Is Biden Our Konrad Adenauer?

No. He's Better than Der Alte. 

Adenauer, right, with French President de Gaulle in 1963.

Der Alte means "the old guy" in German. 

Konrad Adenauer led the new West German state during its period of reconstruction after World War II, serving as its chancellor from 1949 to 1963, leaving office at the age of 87. He wasn't perfect, but during his time as chancellor he and the German people took a fragment of the old Germany, rebuilt its shattered economy and whole cities that had been reduced to rubble, and changed it from a defunct totalitarian dictatorship to a thriving, stable democracy. In all this, the people saw Der Alte as their anchor. 

Born in 1876, Adenauer flourished as a politician in the period after World War I, becoming a leader of the Catholic Centre Party and serving as mayor of Cologne from 1917 to 1933. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they fired him from his job as mayor, and his life focused mainly on survival until the end of World War II. It was a record that made him a good candidate to help lead the emerging West German state. The Nazis had even done him the favor of arresting him several times, and this of course played well in the new political environment. 

Adenauer was already in his seventies when he became chancellor. I think his performance in that job is evidence that old people are not necessarily useless relics. 

I understand the desire among many people for generational transfer of power. Younger people are interested in moving up to more senior positions, and it can be frustrating to see the older generation cling to the jobs at the top. But I would argue that wholesale dismissal of an age cohort is probably a bad idea.

In addition, the Dems have had a pretty good record on generational transfer in recent years. Barack Obama was 47 when he entered the office of president. Not too shabby. And Nancy Pelosi (currently 83) has stepped aside in favor of Hakeem Jeffries (currently 53). 

Meanwhile the Republicans still have Mitch McConnell (81) and the Former Guy (77), but it's just possible that the most powerful person in the Republican party right now is Matt Gaetz (41). He brings the chaos, and that's what the base wants (until their Social Security checks stop coming). 

Maybe quality should trump chronology.

Matt Gaetz, at left.

I've also toyed with comparing Biden to Dwight Eisenhower, who left the presidency at the relatively youthful age of 70. But let me suggest that Eisenhower's developing infirmities made him old before his time. He was a chain smoker from an early age, and he had his first heart attack in 1955; it kept him in the hospital for six weeks. He also had a mild stroke in 1957. By the time of his death in 1969, he had suffered seven heart attacks. 

Eisenhower was also noted for giving long, involved, basically impenetrable answers to questions at press conferences, leaving journalists scratching their heads as they wondered what, if anything, he had meant to say. The answer is that Eisenhower was a wily old soldier, and if he didn't want to answer a question he would avoid conflict by laying down a smokescreen. This tactic is sometimes called "talk a lot, say as little as possible." 

Eisenhower was a very popular president, and historians now regularly rank him among the top ten of our chief executives. Biden's popularity ratings are lower than Eisenhower's, but I think historians are going to wind up ranking him in the top ten. 

At the beginning of this story, Adenauer is pictured with French President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. In 1958, de Gaulle came out of retirement to extricate France from the morass of the Algerian war. He retired again in 1969, and died a year later at the age of 79. 

See also A Lesson From the Berlin Wall, The Real Parallels Are With Weimar, Hans Fallada and the White-Collar Proletariat, Humboldt on Education, A Teacher's Dilemma.

Something Good Happened

Perhaps a While Ago

This is a picture of the intersection at the eastern foot of the South Street bridge, South and 27th, and, if you turn right hard enough, you're on Schuylkill Avenue. You'll notice a sign at the upper left, which says No Turn on Red.

For many years there was no such sign here. In August 2017 I wrote a story explaining why putting a No Turn on Red sign here would be a good idea. (See No Turn on Red: Vision Zero Meets the South Street Bridge.) The short version: There were lots and lots of near misses at this intersection.

And then things like Covid happened, and I stopped thinking about the eastern foot of the South Street bridge.

And then, a few weeks ago, I was walking around on the bridge (I'm now thinking of doing another story about the bridge, and these stories invariably involve a lot of walking around and standing and looking, and occasionally, when I get lucky, sitting and looking), and I noticed the sign.

I have no idea when the sign went up, and I have no idea if my article had any influence on the thinking of the Streets Department. But I do like to praise people when they do a good deed, even if the praise is belated. So, Philadelphia Streets Department, kudos and thank you!

See also Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway, No Turn on Red, Morning on Lombard Street, Is It a Curve or Is It a Turn? What a Nice Present!

Precious Cargo

Transporting Kids by Bike

Leaving the beach, Father's Day, Asbury Park, 2023.

One of my more distinct early childhood memories was standing on the sidewalk and watching coal being delivered to the apartment building where we lived. This was in Manhattan in the 1950s. 

Everything about the coal truck was black. A coal chute protruded from the back of the truck and extended to an opening in the sidewalk next to the building. The truck tipped its cargo box just like an ordinary dump truck, and there was a whooshing, rumbling sound as the coal tumbled into the coal bunker in the basement of the building.

And then, of course, the coal was burned to provide heat and hot water.

Arriving at Little League practice, Prospect Park, 
Brooklyn, 2023.

Today, we're unaccustomed to seeing fly ash in the air. I remember a freshly baked lemon meringue pie, sitting on the sill of the open kitchen window to cool. A piece of black fly ash from a furnace or an incinerator floated into the window space and settled gently on the white meringue. It was a bit bigger than a quarter.

Pickup from after-school program,
Philadelphia, 2023.

Catastrophe? No. Just another day. The well-practiced solution was a deft scoop with a small spoon, and the meringue was once again immaculate.

(Newspapers made particularly interesting fly ash when incinerated.)

Chestnut Street, West Philly, 2017.

My Grandpa Tom was a dairy farmer who lived on a dirt road and had a dirt driveway. Every once in a while he would bring a scuttle full of cinders up from the basement and scatter them on the driveway. 

Eventually he decided to go along with the modern world. He got an oil-fired furnace, and the cinders in the driveway were overlain with asphalt.

Boardwalk, Asbury Park, 2023.

But to come back to the sidewalk of the building where I grew up. I remember the grocery delivery bikes. These had a large aluminum box attached to the front to carry groceries. They were quite common in the 1950s, but shortly thereafter they seem to have vanished completely.  

Grays Ferry Triangles, 23rd and South, Philadelphia, 2023.

I don't have confidence in the historical information I found online, so I'm going to skip forward to the re-emergence of the cargo bike, this time as a way to transport small children. Here the Dutch were clearly the innovators, using something they called a bakfiets, or box-bike. This was an adaptation of a traditional Dutch cargo bike, and it became very popular in the years after 2000. (For more, see this story, which seems reasonably solid.)

Rittenhouse Square, 2023.

The Americans followed suit a bit later, but with typically American enthusiasm. Today, in Philadelphia's center city, I see them regularly as I walk around. In addition to transporting children, they're clearly good with groceries and other relatively small items. Other uses - bringing furniture home from Ikea, for instance - seem pretty rare, but one should never underestimate the ingenuity of a bicyclist. Here's a shot from Fort Greene Park, in Brooklyn, of a fellow on a regular bike, transporting what appears to be a truck tire.

Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, 2023.

See also Jane Jacobs Was a Bicyclist; Looking and Not Seeing, Listening and Not Hearing; Forging Community - One Flat Tire at a Time.