This Bud's Not for You

Nobody Knows: There are moments in your life, and I’ve had a few, when you look at something and are just so in awe of it’s magnificence, you just know there is a God, because nothing short of a miracle, and certainly nothing so lame as a “evolutionally fluke” could create such a wonderment.

That’s how I felt once when I first looked into the eyes of a Clydesdale at Busch Gardens in St. Louis. I visited the stables of these great giants and was struck by how humongous even the babies were. Okay, men in Scotland bred years to get this huge, wonderful, King of a horse, but still…God gave them some mighty good seeds.

If you find me in front of one of these creatures, you would have to literally knock me off my spot with a baseball bat to get me to move, because I’m in heaven---leave me alone. The only reason I watch the Rose Parade is in anticipation of the sight of these beautiful creatures pulling the famous Budweiser wagon.

I still get a thrill at watching them strut. I’m sure it was an even bigger thrill for the people of St. Louis who first saw an 8-horse team of Busch Clydesdales pulling huge barrels of beer down the main city streets the day Prohibition ended back in 1933…but that thrill may soon be ending.

Due to the ongoing agenda of “globalization,” it is being reported that the St. Louis Anheuser-Busch brewery might soon be swallowed, by InBev, a bigger global-beer conglomerate. And since the Busch kids own less than four percent of the controlling stock, once again, the stockholders who will benefit from the takeover might just go for it.

Well, duh.

As they say, another one bites the dust. And if the Busch brewery bites the dust, St. Louis might as well be mud. The Busch brewery is the last remaining big downtown manufacturing plant we have.

St. Louis in the last decades has had takeovers of GenAmerica, Southwestern Bell, Boatmen’s Bancshares, McDonnell Douglas, Ralston Purina, TWA, May Department Stores and A.G. Edwards. Not to mention the closing of all our big car manufacturers plants---Ford and Chrysler.

God, it’s hard to watch your city die.

St. Louis used to be a great shoe town, so this downsizing of American industries is really nothing new. Thousands have lost jobs here. Now we only have one big guy left, Monsanto--who along with Bill Clinton, was recently trashed by Vanity Fair as a real monster.

And yet, and yet…many of our beloved conservative leaders, continue to tell us that everything is fine and dandy. Big business is a good thing. Why, there is growth! From the President, to internet economists, to Rush Limbaugh---America has not changed. To them, capitalism is doing just fine.

What do you expect? You spend too many years in a bubble and you get bubble heads.

If the Democrats are stuck in the sixties, the Republicans are just plain stuck.

But St. Louis was my town, a beer town, a happy town---thanks to a skinny German named Adolphus Busch, who around 1891, started making his beer. For years he gave St. Louis people jobs, security, baseball, and pride.

Not to mention lots and lots of great beer.

His son---Gussie Busch not only loved St. Louis, he loved its people. You could see it on his face. He was a tough business man, but fair. If you worked for Anheuser-Busch, you were treated like gold and had a job for life.

But his son was a different guy. When his dad died, August the III (a Republican) became a true globalist. The first thing he sold was his father’s beloved ball club, the Cardinals. Everyone was crushed.

To all of us here, the message was; Money first, people second. Hey, it’s a new world, baby.

Once upon a time, it wasn’t like that. Once upon a time, even the rich were proud to be Americans. J. Paul Getty Jr. was so rich by the time he was 27, he retired. But his dad told him he had a responsibility as a rich man…and that was to give people jobs. So, he went back to work.

Now the rich fathers must say, “Give people jobs, just not Americans.”

What can I say? This Bud’s for you?

Take me out to the ballgame where just one cup is the price of a whole meal?

No, take me to see the Clydesdales, one... last….time.