Eagle soars over crowd for a treat

Q. How do the St. Louis Cardinals decide when to let the American bald eagle fly over Busch Stadium and when will it fly again this season?

-- R.I., of Maryville

A. The eagle has landed again at Busch Stadium -- but not before giving at least one spectator an anxious moment or two on opening day.

"I don't know if you saw it, but I thought, like, I don't know if that eagle's gonna land!" said Melody Yount, an assistant director of media relations with the human Redbirds.

"It was kind of funny, though. As it circled, you could kind of see the players' faces, and I thought, like, I don't know if I really want to be out there with that. I mean, it's a pretty big bird, and I thought, man, like that's kind of scary if it's just circling around your head!"

She was likely thinking of a nasty incident that happened three days later at Fenway Park in Boston. That's where a middle school girl had to be taken to a hospital after being attacked by a red-tailed hawk as she toured the stadium with her class.

But there was one big difference: As far as the hawk was concerned, the girl unknowingly had come too close to its nest and egg on an overhang near the press box, so the bird swooped to defend its home (which was later moved by the Boston Animal Rescue League, anyway).

The chances of that occurring with the eagles at Busch are all but nil, say the folks at the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Mo., which shows off the birds at Busch Stadium and a growing number of other venues around the country. Such appearances are an important source of funding for the organization.

All of the sanctuary birds have to be carefully trained for an extended period before they are ever released in front of 50,000 people. Now 6 years old, Lewis, the bird you saw on opening day (and part of the sanctuary's Lewis & Clark flying eagle duo), was first acclimated to being around people and gradually allowed to fly greater distances on its own.

"It takes a lot of glove time, glove training," said Cathy Spahn, the sanctuary's director of development. "You get them comfortable around people and then you go from there with just hopping and then finally flying. And, we do a lot of training with him down there. He practices at the stadium itself, so he does this a lot."

Besides, Lewis has a big incentive to find his handler near the pitcher's mound.

"They know there's food at the other end," she said. "They get a reward for coming to us. But it's a lot of -- a LOT of -- training to get a bird to be as comfortable as Lewis is flying like that."

Lewis will make additional appearances at Busch this year, but just when is, well, up in the air, says Walt Crawford, who directs the sanctuary.

A Vietnam vet, Crawford is always proud to supply the birds to help fuel feelings of patriotism. But even he is unsure when the Cards will invite Lewis and his pal Liberty, who takes part in the presentation of colors at home plate, back; he hopes Lewis will take wing again in two to three weeks. Yount says the July 4 weekend probably is a safe bet, too, as well as other major events and holidays.

For more information on the sanctuary and its eagles, go to www.worldbirdsanctuary.org.

Q. My siblings and I were born at Christian Welfare Hospital in East St. Louis. In what year did they close and why (besides financial)? I've been trying for years to find out.

-- Harold Griffin

A. A $250,000 tax debt was the sole reason the Internal Revenue Service forced the hospital to shut its doors on Dec. 15, 1989.

It held such promise when it opened in 1940 at 1509 Martin Luther King Blvd. and added an eastern wing about 10 years later. But as residents continued to abandon the city and industry closed, the hospital itself was on life support by the late 1970s. As you've surely seen in recent days, East St. Louis was having trouble supporting one hospital (St. Mary's/Kenneth Hall Regional), much less two.

As early as 1979, news that the 263-bed hospital could close was being reported in the News-Democrat. As many as 80 percent of its patients relied on some type of government aid, which simply did not cover the hospital's bills.

Finally, in April that year, a merger between a group of doctors at the hospital and the corporation that owned the institution injected new life. Essentially, it meant the doctors would take over the hospital. It was renamed Community Hospital.

But the last 10 years brought a neverending series of financial crises. Stories of creditors suing, workers going unpaid and the government threatening to end Medicare payments popped up with increasing regularity. In 1984, St. Mary's Hospital, in a continuing attempt to take over Community, loaned the hospital money to meet its payroll. It finally declared bankruptcy, leading to its sale to Gateway Medical Systems Inc.

Still, it struggled on, first as the East St. Louis Medical Center and eventually as Gateway Community Hospital. In 1988, the KTS Group bought the ailing hospital, making it the only black-owned hospital in the metro-east. A few months later, it even reopened the obstetrical ward that a previous owner had closed in 1981.

Despite KTS's pledge to save the distressed hospital, it continued to miss payrolls, so it began talks with a Louisiana company to take over its management. Before that could happen, the IRS raided the hospital at 11 a.m. Dec. 15, 1989, seizing $48,000 for back taxes on top of $160,000 the agency had taken two weeks before. The hospital owed $248,000.

The hospital closed, and an auction of its equipment was held in April 1990. Ironically, a week later a federal report showed Gateway to be the only hospital in the state to have a lower-than-expected death rate for its Medicare patients in 1988.

Q. Is there a way to find out what happened to Imperial Cabinet Co. Inc. of Gaston, Ind.? I am trying to contact them to match the stain on my kitchen cabinets (circa 1987) and have not been able to do so.

-- JoAnn, of O'Fallon

A. Sorry, but the cabinet doors closed on your chances for a match from them a long time ago. I talked to a lifelong resident of Gaston who works at Gaston City Hall, and she told me, "Honey, they've been gone for 15 years. That place is now Auto Network, and they repair and sell used cars."

She seemed to think that Imperial was some kind of chain, but both Imperial Cabinets Co. in Tucker, Ga., and Winnipeg (Canada) said they are independent dealers. I can find no other indication of a central company location.

Send your questions to Roger Schlueter, Belleville News-Democrat, 120 S. Illinois St., P.O. Box 427, Belleville, IL 62222-0427 or rschlueter@bnd.com.