Jesus Is Just Alright

“I don’t care what they may say

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah.”

    Doobie Brothers

I put on The Doobie Brothers’ Great Hits CD to hear “China Grove” but really dig “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me.”  First recorded in 1966 by the Art Reynolds Singers, the Byrds released a version in 1969 and the Doobies recorded it in 1972 even though the band members weren’t particularly religious.  As one told a reporter, however, what’s the point in being an atheist and believing that once you die, that’s it?  It became a crowd favorite at concerts, and hippies in the Jesus Movement took the “just alright” to mean cool, as in someone who cares about the poor, the sick, and others considered losers by the larger society.

In the social history of IU Northwest that Paul Kern and I produced one of my first students, Milan Andrejevich, recalled that because his parents took lots of vacations, he’d have parties while they were gone, resulting on one occasion in a blown speaker that I was complicit in causing.  “Lane loved to dance,” he said, “and was always trying to put on the Doobie Brothers’ ‘China Grove.’”

Talk about coincidences.  Colin Kern asked his Facebook friends to copy the fifth sentence from p.52 of the book they’re reading.  On that page in “Valor” Roy Dominguez and I quote from “Educating the Calumet Region,” the Shavings issue I did with Colin’s father, where Donald Young is quoted as saying this about the IU Northwest Police Chief who mentored the future Lake County sheriff: “Chief Andy Lazar made you realize that mistakes happened but that one should learn from them.”  Paul Kern posted this sentence: "While I was carrying on this debate in my own mind, a crowd of Spaniards arrived, led by their major-domo, who, with the headstrong rashness of his race, bade them go in and take the vase and give me a good beating."

Tuesday felt like autumn, and fewer IU Northwest students were showing bare midriffs, legs, and arms.  In the Student Union party games were in progress, including two folks playing Twister.  When Milton Bradley put out the game in 1966, critics accused the company of marketing sex in a box.  Indeed at parties where women wore mini-skirts the pretzel-like gyrations could be quite revealing.  Now a half-century later it has acquired respectability and is enjoyed by all ages. 

The Business Division free barbeque featured hot dogs, burgers, chips, cookies, and pop.  In line were my Tuesday lunch buddies, and I chatted with Anne Balay’s daughter Emma about her New Zealand experiences as an extra in “The Hobbitt.”  She attended Anne’s Gender Studies class on “The New Momism” (the myth that women are only truly fulfilled through motherhood) and Tiger Mothers (a phrase from Amy Chua’s tough love handbook “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Vying with stories about Romney’s latest political gaffe (insinuating at a private fundraiser that the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes are freeloaders) and anti-American riots in the Arab world from Libya to Pakistan is the furor over the French magazine Closer publishing photos of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Windsor, sunbathing topless.  The Royal family is threatening to sue even as Kate and her hubby, the heir to the British throne tour Malaysia seemingly unfazed by it all. Nude photos of Prince Harry cavorting with Los Vegas party girls recently were making the rounds.  Those Royals love to get naked.

Tom Higgins’s daughter Nancy asked friends to send him happy eightieth birthday wishes.  Here is what I’ve written: “As I’ve gotten older, I have made a special point to seek out for inspiration folks ten years my senior, who are still active in the community and doing vital things.  You are certainly one of those people, writing histories of Gary schools and contributing to the Calumet Regional Archives in efforts to preserve regional history.  I am especially grateful for your support of Steel Shavings, both for your autobiographical essays about Holy Angels, Horace Mann, your radio career and a close-call boating mishap, and in having me on television to plug the magazine.  My son Philip directed one of those appearances on Channel 56, and it was a joy being on several shows with you and Wally McCormick, who never failed to ask what I thought of returning to a single-class basketball tournament. A true mentor, you have labored well in the service of Clio, the muse of history.  Keep on truckin’.”

The “Hig-man,” as I called Tom, has a ready smile and an endless repertoire of anecdotes and jokes. He was a big fan of zany Spike Jones, whose City Slicker Band did satirical takes on popular tunes of the day using cowbells, whistles, gunshots and weird vocals.  My parents were fans, and I recall as a kid hearing him on the radio at breakfast.  Jones had an original number 1 hit in 1947 with “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.”

The season premier of HBO’s “Broadway Empire” takes place on New Year’s Eve 1922 with characters portraying crooner Eddie Cantor, gangster Al Capone, and Warren G. Harding’s corrupt Attorney-General Harry Daugherty.  There’s mention of a Harriet Duncan, a composite of aviatrix pioneers Harriet Quimby and Amelia Earhart, attempting to fly across the U.S.  Disgraced FBI agent Michael Shannon (Michael Shannon) is now a door-to-door salesman mouthing French guru Emile Coué’s mantra, “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”

In my intro to Sheriff Roy Dominguez’s Soup and Substance talk I mentioned how Sociology professor Bob Lovely set up special Saturday study sessions to ensure that students understood the course content. Roy sometimes attended, even when he didn’t have to, because they were so interesting.  Others at IUN who provided invaluable help to him were Elsa Rivera in Special Services, Chief Lazar, and Communications professor Camille Schuster.  Student Life director Scott Fulk put up large signs of the cover of “Valor” and provided beef vegetable and cream of broccoli soup.  About 30 folks attended, including buddies Ron Cohen and Steve McShane, John Attinasi (former head of UTEP), Mike Olszanski of Labor Studies, Minority Studies prof Raoul Contreras, and Anne and Emma Balay.  Roy was charming and eloquent, and the five copies of his book went fast.  Roy’s media consultant Manuel Corazzari videotaped the program, moving around to capture different angles and crowd shots, and will put the finished product on YouTube.

 Got a chuckle out of George Bodmer’s latest’s Oscar cartoon.  Just as a neighbor helped him with a sledgehammer, George came to my aid years ago when I was having trouble operating a jack while changing a flat tire.  After a miserable bowling night I stayed up for Band of Horses performing “Knock, Knock” on Letterman from their new CD “Mirage Rock.”