The fish was by no means bad; but I have reason to believe that my performance in the matter of eating it was not at all a success. It is true that stifling atmosphere, intense heat, and many varieties of nastiness and nudity are not promoters of appetite; but even had I been given a clearer stage and more favourable conducers towards voracity, I must still have proved but a mere nibbler of sturgeon in the eyes of such a whale as Chicag.

The community worked to clean up the vandalized neighborhood.

to pole beans or hops

America′s first pedestrianized shopping mall opened in 1959 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Like most later pedestrian malls, it was intended to revive what everybody thought was a decaying downtown.