Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana

Gary, Indiana, as a Shakespeare would say
Trips along softly on the tongue this way-
Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana,
Let me say that once again.
Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana,
That’s the town that knew me when.”
Meredith Willson, “The Music Man”

IU Press sent along a complimentary copy of S. Paul O’Hara’s new book “Gary: The Most American of American Cities.” Unfortunately, it first came to our old address, so I had to pay $2.38 postage due. In the acknowledgements the author thanked Steve McShane and me for our advice and criticisms of early drafts and seems to have made improvements along the lines we suggested. He included, for instance, a critique of the hour-long episode on Gary in the Peter Jennings series “In Search of America” and quoted from “Gary’s First Hundred Years” Mayor King’s conclusion that “it was a predetermined hatchet job as well as similar objections from other residents. In the footnotes are numerous references to my Gary books, as well as Steel Shavings and my Tony Zale article in TRACES. Except for the absence of photos, save for the front and back cover (both from the Calumet Regional Archives), it looks good. O’Hara mentions that the unspoken joke in “The Music Man” is that while confidence man Harold Hill convinces River City rubes that Gary was a center of high culture, most in the audience knew that “Gary’s real products were steel, smoke, crime, and vice.” The subtitle stems from the era of World War I when the largely immigrant population proved their patriotism with sacrifices both on the battlefield and in the steel mills. In “City of the Century” I mention that the Gary Evening Post first used the phrase “Most American of American Cities” in an article about a huge parade on April 28, 1917, when 30,000 marchers demonstrated their support for the war. The newspaper concluded: “Some people have been wondering if there is any spirit of patriotism in Gary, but after the tremendous, the unprecedented demonstrations of Saturday night, no one will ask that question again.” O’Hara’s meaning becomes apparent in Part Three, entitled, “The Very Model of Modern Urban Decay.” He opens the book with this quote from Perry Miller, a native Chicagoan most remembered as a colonial American intellectual historian: “We may venture that even more tragic than any classical or Shakespearean drama is the crisis of illumination when man realizes, much too late for any last minute panaceas, that he is unequal to the task for dealing with a universe of his own manufacture. Gloucester in ‘King Lear’ blames the gods that kill us for sport, as wanton boys do flies. But whom do we blame for Gary, Indiana?” Then to underscore his main point, O’Hara quotes Rabbi Garry Joel August: “Gary is America. Every city is Gary writ large or small.”

Bill Staehle passed away at age 78. I last saw him at the Patio, looking quite thin but still with a keen sense of humor and interest in local happenings. He was Gary’s city planner in the early 1960s when A. Martin Katz was mayor and headed Model Cities under Mayor Richard Hatcher. He had a house near the beach in Miller and taught in IU Northwest’s SPEA division. Chancellor Peggy Elliott first hired him to be a lobbyist in Indianapolis and fundraise, things he was very good at. In an interview used in “Educating the Region: A History of Indiana University Northwest,” Peggy said, “Bill also took care of our Foundation accounts. I delegated the distribution of our small student emergency fund to him. Sometimes the needs were so simple or serious they would break our hearts to hear about. The dollars didn’t last long, but I doubt Bill ever turned down a request. When there were no more dollars, sometimes he would tell me and we would fund the need ourselves. More often Bill just reached in his own pocket. We will never know how many times he did that, but he made all the difference for many students.” When Bruce Bergland first became chancellor a decade ago, Bill took him to Bobby Farag’s St. Patrick’s Day Party. I was surprised to see them, but it was totally in character. Like President John Ryan, Bill believed that university officials needed to get out into the community in order to best do their job. Coincidentally, Gary’s present urban planner, Chris Meyers, was at the Archives researching a Frank Dudley painting that once belonged to the Gary Historical Society and now is in the possession of an Indianapolis museum.

