How to Live - Forgive

“What a great big world

I better find some way to explain it

Guess what, you’re getting old

You still gotta grow up.”

    “How To Live,” Band of Horses”

At Jordan's wedding Charles Halberstadt asked what I’ve been listening to lately.  Band of Horses, I told him, as well as Green Day.  “How to Live” sounds a lot like the Jayhawks.  What a show that would be if those great bands toured together.

At lunch at the Redhawk Café, Anne was worried about her tenure case.  How anyone could have it in for her is beyond me.  She’s the best thing to happen for IU Northwest since Jerry Pierce.  Some colleagues attended a free lunch in Morraine to discuss ideas for the green area where Tamarack once stood.  One person afterwards compared it to a time-shares meal where you were expected to put in your time for your burger, chips, and drink, only it was for a good cause.

Katie Turk emailed  great photos of the Kingsbury Ordnance Plant during World War II that she used in her Indiana Magazine of History article.  

I thanked her and told her I’d forward them to CRA archivist Steve McShane.  They originally appeared in William P. Vogel’s “Kingsbury: A Venture in Teamwork” (1946).  The subtitle is misleading since the black women were forced to endure racist conditions that were quite humiliating.

For my California trip I’m packing a World Almanac Phil gave me covering 50 years of American sports even though for 1980 there was no mention of the Phillies winning the World Series.  The big story was the U.S. men’s hockey “Miracle on Ice,” but the Ray Leonard – Roberto Duran “No Mas” fight got coverage as well as Wayne Gretzky’s rookie MVP year and Gordie Howe’s 800th goal.  The only mention of baseball was George Brett batting .390 after being over .400 most of the season.

In the latest “Boardwalk Empire” episode Al Capone beats a rival to a pulp and then goes home and sings a sweet lullaby to Al, Junior, known as Sonny, his mostly deaf kid, while playing the mandolin.  In real life Sonny was born with congenital syphilis that “Scarface Al” had caught years before and became partially deaf at age seven after a brain operation.

I met Bill Pelke at Country Lounge.  With him was Cathy Johnson, an old friend of his who took a class with me a few years ago.   Bill is going to donate his papers to the archives, which includes materials about organizations he’s belonged to that are advocating abolition of the death penalty, including Journey of Hope . . .From Violence to Healing.  Afterwards I gave him a tour of the archives, and when Steve McShane asked him what he wanted to name the collection, he got choked up answering Ruth E. Pelke, his grandmother who was murdered three decades ago.  In talking to him I could tell that he genuinely forgave the teenage girls who stabbed her to death. Bill lives near Anchorage and showed me photos of moose in his backyard.

Frank Shufran asked me to bowl in his place because his sister-in-law passed away.  I agreed even though I need to get up at 4:45 to catch the airport bus to O’Hare for my trip to Palm Springs.

Former football great and “Webster” star Alex Karras passed away.  Al Hamnik’s Times column today mentioned that his vital functions were failing, and I actually learned about it from Roy Boomhower, who emailed that he included a brief mention of his death at the end of my Traces article about him due out next month.  The Emerson grad was sui generis and friendly to me when I phoned him last year even though he admitted he wouldn’t be much help to me since he had Alzheimer’s like so many veterans of his sport.