Popcorn Festival

Back at South Bend to see Mary and Sonny, we visited their son-in-law Fritz on the Notre Dame campus and had lunch at a classy but reasonably priced restaurant. Fritz pointed out Father Theodore Hesburgh, the 94 year-old former President (for 35 years) of Notre Dame who was a member of the United States Civil Rights Commission for 12 years until fired by Tricky Dick Nixon. He had a bit part in the film “Rudy” and holds the Guinness World Record for most honorary degrees (150).

I intended my first Popcorn Festival in Valparaiso in order to see the band Cracker. I ran into old softball teammate Dave Serynek and, as expected, Marianne, John, and Lorraine, who’d made a sign wishing guitarist Johnny Hickman a Happy Birthday. The band rocked, and the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to Johnny when Lorraine and Marianne unveiled the sign. The Crawpuppies opened for Cracker and were great as well. David is on the mend from being hit by a car but still on crutches and wisely skipped the event.

IUN held a memorial service on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. A surprise guest was Clarence Green, who worked for Physical Plant and just got back from Iraq. His wife Suzanne, who works for SPEA, was by his side, as were their kids. The next morning Steve McShane appeared in a Times photo of the event.

After Robin Halberstadt told me that former student Linda Parker was chair of Portage High School’s History Department I sent her volume 41 of Steel Shavings. She thanked me in an email and added: “You were one of the most informative professors that I had in my teacher preparation. Perhaps because of the content, but more because of how you taught. There was never any down time. You kept the class moving and interesting. And, you taught me a very good lesson when a student makes a mistake. I mixed up Clarence Darrow and Wm Jennings Bryan on a quiz. Your comment to me was very supportive; you said you knew that I knew the difference between the two. Of course, it was still marked wrong. I learned to support effort and never make a student feel badly when they make an error, but to always hold them accountable so they learn from their mistakes. I've always wanted to thank you for that lesson. Now, I have.”

There was a big turnout at The Patio for the History Book Club discussion of Thomas Fleming’s book on the intimate lives of the Founding Fathers. Borrowing from what a Rolling Stone reviewer said about the second to last Harry Potter movie, I said the book, though well-researched, was like a teenage girl’s padded bra, all tease and no put-out. In other words, the title was misleading when it came to sexual revelations.

I won my first Fantasy Football match thanks to a record night Monday by Patriots QB Tom Brady. Also helping my cause were Bears RB Matt Forte and the Jets’ defense.

A Deejay was playing soft rap music on campus as part of Welcome Back Week, and several coeds were doing a suggestive line dance where they leaned way back and shook their boobies and then thrust their upper bodies forward and shook their booties. Passing out free condoms was a GLBT group, and the Muslim Student Association had an active table. Women at the Student Guides table were swaying to the music, and the Anthropology Club was signing up new members.

After my fiftieth reunion I wrote a semi-fictional saga based on someone taking Wendy’s Homecoming Queen tiara that she had brought with her, a mystery solved by one Captain Cardinal who in some ways resembled athletic star Percy Herder. Several people expressed the hope that I’d write an “all-encompassing” epilog, so here goes: Around the time he was planning a get together with classmates Rel and Jay in Gainesville, Jimmy heard that LeeLee, Sissy, and Captain Cardinal were delivering the tiara to Wendy in person at her Georgia plantation and that others were welcome to join them. Jimmy quickly convinced Rel and Jay to accept the invitation. Meanwhile, Susan decided to be part of LeeLee’s entourage. She still felt slightly regretful about skipping the reunion and was intrigued at the prospect of seeing Jay, whom she dated, and Rel, whom she had had a secret crush on, like many girls in her class. Delighted at the burgeoning number of guests, Wendy sent out a group email laying down two ground rules: no spouses but no sex. In response Captain Cardinal promised to leave his Viagra at home. Jimmy wondered if the Captain would be wearing his famous tiger-striped skivvies. Informing Jay that Susan was coming, he reminded him that they had double-dated to a ninth grade dance and afterwards Jay bragged that he had managed to rest a hand on Susan’s bare knee.

In school after Susan and two of her close friends were nicknamed the “Three Sues,” she started going by her given first name and Sue H became Suzi. She and Jimmy often were together at Terry and Judy’s, and both had become loosened up by the counter-culture phenomenon of the late-Sixties. At the 1990 reunion Jimmy was shocked but delighted when Susan asked him to dance to “Proud Mary.” They seemed to hit it off and traded anecdotes that the other had long forgotten. Jimmy recalled how disappointed she was one Christmas when her main present was a clock. He was interested to hear that her parents were political Lefties, an often persecuted group he greatly admired. “They probably voted for Henry Wallace in 1948,” he said. “They knew Henry Wallace,” she replied. Through Terry they had kept up on what each other was doing. Learning that Susan’s daughter was, like himself, a social historian, he sent along copies of a magazine that he edited for her to pass along. When Susan described doing physical labor on rental units, he imagined her looking like Meryl Streep in “Momma Mia!”