And So It Goes

The dawn delivers me life.
New skins in which to hide.
My hands reach daily,
New life in me remain.
For Love Not Lisa, “Slip Slide Melting”

Instead of getting hit with six to ten inches of snow from a storm passing through Chicagoland, the temp in Chesterton stayed in the 30s and the snow mostly melted when it landed in the streets. At the Westchester Historical Museum I found a eulogy for Alice Gray (Diana of the Dunes) in the March 1925 Prairie Club Bulletin, which noted that “her fresh spirit and fair-mindedness left its impress, incorrigible individualist though she was. She knew every native plant and animal, every mood and color of lake and dune.” A loose-leaf notebook about Alice that contained excerpts from “City of the Century” as well as my “Lake Michigan Tales” Shavings.

A “Final Jeopardy” question for the category “Literary Biography” asked who was the subject of Charles Shields’s “And So It Goes.” Being a big Kurt Vonnegut fan, I would have nailed it. In fact, a recent issue of TRACES contained an article by Shields about the author of “Slaughterhouse Five.” None of the contestants, teachers all, knew the answer, perhaps because Vonnegut’s masterpiece is frequently censored due to use of the “m.f.” word.

Chuck Gallmeier congratulated me on my TRACES article “Every Tub on its Own Bottom” about Carlton Hatcher and on turning 70. Tom Dietz called from Indy, Alissa from Grand Rapids, and Fred McColly from work. Among the Facebook birthday messages was “may your cheese be ever binding” from Jef Halberstadt, paraphrasing a remark of my dad’s – “that makes the cheese more binding” - I frequently make when a board game takes an unexpected turn and that others have adopted. Niece Andrea’s hubby Nick Licata emailed: “Hope you are celebrating and enjoying life, which seems to come easily to you and that is a gift that you give others through your ready smile.” Nice. Terry Jenkins passed along a joke about guys going to a restaurant every ten years, starting in their 20s because the beer was cheap and the girls cute, in their 50s because of their good wine list, in their 60s because there was an early bird special, in their 70s because the food wasn’t too spicy and it was handicapped accessible, and finally in their 80s because (in their minds at least) they had never been there.

I decided my article about football great Alex Karras needing some mention of his Gary Emerson coach. Here’s what I added: “Art Rolfe was a shrewd judge of football talent and relished yet another Karras brother entering his program. The 60 year-old Minnesotan had starred in three sports at Carleton College and had run Emerson’s football program since 1928. Many of his players obtained college football scholarships, including Rocco Schiralli at Notre Dame, Tom Kuzma at Michigan, and Tulane’s Pete Mandich, who was elected mayor of Gary in 1951.”

Grandson James rolled his best game ever, a 114 in his Saturday morning league at Camelot Lanes in Portage, where I won a jacket 17 years ago on a team with Dave, Kevin Horn, and Tom Dick. After each ball he’d look back at us for support. After a bad frame, Dave would say, “Remember, we’re here to have fun.” One of the coaches, John English, graduated with Phil. His mother was very active in the girl scouts, and we talked about dipshit Republican legislator Bob Morris, who recently called the organization radical, pro-abortion, and harboring lesbians and feminists.

In for my birthday Phil was reading “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, which I borrowed for an hour and found irresistible. Color me hooked. The main character is Katniss, named for an edible aquatic plant and certain to be one of the top new girls names of 2012. Number one in 2011 was Charlotte, no surprise, but in second was Seraphina. Ben Afflick and Jennifer Garner started the trend by naming their kid Seraphina. Spent quality time with Diamond and the grandkids and played pinochle before catching SNL, hosted by Charlie Day, on an FX sitcom I’ve never seen called “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

In “Chronicles” Dylan mentions playing at a Minnesota state fair when wrestler Gorgeous George came through with his entourage. Hardly anyone had been paying attention to Dylan but George made eye contact, winked, and mouthed, “You’re making it happen.” When I was a kid and wrestling was a TV staple, lady, midget, and Indian performers were fun, but Gorgeous George was the greatest showman of them all.

Gamed at the condo prior to a birthday lunch at Appleby’s. Our party of 18 included Hagelbergs and Wades, who came in with a dozen balloons plus gave me the board game Revolution and a compilation CD Tom made of clever songs by Garfunkel and Oates and Jonathan Coulton. I especially love Coulton’s “Code Monkey (“very simple man with big warm fuzzy secret heart”) and “Still Alive (“there’s no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep trying till you run out of cake”).

Billy Crystal, back hosting Oscars after eight years, did a routine where he juxtaposed himself in scenes from “The Descendents” and other nominated movies as he sings a parody about the nine flicks. “The Artist” was the big winner of the night. I was disappointed that Martin Scorsese didn’t win for “Hugo” and Jonah Hill for “Moneyball” (he lost out to 82 year-old Christopher Plummer playing a gay guy in “Beginners”) Sacha Baron Cohen, who should have been nominated for his role as train station inspector in “Hugo” showed up in a huge black beard dressed as “The Dictator.”

Inside the Alamo on February 27, 1836, diarist Davy Crockett wrote: “The cannonading began early this morning, and ten bombs were thrown into the fort, but fortunately exploded without doing any mischief. So far it has been a sort of tempest in a teapot, not unlike a pitched battle in the Hall of Congress.” He was spoiling for a fight with Santa Anna. A week later Crockett, who served three terms as Congressman from Tennessee, was dead.

Alan Barr showed the 1971 Jane Fonda movie “Klute,” about a prostitute who helps detective Tom Klute (Donald Sutherland) solve a missing person case. There were cool cameos by Jean Stapleton (Edith Bunker in “All in the Family”) and Candy Darling (from Andy Warhol’s Factory) as well as brief glimpses of Teri Garr and Sylvester Stallone. The class was asked to write an essay on how “Klute” separates sex from love and to what purpose. She tells Klute she never comes with Johns but in the end, presumably sexually fulfilled, goes back to Pennsylvania with him. Afterwards I told Alan it was cool seeing Edith Bunker. He looked puzzled, probably because he didn’t hear me, but is it possible he never watched “All in the Family”?

Someone sent me “Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory-Town.” I thought it was a mistake – that someone else had ordered it via inter-library loan. Anne Koehler examined it and discovered it was a discarded book from the Gary Public Library. Someone must have retrieved it for me. But who? Ron Cohen? Recently Ron talked me into writing the FBI to request files on William Marshall using the Freedom of Information Act as justification. A letter from the Justice Department directed me to write to the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD. A runaround perhaps?