Legends

“Boom boom boom boom (March 4)
A-haw haw haw haw
Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm.”
John Lee Hooker

Five copies of the Winter 2011 issue of TRACES arrived with ten pages devoted to my article on Vivian Carter and Vee Jay records. Illustrations include Blues legend and Vee Jay recording artist John Lee Hooker playing a guitar in concert. Editor Ray Boomhower promised to send ten more for me to pass out. Because it mentions Vivian’s induction to the Wall of Legends, I’m sending one off to John Davies to see if the Indiana Welcome Center wants to sell some. I also took one to Henry Farag at Canterbury Productions, who is featured prominently in it. With Boomhower’s encouragement, I started an article about Maria Arredondo even though over the next four years the magazine will be featuring articles commemorating Indiana’s Civil War past. The current issue has one on Hoosier Joseph Lane (no relation), who fought in the Mexican War, became Territorial Governor of Oregon and in 1860 was Southern Democrat John Breckinridge’s running mate.

Even though my article was generally favorable toward Vivian, her management skills left something to be desired. I used Spaniels tenor Ernest Warren’s quote that “the only thing I can remember we got was a brand new station wagon and three or four brand new cars. But as far as receiving royalties or anything like that, uh-uh. They always had some excuses.” My final sentence reads: “Although taking financial advantage of some of the performers whose talents the company developed, she captured on vinyl much of the best and most original music of her era. She was a true pioneer.”

Times columnist Mark Kiesling thanked me for my email criticizing his remarks about Danny Glover and those protesting the Republicans’ damnable actions in Indianapolis. He wrote: “It’s an opinion column and I don’t ask anyone to agree with me 100 percent of the time or even 1 percent of the time. I respect the opinion of others, yours included. As someone whose name escapes me said, “Reasonable men may reasonably disagree.” I think, of course, since that was said the option to disagree has also been extended to women. Please continue reading.”

Dave and I went to the Sectional semi-finals at Gary West Side. East Chicago Central and Hammond Morton were tied when a Morton player tried to call timeout with .1 seconds left. Since his team was out of timeouts, Central was awarded two technical fouls shots. Anthony Williams, who had been draining free throws the entire game, missed them both. At one point with East Chicago down eight, Williams was on the line, and I predicted that if he made both shots, the Cardinals would win. He missed the second, but thanks to a lane violation got a second chance and made it. In overtime the Cardinals easily prevailed with Jerrick Ware finishing with 30 points.

The second game pitted undefeated Munster against Lake Central, whose best player Glenn Robinson was the son of Gary Roosevelt’s legendary “Big Dog.” Behind us a Black lady was cheering loudly for Glenn and number 22, a curly-haired sub who drained his first three-point attempt. Every time the coach took him out, the lady yelled repeatedly, “22, 22, put 22 in!” During a late timeout both teams’ cheerleaders did backward cartwheels up and down the court. The next timeout Lake Central cheerleaders formed a circle and did cartwheels first one after another like a wave and then all together. Pretty neat. With his team down three in the final seconds, Robinson missed a trey, grabbed the rebound, calmly dribbled behind the three-point line and hit a last-second shot. At the end of overtime, however, he missed the back end of a one-and-one and the number-one ranked Mustangs prevailed, thanks in part to some questionable calls that, as usual, went Munster’s way.

I had a great time hanging with Dave, beginning with supper at Long John Silver, where we often went after a movie when he and Phil were kids. Being at a high school game brought back memories of watching Gary Emerson’s Golden Tornado in the 1970s. Several times young people said, “Hi, Mr. Lane” and I thought momentarily they meant me. In 1991 Dave and I watched “Big Dog” sink a last second shot in the Regionals against East Chicago on the way to leading Roosevelt to a state championship. It was their biggest scare of the tournament. E.C. soccer coach Castulo Perez told me that David is an amazing teacher and mentor for the kids, something I already knew but that was good to hear. In his usual seat was East Chicago superfan Louis “Weasal” Vasquez, 87 years young, with scorebook in hand. He’d even been at Lew Wallace when fights broke out on the court and in the stands and E.C. coach Abrian Brown refused to finish the game.

The last time Dave and I were at Lew Wallace was 25 years ago to watch the great Jerome Harmon. While I was standing for the National Anthem, a kid put chewing gum on my seat and then took off. It soured my enthusiasm for attending any more games there. I later saw Jerome make a spectacular dunk at Chesterton after which several of their fans helf up signs reading “10.” A nice tribute. Once Dave and I planned to meet Paul Kern, who turned us on to Hoosier Hysteria, at a restaurant prior to an Andrean-Wallace game. We missed connections, something that probably wouldn’t happen today thanks to cell phones.

WXRT is featuring 1989. While in the car I heard Tom Petty, the B52s, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fine Young Cannibals, and Poi Dog Pondering, a Chicagoland band playing an XRT concert next week. In sports Kareen Abdul Jabbar played his final NBA game, Doug Collins relinquished the Bulls coaching reins to Phil Jackson, and Pete Rose was banished from baseball for gambling on games. The Cubs lost in the NLB playoffs to the Giants; an earthquake subsequently delayed the World Series.

The new Smithsonian has zebras on the cover and stories about drummer Gene Krupa, Cherokee leader John Ross, and Modernist artist Paul Gauguin. Jane Russell died at age 89. I recall her “bosoms” being featured in Playtex bra commercials. Looked over an article in “”The Dragon Lode” by Anne Balay about Gene Stratton-Porter’s “A Girl of the Limberlost,” which was not originally intended as kids’ literature. Combine what Anne wrote with Meg Renslow’s kids book might make for an interesting TRACES submission although Anne’s analysis is rather esoteric.Talking about subgenres that “Limberlost” fits into, she mentions environmental manifesto, plucky girl book, and something called bildungsroman, which according to Google (the word wasn’t in my dictionary) means coming-of-age novel.