Bill McClellan

1 week ago | stltoday.com | Bill McClellan

The government is going after Harvard? I used to sit next to Eliot Porter. He was a Harvard graduate, the first one I had ever met. He suffered from Famous Father Syndrome. His dad, Eliot Furness Porter, was a wildlife photographer, birds mostly. The father had graduated from Harvard with a degree in chemical engineering, and then graduated from Harvard Medical School. Instead of practicing medicine, he became a photographer. If you Google him, you will find some of his famous quotes.

2 weeks ago | stltoday.com | Bill McClellan

John Wolfe Jr. was born in December of 1926. He was a curious child, very much into the news. As the world careened toward war, cowboys and Indians were replaced by toy soldiers. Wolfe and his friends dug foxholes in their semi-rural neighborhood in Ladue. When he graduated from grade school in 1940, the German Army was overrunning Europe. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Wolfe’s father, a circuit court judge, enlisted in the Army. He was 46. He was commissioned a captain and assigned to intelligence.

3 weeks ago | stltoday.com | Bill McClellan

For 20 long years, beginning in 1947, the Chicago Cubs wandered the desert. They had a single winning season and even then they finished seventh in a 10-team league. They were almost always at or near the bottom of the standings. But they played on God’s own grass, under God’s own light. Their best player was the saintly Ernie Banks. Their fans came to believe in the virtue of suffering. It never ends well, was the message at the heart of our belief system.

4 weeks ago | stltoday.com | Bill McClellan

“Read all about it!” Oliver Fischer used to shout. He was a newsboy, selling papers in front of the Baden Bank on North Broadway. He was 8 or 9 when he started. He was born in 1932, the ninth of 14 kids. His father was an ice and coal man. He delivered coal in the winter and ice in the summer to homes and businesses in North County. Oliver sometimes went along to help. The coal wasn’t too bad. Buildings had coal chutes in those days. But the ice sometimes had to be lugged up stairs.

1 month ago | stltoday.com | Bill McClellan

What if I were to tell you I believe that James Bond is alive and retired and living in the Central West End?”I see it as a positive. James Bond could live anywhere in the world, and he has chosen our town. Sadly, we cannot use his presence to promote St. Louis. The last thing an old spy wants is notoriety. In fact, I mentioned him in a column a couple of years ago, and he was not pleased, even though I had enough sense not to use his real name — if I even know his real name.