How the Night Moves

“Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose.”
“Night Moves,” Bob Seger

The songs from 1962 that I hum sometimes are “If I Had a Hammer” by Peter, Paul, and Mary and “Loco-Motion” by Little Eva. One taught me social consciousness, the other soul. WDRV “The Drive” has album day once a month where you actually hear dead space between songs. Driving to and fro, I heard bits of Led Zeppelin Supertramp, Billy Joel, John Mellancamp, the Stones, and Bob Seger. The breakout 1976 LP (long-playing) record “Night Moves” starts with “Rock and Roll Never Forgets.” Seger’s songs often deal with loss of innocence and the passage of time – in other words, social history.

Christine Hinchman wants help finding the name of an African-American woman who danced at Chicago festivals like Taste of Chicago and Country Music Fest. Christine wrote: “She was really tiny and wore amazing outfits - I remember one in particular, a suit made out of faux cowhide. I actually met her a couple times. I worked at the Borders on State Street and she came in to order books that mentioned her. Turns out she had been a fairly well known stripper/ 'exotic dancer' in Gary back in the 60's at one of the clubs the Jackson 5 worked at. They had opened for her and we did find books that verified her story.” All I could help her with was give her the name and address of a Gary club, Mr. Lucky’s Lounge, where the Jackson (and strippers) performed.

I finished my South Shore Journal article, “The Dune-Faun: Diana of the Dunes’ Male Counterpart” after another visit to Westchester Museum. Eva Hopkins found me an article by A. F. Knotts about George Blagg, the so-called “Hermit of the Dunes.” Just a teenager during the Civil War, Bragg lived off his military pension plus whatever he could grow, pick, raise, catch or panhandle. A bit crazy, he feared that anarchists were after him but loved children and animals. Steve McShane made jpegs of Dale Fleming’s drawing of Blagg plus Earl Reed’s etchings of dunes characters Happy Cal and Catfish John to go with the nude but tasteful sketches of Diana and the Dune-Faun.

For an exhibit I’m planning with Steve Ray Boomhower sent a half-dozen past issues of Traces with covers of relevance to Northwest Indiana - Tom Harmon, Octave Chanute, Tony Zale, an Inland Steel mill, Michael Jackson, and a South Shore poster. Maybe my Alex Karras article, assuming Ray likes it, will rate the cover story treatment. I picked up a dozen family photos from Ted and Anna Karras, including one of Yia Yia (grandmother) Sophia and a studio shot of him, wife Susan Clark and “Webster” kid Emmanuel Lewis.

Time passes. Fifty years ago Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game played in Hershey, PA. There were no three-point baskets and players only got one free throw for a non-shooting foul. Brother-in-law Sonny Okomski swears he saw the game on TV although I’ve read the game was not televised. Wilt, a seven-footer, went to Overbrook, the same Philly high school as Fred Chary. I once saw him play for the Philadelphia Warriors against Boston. John Havlicek fouled him hard and Chamberlain started after him. Havlicek wanted no part of it.

My old high school English teacher Delphine Vandling died at age 99. Her daughter came across something I wrote about her on my blog and notified me. A classy lady, she loved reading poems and Shakespeare to us. And so it goes. I hope her eyesight and mental faculties remained until the very end.

I started proofreading Sheriff Dominguez’s autobiography “Valor.” The PDF version arrived electronically and the copy that we’ll mark up is supposed to arrive by FedEx mail on Monday. It’s pretty clean except for one thing that could have been major but that can be easily fixed.

I took in my annual basketball game with Dave, a Sectional battle at Gary West Side between East Chicago and Lake Central. Glenn Robinson III scored 27 points in leading Lake Central to victory. It was close until the final eight minutes. The Cardinals had a flashy freshman named Hyron Edwards that Division One coaches are already recruiting, but Coach Dave MIlausnic put Robinson on him and he didn’t score after that. In the front row with his ever-present scorebook, as always, was Louis Vasquez, author of “Weasal,” whose grandson was a student of Dave’s. Referee Mike Waisnora was officiating 35 years ago when the kids and I were rooting for Gary Emerson. It was fun seeing Dave interact with students and watching the Lake Central fans rocking out to music being belted out on huge speakers. Afterwards at Wing Wahs I just had a bowl of Won Ton soup and an order of pan fried noodles with extra onions but still couldn’t finish all of it. There was a time when all the staff recognized me; now they all know Dave.

A major storm dropped snow to the north and unleashed tornados south of us that killed over 39 people. We got rain, wind, and snow flurries. Knock on wood that winter is pretty much behind us. On Today were shots of Henryville, Indiana, virtually wiped out. One stunned resident talked about losing everything. It’s hard to imagine what that would be like. The worst would be the photo albums.

At Camelot Lanes James broke one hundred again. Teammate Ethan, wearing a cool Brazil soccer shirt, threw a ball that hooked to the left. Madalyn rarely bothered to watch her ball hit the pins but instead came back to where her grandparents were.

I proofread a PDF of “Valor” at school that IU Press editor Nancy Lightfoot sent and notified Sheriff Dominguez that the page proofs that we’re to mark up will be arriving via Fed Ex on Monday. Had a nice dinner and bridge evening with the Hagelbergs. I wore the Kidstuff Playstation shirt he gave me for my seventieth birthday.

After playing the normal trio of Amun Re, St. Pete, and Acquire, we got in a couple games of Revolution, which Dave hadn’t played before. I won the second one by using the strategy Tom employed successfully in the previous contest.

Sunday’s Post-Trib carried a sweet column by Carrol Vertrees about turning 90. Jeff Manes interviewed mental health advocate Mary Hodson. She works a suicide hotline and talked about her teenage son taking his own life. Jeff told her that he came real close to killing himself with a shotgun at that age. It must have been an emotional interview. At noon Manes showed up at the condo to interview Dave for a future column.

At L.A. Nails the lady who cut my toenails wore a mask, something that never happened before. Why, I wonder? A new policy? Foot odor? Fear of germs?

For several years the defensive coach of the New Orleans Saints paid bounties to players who knocked opponents out of the game. The player got more for a “cart off” or if the victim was the quarterback. Evidently the head coach and general, manager knew about it. The team had been warned and told to stop the practice. The league is expected to come down hard on those involved now that lawsuits are piling about involving former players maimed on the field of play.