Got an email from Chris Sheid that there will be a memorial service for Bill Neil Friday at United Methodist Church in Valparaiso. I briefed his assistant, Emily Banas, on details involving Bill’s 40 years of service to the university. Emily showed me an obit from an Atlantic City, New Jersey, newspaper that mentioned his service as a bombardier during WW II and that he was a talented bagpiper. I heard him play at his and Mary’s fiftieth anniversary celebration. At my retirement party he said I was one of his good hires and signed a book he gave me on America during the twentieth century, “To a fine gentleman and a scholar.” After I first arrived for an interview in 1970, he picked me up at the Hotel Gary and before dropping me off at a motel in Miller told me what an excellent retirement program IU had. I didn’t much care at the time but am thankful for it now. In an announcement that went out to the campus community Emily included this quote: “Bill was in high school during the Great Depression, and he'd mentioned to me once that if it wasn't for this university, he probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to go to school," Lane said. "While fighting in World War II he had a near-death experience, and, at that point, he decided to dedicate his life to teaching, and to a school that gave people with backgrounds similar to him an opportunity for a good education.”

Two memorable memorial services involving IUN faculty were those for Robin Hass Birky, who died last year in an auto accident, and Gary Martin, a SPEA professor whom Sheriff Roy Dominguez appointed to be his police chief. He died during a motorcycle run to raise money for fallen policemen’s widows when a vehicle rammed him from the back. Afterwards, officers from all over joined the motorcade to the cemetery.

Greg Lasky, whom I met at the Trauts’ Christmas party, thanked me for “Gary’s First Hundred Years.” He mentioned that his grandfather moved to Gary from Minnesota in 1940 to work at U.S. Steel, adding: “I frequently talk to others about the history of Gary, and this is a great reference. We must get together again over coffee. I love all kinds of history. Our idea of a honeymoon was to go to colonial Williamsburg. Call me any time.”

The cafeteria cashier charged me a quarter for the fried onions on my hamburger – first time ever. What’s with that? George Bodmer asked if people have asked me not to mention them in my blog. The answer is no, but not everyone knows about it despite Google. As a veteran editor, I am pretty good at self-censorship. George has enjoyed what I have written about him, I think. I told him I try not to get too personal, especially concerning family members. We talked about “Black Swan,” which had me gasping out loud at a few bloody scenes. Someone whose daughter likes ballet was thinking of taking her before George told her about the lesbian and masturbation scenes. Barbara Hershey is creepy good as the controlling mother of Nina (Natalie Portman). In one scene Nina is pleasuring herself when to her horror she spots her mother asleep in a chair across from her.

Jonathyne Briggs is worried that his Historiography seminar might be cancelled due to low enrollment. He had planned to have students keep “Ides of March” journals. Once he asked his class to keep journals for a single day. After reading them, he said, “Didn’t any of you eat or go to the bathroom?” The point being, historians are naturally selective about what they include in their narratives. Chris Young said he was sorry to have to miss Bill Neil’s memorial service but added: “I am happy that I had the opportunity to meet him on several occasions – thanks to you.”

Received my first Smithsonian, which my mother gave me for Christmas. I read with interest Paul Theroux’s article “The Trouble with Autobiography.” The 69 year-old travel book author (“The Great Railway Bazaar”) agrees with Rebecca West, who wrote: “Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.” If one must write about himself, Thoroux concludes, he recommends turning it into a novel. He concludes: “I think I would find it impossible to write an autobiography without invoking the traits I seem to deplore in the ones I’ve described - exaggeration, embroidery, reticence, invention, heroics, mythomania, compulsive revisionism, and all the rest that are so valuable in fiction.” Which of these, I wonder, have I succumbed to in my blog? Reticence at times and revisionism, but in the case of the latter the purpose is to add perspective and delete irrelevancies and wordiness. Lord knows, I’m wordy enough as it is.

In bowling the Engineers’ winning streak came to an abrupt end against a team whose bowlers all averaged well over 200. One of them, John Gilbert, reminisced with me about our softball playing days. He’s a drywaller, and the recession has cut significantly into his income. A guy on another team turned 40 and his wife, parents, siblings, and kids were at the alley with balloons and a cake. I managed to snag a piece at night’s end.