Independence Day

“I would like to salute

The ashes of American flags

And all the fallen leaves

Filling up shopping bags.”

    Wilco, “Ashes of American Flags”

I finally got around to watching the WILCO documentary “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” that Jonathan Briggs lent me.  It was so good I think I’ll show it to Seattle Joe during his visit.  What a haunting song “Ashes” is, decrying America’s consumer society.  Are the fallen leaves a reference to soldiers in body bags, I wonder?

In an article entitled “He is called a Region Rat,” published in the 2011 issue of South Shore Journal Tracy L. Rongers wrote about Eastern European grandparents living in Glen Park during the 1970s, when it was, briefly, culturally and racially diverse, if not harmonious.  The grandfather, according to Rongers, hated everyone equally and was fond of saying “Gary ain’t even safe to fly over” or “Don’t ever eat at a Greek restaurant, they pick food off the floor and serve it.”  His grandson would steal rhubarb from the gardens of old ladies, who’d “run out in house coats with their hair in rollers and covered with a scarf or native babushka, wielding broom and cursing in some foreign tongue.”

Rongers continued: “Back in the day, his grandparents would throw the biggest parties on the Fourth of July.  What seemed like two hundred people filled their home playing Pinochle and Kismet.  He had learned to play the complicated card game of trump and betting at a very early age and his grandpa would always give him nickels to join in the fun.  Kismet was a dice game of chance, which his grandma would describe as a reminder of her gypsy roots. At least eight tables of games were being played inside while outside a dozen chickens were roasting on a spit hovering above a small trench in the yard filled with charcoal.  The men gathered around the roasting lamb and tended to the chicken.  Whiskey and wine flowed!  The women were lined up in sunbathing chairs with big colorful earrings and sunglasses and stripped bikinis. Everyone held a small American flag.  When he visited the house last year to clean out the remnants of all those family memories, his daughter found one of those small American flags and he remembered that day as he did now.”

On George Bodmer’s recommendation I took Toni to see “Moonrise Kingdom,” a delightful fairy tale of young romance with bang-up supporting performances by Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, and Harvey Keitel. In the only make-out scene the young couple French kiss and then Suzy tells Sam he can touch her breasts, adding that she thinks they are going to get bigger.  As they embrace, she says, “I think it’s hard.”  Sam: “Does that bother you?”  Suzy: “I like it.”  The scene is comedic rather than creepy or smarmy.  A highlight is a local production of Benjamin Britten’s “Noye’s Fludde” (Noah’s Flood), with Suzy dressed as a raven, a harbinger of the nor’easter that will inundate the island.

On July Fourth, before going to Hagelbergs for barbeque and bridge, I watched several “Revolution” episodes on the so-called History Channel, which airs “Swamp People,” “Mountain Men,” Shark Wrangler,” and “Cajun Pawn Stars”  (before it was WW II, Kennedys, and disasters). When some Iroquois tribes sided with the British, Washington ordered a scorched earth campaign against villages worse than Sherman’s March through Georgia 85 years later.  While generally accurate and utilizing thoughtful snippets from top-notch historians, the series had its hokey moments and used several identical scenes – a soldier mending his uniform, wealthy Loyalists at a ball, a fallen Patriot – more than once.  The same bewigged actors, for example, were dancing in Philadelphia in 1776 and Charleston in 1779.  It examines how George Washington dealt with challenges to his authority from Charles Lee and other generals and how close he came on several occasions to being killed. 

With Joe coming in soon from Seattle, I was ready to buy a GPS.  Garmin is the most popular brand, but I really liked the Magellon Neverlost that Hertz uses.  Corey at Best Buy explained that the Garmin Nuvi 2555 for $199 has all their features, so he put one aside for me and gave me a two-minute instruction when I went there after having lunch with Sheriff Dominguez to celebrate the publication of “Valor” and autograph some copies, including one to Evan Bayh, who contributed the Foreword.  

Roy informed me that Indiana University Press has also released the hard book on Kindle.  He’s hoping we can have the first book-signing event at IUN.  The car thermometer recorded 110 degrees when I left Gino’s before dropping five degrees by the time I reached Best Buy.  The heat wave has blanketed the eastern half of the nation.

In the Post-Trib IUN emeritus professor of Education John Ban pointed out the irony of Mitch Daniels becoming president of Purdue after he questioned whether the cost of a college education was worth it.  Ban wrote: “If Daniels truly were an educator, he would know that people go to college for many reasons.  Job preparation is the main one, but it is not the only one.  They go to college to mature and discover what the world is all about.  They go to college to learn how to get along with people and find pathways to contribute to society.  They also go to college to learn about the arts and deepen their appreciation of man’s most noble ideas.  Higher education is the universe that inspires young people to think, analyze, and acquire insights onto our and the world’s culture.  It broadens their vision of what they can be and what their country can be.”

New acquisition (from Boston) Kevin Youkilis has driven in the winning run against Texas two days in a row, assuring that the White Sox will be in first place at All-Star break.  Leading the NL Central: the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Pittsburgh Dave Lane is ecstatic.