Bart the Banker Bonks

Oh, weep for Adonais, he is dead! Pain, pain, pain, forever pain! See? It took two great poets to summon the proper grief for the death of service in American business. Oh, the humanity! (That last one wasn’t a poet; it was Herb Morrison, a radio journalist reporting on the crash of the Hindenburg.)

But perhaps I exaggerate. It was only a local banker. Holly opened an account for her ceramics business, which (on the spur of the moment, filling out a form in the bank) she named Holly Pots. So checkbooks and things began arriving addressed to Holly Pots.

But there was more: Bart, the banker who signed up the account, said he wanted to see Holly’s place of business. Not to inspect it – she wasn’t trying to borrow any money – just because he was fascinated and because the bank cares about its customers. So an appointment was made for 9 a.m. Wednesday.

The administrative, creative, pot-throwing, glazing, manufacturing, and shipping operations of Holly Pots and its staff of one are housed in a 12 foot by 15 foot, second floor corner space in a 19th century firehouse on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Other potters, artists, and sculptors rent similar spaces there. But Holly’s is prime real estate because it contains the pole the firemen once used to slide down to the first floor when the bell rang.

Wednesday at 9 a.m. proved to be a propitious time for a visiting banker, because a glaze firing was scheduled that day for the big kiln in the Firehouse, carrying the hopes and fears of three different potters – who can curse in three different languages – through the perils of 2350 degrees Fahrenheit and whatever could possibly go wrong in firing a kiln. It takes hours. Everyone was alerted to the banker’s imminent arrival and prepared to treat him as if had never been guilty of banking in his life.

But Bart the Banker bailed out. He never called. He never showed. Imagine! A mighty river of money – literally hundreds of dollars will flow through that account, generating dozens of dollars in fees and incalculable prestige – and no banker.

The long-awaited confluence of art with capitalism, thwarted. A sad day for banking. A sad day for America. But the potters were happy – nothing blew up.

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