In speaking of the earth, the qualification ‘the known world’ is no longer necessary.” I reread the official brochure, and the last paragraph caught my eye: “Do you realize what this exposition means to you? This is the first time in the history of man the entire world is known and in intercommunication. The World’s Fair was the bee’s knees, as we used to say, but by November, as the fair was winding down, I was having to do a little digging to make my weekly deadline. One of my stories detailed the 102,000 pieces of glittering multicolored cut Bohemian glass used in its construction. The centerpiece of the whole shebang was the Tower of Jewels. General Electric covered the exhibition in tiny lights even the boats in the harbor twinkled. I covered the fair right from the beginning, with headlines like “Wonder of Wonders” and “Heady Times These.” Alexander Graham Bell placed a cross-country phone call Thomas Edison showed off his storage battery Henry Ford created an automobile extravaganza. We’d been rocked and almost wrecked in 1906, so this celebration showed the world that everything in Frisco was copacetic again. That year, 1915, I was covering the San Francisco World’s Fair for The Examiner, my first full-time job as a reporter. Inside the can, up to his neck in milk, was Harry Houdini. Then servants came out, heaved it up, grumbling to each other, and hauled it into the house. The can sat for several minutes in the late afternoon sun. He said later that the place had given him the creepy-crawlies, and he was glad to see the back of it. She shook her head, said, “Nobody gets in here.” The man climbed back into the wagon, clicked his tongue at the horse. Flourishing his cap theatrically, revealing a shiny bald head and a gold hoop in his left ear, he asked the servant who answered the door if she wanted him to haul the can into the house for her. He recollected the milk can, leapt off the seat, set his knees, and hefted the large silver canister onto the doorstep, mumble-swearing as he eased it down. He said later that it reminded him of an enormous gingerbread house from that fairy tale, gaily painted and vaguely Swiss-looking like that. The man shaded his eyes against the bright central California day and looked up and up and up at the never-ending mansion. The horse was reined in at the service entrance to the Winchester Spirit House. The showy, greased handlebar mustache and flashy biceps were unusual on a milkman, but otherwise everything looked kosher: the creaky black wagon with the word Cream painted in white script on the side, the large silver can jostling in the back.
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