Approaching 70

“I wanna scream,
I want you all to know,
I would be runnin’
But my feets’ too slow.”
“Huey “Piano” Smith, “Rockin Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu”

For Fat Tuesday (the English translation of Mardi Gras), the day before the beginning of Lent, WXRT played New Orleans songs. Two I heard in the car were “Mess Around” by Dr. John and “Rockin Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” by Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns. In high school I had all Huey’s records including “We Like Birdland” and “Well I’ll Be John Brown.” Had I listened longer, I’m sure I’d have heard Fats Domino and Clarence “Frogman” Henry (who I saw perform at his nightclub). In 2003 Marie Grosskurth brought me back a lei made with beads from New Orleans that someone in the Marti Gras parade threw her way.

The Winter 2012 issue of TRACES has Gary native Karl Malden on the cover and my article on Mayor Hatcher’s father, “Every Tub on its Own Bottom: The Odyssey of Carlton Hatcher” in the Black History News and Notes section. Editor Ray Boomhower did another splendid job and is sending me a half-dozen extra copies for the Hatcher family.

After numerous complaints, the history department got rid of a new part-timer who was obnoxious belittling students. They’ll pay him for the balance of the semester so he doesn’t make trouble. Until a replacement arrives Jonathyne Briggs is teaching the class and his own three back to back to back to back. With Anne Balay in Philadelphia giving a talk at Haverford College, Thursday lunch is off.

Every time I reach a milestone birthday I think of someone ten years older who is doing well. At age 30 it was Psychology prof Frank Lowe, at 40 neighbor Chuck Bernsten, at 50 flamboyant Little Richard, at 60 diplomatic historian Walter LaFeber. About to turn 70, I take solace that former local TV anchorman Tom Higgins is still writing area histories and am pleased contemporaries Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan are still doing creative things.

On Chuck Todd’s “First Read” the question of the day was what did George Washington, Teddy Kennedy, and David Axelrod have in common. The obvious answer: birthdays on February 22. I share mine, February 24, with “Hiawatha” poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Steve Jobs (would have been turning 57), and rocker George Thorogood (62). Unctuous Joe Lieberman was born the exact same day as I.

Talked on the phone with sister-in-law Marianne Okomski, who is having a knee replacement. It took eight weeks for me to recover from mine enough to get around and teach effectively. Still I’m glad I had it done even if it meant the end of my tennis career.

I was a guest on a WJPN Gary TV talk show hosted by Sergeant Louis Stewart, who is at least ten years my senior and who for 22 years brought distinction to Roosevelt’s junior ROYC program. I plugged my Gary books, the Archives, Steel Shavings, my blog, TRACES magazine, and even my upcoming fall course. I mentioned that a former student, David Janott, discovered my blog and returned a book he had borrowed 40 years ago. Asked how I like to write, I said I did a draft during the day and then took it home, popped a beer, and revised it.

Preceding me was Gary School Board treasurer Alesia Pritchett, who discussed the devastating effect budget cuts and tax caps have had on summer programs and other needs. Governor Mitch Daniels refuses to release any of the $320 million in found money despite having cut almost that much last year in education funding supposedly to shore up the budget surplus that has reached $1.6 billion. On his wife’s orders Sarge bought a copy of “Gary’s First Hundred Years” for Alesia. “How much?” he asked. “For today, ten dollars,” I replied. He insisted on giving me full price, 15 dollars.

According to Jerry Davich, steelworkers are up a dying co-worker’s 1970 VW bug to satisfy a buddy’s dying wish. Back in the 1970s when I first came to Gary, you were risking your foreign car's life if you drove it onto the U.S. Steel parking lot.

Opposed to federal subsidies for electric-powered cars, Newt Gingrich sneered, “You can’t put a gun rack on a Volt.” A guy named J.T. McDole proved him wrong.

In bowling the Electrical Engineers took one game from Wild Thang, whose lead-off man James Cyprian is the nephew of former labor union boss Phil Cyprian. Though right-handed, his ball behaves like a left-hander’s. In return for a solar system t-shirt I gave an astronomy buff last week, Mike and Johnny presented me with two in return, one having to do with “The Big Bang Theory” (Toni’s favorite show and suitable for her wearing it as a nightie) and the other from Déjà Vu, a local strip club. They expect me to wear it next week when we bowl against them.

Stayed up long enough to catch Heartless Bastards on Letterman. Singer Erika Wennerstrom claims their name came from a Mega Touch trivia quiz where it was one of the bogus answers for Tom Petty’s backup band and a take-off on Heartbreakers.