The Chicago Connection

Continued from Connecting Scrapbook 210 to Tea with Olga and Brown

If you paid attention to Mr. Fenn's pattern of movement, you may have noticed he admitted his writings are interconnected. What this means is his scrapbooks and hints are linked and when viewed as a whole the hints become clear. As I mentioned earlier the Chicago White Sox scandal was the point of his Scrapbook 210, and sure enough Mr. Fenn follows it up with Scrapbook 212 with the Chicago connection.

He mentions Arthur Rubloff from Chicago his experience of supplying a giant bronze statue of the Indian Chief Massasoit. Arthur connect to "quest," as I have mentioned previously. The large statue connection to the clues is Our Lady of the Rockies, the 90 Madonna, which was assembled by a Tarhe helicopter (another famous Indian Chief) that if you listen good sounds like "tarry." Did you know the civilian variant of the Tarhe Helicopter is an Ericson (think Eric Sloane) and they are named. Olga was the name of the one that fixed the antenna to the CN Tower.

It is very interesting how he pointed out the Denver Musem of Natural History bronze of the bear by comparison. Many may remember Forrest said the final clue is connected to the parking lot of the Denver Musem of Natural History. I wrote a piece about it a while back, when I pointed out the parking lot entrance has bronze wolves opposite the Bear bronze at the entrance. Just say'n - smile.

Now what about the Chicago connection? My last post connected Tea with Olga. One of the more puzzling suggestions by Mr. Fenn is to bring a sandwich. The sandwich is the Oreo, of which he hints. The black and white Oreo sandwich is symbolic of the White Sox scandal, which became known as the Black Sox Scandal, thus the importance of the black and white Oreo.

To make this argument more convincing, we need to connect it to those subtle hints in his memoir. The section titled Important Literature talks about Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. The connection between the two is Brown, who is Shoeless Joe Jackson. Mr. Fenn quotes from Scrapbook 212, "he only fault I ever found with Arthur was that his shoes looked to be too long for his feet," the hint to Shoeless Joe. In the book/movie Eight Men Out, Shoeless Joe is banned from Baseball and played minor ball under the assumed name of Brown.

The movie also introduces another important character that links the two pieces of literature, Ring Lardner. He was featured in The Great Gatsby as the Chicago sports writer that sniffed out the White Sox Scandal and he was Holden Caulfield's (Catcher and the Rye) favourite author.

The final quote from this scrapbook to link to Chicago baseball is the good ole hot dog, "I probably wondered if Arthur knew what a hot dog was."

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