Mind Space

“You gotta stay
In your mind.”
D J Luna, “Mindspace”

On October 3 Ann Fritz of IUN’s Gallery for Contemporary Art hosted a reception for six excellent Chicago artists, including Louise LeBourgeois, who does lush landscapes of areas near Lake Michigan as well as the lake itself. One of just waves and sky was my favorite. The show was entitled “Hand Space/Mind Space,” and the artists were on hand talking informally about their pieces. Louise mentioned liking to swim in Lake Michigan and once feared that she had gone out too far when it suddenly got foggy and she could feel rip tides. She teaches at Columbia College, where several of my students have gone. Her business card is a small square replicas of one of her paintings with the info on how to contact her on the back.

Steve McShane introduced me to Budd Ballou, a local historian and Geography teacher, who was in the Archives researching old school buildings that existed in south Lake County over a century ago. He was fascinated with my Shavings issue on Cedar Lake and familiar with the writings of historian Beatrice Horner, who is featured on the cover. A former wrestling coach, he mentioned knowing Bob Petyko, whose controversial remarks are a highlight of the issue, and coaching his son. Petyko came of age during the Sixties, when his hometown, nicknamed Cedar Tucky was a rendezvous spot for motorcycle gangs.

It’s nail-biting time in the Phillies-Cardinals series. Albert Pujols has been fantastic, stealing third base in one game, getting four hits in another, and last night throwing Chase Utley out at third when he tried to take an extra base on a hit-and-run groundout. Hopefully “Doc” Holladay can win the decisive game on Friday.

Searching for information about the parents of Gary-born Nobel Prize winner (in Economics) Joseph Stiglitz, I found a 2005 obit on his mother Charlotte that claimed she taught at Purdue Cal until she retired at age 80 in 1995. I called fellow historian Lance Trusty, but he hadn’t heard of her. Odd! She could have been a part-timer or maybe the obit had the facts wrong. I have emailed Stiglitz at two sites, but return messages indicate he doesn’t answer most queries. The Wall of Legends committee is honoring him and another Gary-born Nobel winner, Paul Samuelson, in December along with five Medal of Honor winners and the Jacksons. I did find some info on Stiglitz’s parent in Michael Hirsh’s Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America Over to Wall Street. His father Nate was an insurance salesman.

The Chesterton Tribune article by Kevin Nevers finally came out, entitled “IUN Historian listens to the region’s voices.” As I emailed him, it was worth the wait and as good as anything written about what I’ve been trying to do with Steel Shavings. He mentions that I’m a bowler, sports fan, fantasy footballer, WXRT listener, recent resident of Chesterton, and proud Hoosier. I had asked him to emphasize the student “Ides of March” journals and he quotes from four of them, as well as this Editor’s Note excerpt: “Working mothers struggled with homework, jobs, and family duties, including caring for elderly parents and grandparents. Almost everyone complained of rising gas prices and food costs and worried about the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan and the military operations against Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. Primarily Education majors, they had strong opinions about the union rallies in Indianapolis and Madison, Wisconsin, to protect teachers.”

Electrical Engineers won 5 of 7 points thanks to our new guy Duke. I had pathetically few strikes but did win two of the quarter-pots. I called Bill, our captain, with the good news. He can’t drive after dark and misses coming to the alley – maybe in the spring, he said. Stayed up to see heavy metal band Mastodon do “Curl of the Burl” on Letterman. It starts out. “I killed a man ‘cause he killed my goat.” The title means something like “It’s just the way of the world.”