Bohemian with three hobbies, his fencing, his Cavalry commission and his shark fishing. He is happy when he has a sword in hand, is on horseback or is battling a shark with hook and line from a boat not much larger than the shark itself. He has the fencing spirit of an amateur, professionalism having been acquired along the way. The tone of New Orleans and fencing go together with both Meykar and Janssen. It hits a peak at Mardi Gras time when they cannot resist dressing as Musketeers, wandering the streets, meeting at prearranged corners for the insult, the glove challenge and the duel on the spot. Other revelers may as likely as not find themselves chased down the street with a sharp sword.
Serious fencing does not predominate in New Orleans. There are fencing classes and A.F.L.A. competitions. One may learn the sport upon application, but no one goes out of his way to attract newcomers. If you want to fence you are made welcome and may join activities with the nucleus of fencing bugs that are already there. No one tries to push the sport down your throat. New Orleans is unhurried and so are the fencers, but so long as fencing bugs like Janssen, Ferguson and Thomas Kemp are there the sport will continue and those in it will have a good time in their own way.
My next fencing stop-off, or rather my next business call at a city where fencing was available was at St. Louis. My time there was limited. I phoned Alec Solomon only to learn that he was out of the city. I finally located Tracy Barnes who in turn had Alan Beck get in touch with me. The next thing I knew I was whisked to Beck’s home for dinner and from there to the Barnes’ for an evening of rocking chair fencing philosophy. Knowing them only by name but nevertheless knowing of Barnes as the Chairman of the St. Louis Division of the A.F.L.A. and of Beck as the Editor of The Blade, I could well expect to find them real fencing bugs. I was not disappointed. We talked and talked as only fencers can until my midnight train reservation demanded that I break away.
St. Louis has an unusual problem. It has several active fencing clubs, a full schedule of competitions each season, a large group of enthusiastic amateurs, but no professional. The senior fencers all help by acting as amateur teachers to the younger enthusiasts. Actually this has tended to spoil the fencers there, for it is only natural to begrudge paying for something that has been given for nothing in the past. St. Louis has also suffered from several false alarms. In efforts to interest professionals in coming there they have encouraged them by offers and have made the necessary contacts at clubs and schools for their employment only to have the professionals change their plans unexpectedly and leave them holding the bag. This has happened so often that if they were to approach an athletic department once more they would be laughed at. This has been going on ever since Joseph Fines left St. Louis later to become Clovis Deladier’s assistant at Annapolis. Dr. Tibor Nyilas spent last year in St. Louis acting as amateur coach to its several fencing groups, but he maintained his amateurism, has returned to New York City and will probably not return to St. Louis this season.
St. Louis is a likely spot for any professional. It has plenty of fencing and many schools and colleges that can be developed further. Anyone with thoughts in this direction must remember, however, that the land has been frequently plowed but never properly harvested. The land is slightly spoiled, as previously mentioned, but for anyone who realizes the situation and is willing to start from scratch with patience there is a definite harvest to be had in a field that would be all his own.
San Francisco was next on the list, but how could anyone pass the fencers of Salt Lake City without at least a stop-off and a “hello.” Impossible. First to a hotel near the Temple and then for a search through the phone book for Guy di Carlo, the fencing professional there. No luck on that try and so I called Ted Westlake. He was very much at home for when I called three carloads of fencers were about to leave his house for a supper beach party on Great Salt Lake. I managed to get myself jammed into one of the cars amid the cases of beer and hampers of sandwiches. We arrived as the sun was setting behind the mountains which encircle the lake. Beach parties were in progress for miles each side of us and as the night progressed a full moon, dozens of beach bonfires and a distant copper smelter supplied a variety of illumination. At about ten minute intervals the copper smelter would unload molten slag down the mountain side to light up everything in an orange glow. But we were talking about fencers, weren’t we.
It is hard to keep names straight at any party so I doubt if I can be blamed for not being too clear as to who was who at an evening party over food. I talked with many of the younger fencers but talk did not become very serious until the midnight snack at the Salt Lake Airport when Ted and Virginia Westlake, di Carlo and I took our heads together.
The fencing situation in Salt Lake City revolves around the University of Utah where di Carlo teaches the sport. It is very popular there with di Carlo reporting 385 pupils as having studied under him this past year. He has tied in a course of lectures with his fencing classes, courses in which examinations are given on the history of the sport, its rules, technique, etc. We even understand that complete memorizing of the A.F.L.A. Rulesbook was assigned to some of his classes. (Fencing Directors throughout the U.S. please note.) As interest increased the University authorities began to take more and more notice of a sport that was attracting so many followers, di Carlo played his trump card. He went to the authorities and explained that fencing was a sport which required and developed coordination of mind and body, that it quickened the thought processes of its devotees, that it was a mental training in itself. Why should fencing not be placed under the Department of Psychology as a recognized course in the University and credit be awarded those who “passed” in the subject? The authorities thought it a good idea and so do we. Fencing is now a regular course at the University of Utah and the idea is mentioned here as a precedent that other professionals might endeavor to follow.
