Notes |
- He ran a brewery in Panama called the Balboa Brewing Co. He was known as the Duke of Balboa, a moniker he acquired at a party there one evening, as told in the following anecdote recalled in Edward Tomlinson, New Roads to Riches in the Other Americas (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939): 168-70:
Among the nobility of the Isthmus the Duke is the only member who boasts a title, a tide which he did not inherit, nor buy, nor even assume. It was thrust upon him. He started out in life with a name somewhat mixed in origin. He was born Theodore McGinnis in the United States, and Theodore McGinnis he remained for many a year until a group of inspired convivials generously elevated him to the Panamanian peerage.
There are many versions of the story. One version has it that on one of those dark and stormy nights so characteristic of the Isthmus, a group of gentlemen had paused in a life-giving station to wait for the weather to subside. As fate would have it, behind the bar was an attendant by the name of Jerry who proved to be in league with the elements. While the heavens deluged the streets and roads with water, Jerry plied his guests with frothy, foamy beer. The rain continued and the beer held out until the night was ripe and the party was uproarious. Suddenly the most eloquent member of the group held aloft his glass and began to speak.
'Melor's and gen'l'men! In graceful, that is to shay gratchful acknowledgment for the liquid benefactions which our fellow citizen, Ted McGinnish, has bestowed upon us, it is meet, not to shay drink, that we should offer him shome fishing token of our humble eshteem.'
Which outburst brought forth resounding response, response sufficient to move the orator to even more forensic efforts.
'Melor's and gen'l'men!' he went on, 'Le's drink, le's drink to Ted, to Theodore, yea, le's drink to the Duke of Balboa, peerless beer baron of the Isthmus of Panama!'
From that night on, Theodore McGinnis, long president and proprietor of the Balboa Brewing Company, has been known far and wide, from Panama City to Pittsburgh and San Francisco, as the Duke of Balboa. And, if I may observe in passing, for many long years the Duke brewed practically all the beer drunk on the Isthmus, millions of gallons, enough to quench the tropical thirst of all the natives and soothe the parched lips of legions of travellers from the scorched Sahara of North America during the age of Prohibition.
All during those days the Duke never permitted the great vats of the Balboa Brewery to be empty, day or night, month in and month out. Moreover, during those long months of the tragic depression, when not only the engraved masterpieces of great industry, but even the gilded promises of many foreign governments lay faded and useless in the bureau drawers, Balboa Brewery stock paid handsome dividends. Many a Yankee expatriate, whose business or profession kept him in the regions of the "Zone," was able to buy a new car, replace the old icebox with an electric refrigerator, or spend a vacation back home because of his beer-soaked income.
I predict history will not overlook the Duke, and that his memory will remain as moist as the tropical rains that fall so freely upon the grassy hills of Balboa, not to say the sprawling beer gardens that now flourish on the fringe of Panama City. Meantime the Duke takes his ease in New York, Los Angeles and points beyond and lends his placid personality to gatherings of the Adventurers Club, the Circumnavigators Club and other organizations and societies of wandering and widely travelled convivials."
An article appeared in the Prescott Evening Courier in 1936 about a visit he paid to the city as the Vice-President of the New York Adventurer's Club. He told a story about visiting the Sultan of Singapore.
A note about golf appears in the article "They're Not Just Putting Around," Panama Canal Review (Nov. 1968): 2-3, telling about how golfing started there; McGinnis was apparently president of the Panama Golf Club:
About 50 years ago, a few fellows were sitting around Panama thinking about playing it, without much playing. So they began to weigh the problem. When they decided it wasn't overwhelming, they set about to build a golf club. In the words of John Westman, the proclamation went something like this:
"When Admiral Johnston, General Morrow, don Francisco Arias Paredes and don Raul Espinosa, decided that the pastures of Las Sabanas could be transformed into a golf course, the Duke jumped up on the bandwagon, threw off a keg of Balboa Best Brewed, and hollered, FORE!"
Thus was born the Panama Golf Club, or, as it is known today, the Club de Golf de Panama, S.A. The exuberance of the Duke of Balboa (the late Theodore McGinnis) as he lent spirit to the commencement was not a passing thing—except that he passed it on to the members who followed. Their enthusiasm can only be expressed as passion. They swing, and putt, and smile—or explode—with equal equanimity. The difficulty of exploding with equanimity is a secret only a gentleman golfer knows. [3]
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