San Francisco was really next. I knew about 20 of the fencers in that city, having met them there a year ago at the National Championships. My early endeavor to contact friends this time, however, led to disappointment. Ferrard Leicester and Bryan Smith were away on vacation, while Walter Westman and Alfred Snyder seemed impossible to locate. The telephone was not answered at the Funke Fencing Academy. I then tried Helene Mayer at Mills College only to be given her apartment phone number, which the University feared would do me no good at this time of year. They were wrong. Helene had just returned from her vacation within the half hour and answered me from amid the band boxes, suitcases and miscellaneous paraphernalia of a newly returned vacationist. One never heard such a shouted welcome as poured forth her room. Being a vital person and well rested from her vacation she had been just about to suffer the let-down that every vacationist feels when first coming back to the daily grind. Zowie, I immediately became the drowning man’s straw. I was grabbed, given explicit orders for the evening, asked innumerable questions concerning the fencers back East, given no time to answer, introduced to her pet dog over the wire, and bid goodbye all within the long distance time limit. I left the phone booth feeling as though I had thrown an egg into an electric fan but knowing that I would at least be seeing fencers for the remainder of my stay in San Francisco.
That evening, Helene and Constance Dean called for me at my hotel, picked up Johnny Potter at the University Club and then with Constance at the wheel proceeded to dive and zoom the perpendicular streets of San Francisco until we found the particular restaurant and night clubs that Helene approved. These were no strangers, not met for the first time. I had first met Helene in Amsterdam in 1928 when she won the Olympic Women’s Foil Championship, never dreaming then that she would become a five-times winner of our own American Women’s Foil Championship in the next eleven years. Constance Dean had been in and out of New York at fairly frequent intervals. I had known Johnny since his Prep School days, had cheered him through his collegiate fencing successes and had been a clubmate of his when he was still in New York. They were filled with questions about all of the fencers they knew, demanded the gossip as well as the facts and pretty well exhausted my memory and imagination before the evening was over. Furthermore, I had to promise to meet them all at Funke’s swell new fencing academy the next day for some exercise.
The next day I showed up as ordered. Constance and Helene had taken San Francisco apart during the day to beg, borrow or steal equipment for me, had dug Al Snyder and Walter Westman out of summer retirement to join the fencing. Erich Funke and Hans Halberstadt, Funke’s new assistant, were also on hand. What a physical beating they gave me that late afternoon. Helene, Al and Halberstadt tore into me as if I had entered San Francisco with a challenge. I was made to assume the qualities of Tennyson’s Brook, being asked to go on forever while these droughty fencers took alternate shots at me. It was fun while it lasted, although I was to regret the experience during the next several days. I thought that Helene was fencing very strongly and Al had certainly recovered from the slump he was in at the Nationals in May. My touches were few and embarrassingly far between.
Constance and Helene accompanied what was left of me to the ferry and dumped me aboard for Berkeley and the train northward.
Before leaving New York, I had received a letter from Jon Matthew Gusick stating that he was located in Portland, Oregon, teaching fencing at the Multnomah Athletic Club there. Portland was to be the center of my operations for several days, although my actual business calls were in three adjacent towns within a 30-mile radius of Portland. I contacted him during one of my passings through Portland and he asked if I would participate in a small informal exhibition for his pupils. He had only been in Portland for three months and his pupils were for the most part new to the sport. An exhibition would mean little to them and to him at this particular moment. Although still stiff from my too ambitious exercising in San Francisco, I nevertheless agreed to help.
The exhibition took place in the main gymnasium of the Multnomah Athletic Club. There were about 30 or 40 people in attendance and the exhibition consisting of Gusick and me giving alternate exercises with explanations, fencing with and among several of his pupils, and a set-to between Gusick and myself. This had all been arranged on very short notice and it was hoped that the exhibition might be repeated later in the week for the other fencers of the city. The exercise had limbered me up some and another workout might complete the cure. It was therefore arranged that when I passed through Portland later in the week, an evening exhibition would be given.
The second exhibition was along the lines of the first. It was better attended with a considerable number of the families of the younger fencers on hand to see the sport. Gusick and I put on some swashbuckling bouts together interspersed with comments that seemed to amuse the spectators, causing them to demand encores. It was as interested, pleasing, and agreeable a group of spectators as I have ever seen. In fact, my memories of Portland will remain those of having been most courteously accepted by as fine a group of new enthusiasts as the sport could ask for. I met many of them personally but naturally had difficulty in remembering so many names. I particularly remember Mr. and Mrs. Don Naylor, Henry Des Georges, Harold Keller, David White, Mrs. Lenore Irvine and Ervin Jourdan. There were many others, some of whom I fenced with, but my memory for names at this distance and after this interval of time fails me.
Gusick is doing a real job in Portland. He has taken a city where fencing had become very lethargic, put new life into it, interested many new people in the sport and very possibly rehabilitated fencing throughout the entire Pacific Northwest. There are already tangible evidences of this claim for Portland has recently applied for a Divisional Charter from the A.F.L.A. A momentum that would lead to such a development was evident when I was in Portland and if the two exhibitions we gave added impetus to it then I feel well repaid for my sore muscles.
Before leaving the subject of Portland fencing I want to salute the new Mrs. Gusick, who was most kind to me and proved most patient through long fencing discussions and arguments which a year ago would have been Greek to her.
The return trip to New York City found me occupied with no fencing and no business but plenty of scenery. The stop-off between trains in Chicago was so short that I had no time even to make phone calls. A call to Frank Righeimer, Fred Siebert, Loyal Tingley or Alvar Hermanson would have found me enveloped once more in the sport, but it was necessary to leave these friends for another time.
In arriving back in New York and returning to the office I was greeted by the strangest remark anyone ever made to me. “You sure are looking fine. Must have made a vacation of it, taking it easy between appointments.” Here I had made a fencing tour of the United States, felt I should apply to the A.F.L.A., I.C.F.A., A.A.U., E.I.F.C. and N.C.A.A. for their appointment as a Fencing Ambassador without portfolio only to be told that I looked as if I had been vacationing. Maybe I had dreamed it all. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun and, if it were a dream, it was a pleasant one.
