End of the Line

“Trains don’t run forever

Fire goes out sometime.”

    “End of the Line,” J.J. Cale

The J.J. Cale CD David Elliott burned for me contains 25 songs, concluding with “End of the Line.”  It is about the demise of a relationship, but some of the lyrics have resonance for aging geezers.  The CD is on heavy rotation with Phoenix, The Used, Band of Horses and Jimmy Eat World.

 “Recount” is a chilling account of how Florida election officials stole the 2000 election for G.W. Bush.  Prior to the election, Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered a purge of thousands of registered voters who may or may not have been convicted felons; many innocent people were subsequently prevented from voting.  Elderly Jewish voters unintentionally cast votes for third party candidate Patrick Buchanan due to misleading “butterfly” ballots.  Defying the Florida Supreme Court, Republicans torpedoed completion of a recount.  Then the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, made a mockery of equal protection civil rights laws to halt any further recounts.  In charge of the Republican operation, former Secretary of State James Baker (played by Tom Wilkinson), told his minions, “this is a street fight.”  Al Gore’s wimpy lieutenant, Warren Christopher (John Hurt) wasn’t ruthless enough. Terming what happened in Florida a “lamentable fiasco,” critic Roger Ebert excoriates the Republicans’ “jaw dropping” tactics while ridiculing Christopher’s allegation that the system worked because “there were no tanks in the streets.”  Laura Dern, Ebert wrote, was mesmerizing as Katherine Harris, telling aides, “Ten years ago I was teaching the chicken dance to seniors, and now I’ve been thrust into a political tempest of historic dimensions.”

Going into the final hand of bridge with the Hagelbergs Saturday Cheryl, my partner, trailed Dick by 340 points.  I bid and made five diamonds to enable Cheryl to win, and I edged past Dick for second. 

Ron’s chapter on folk music roots mentioned Mamie Smith, whose recording in 1920 on Okeh of “Crazy Blues,” composed by Perry Bradford, was path breaking. “Crazy Blues” sold over a million copies, interesting record companies in other African-American performers.  In 1994 the Grammy Hall of Fame committee honored the song for its historical significance.   Dubbed “Queen of the Blues,” Mamie toured the vaudeville circuit as headliner for Mamie Smith’s “Struttin’ Along Review.” Prior to her death in 1946 at age 63, Mamie appeared in several movies, beginning in 1939 with “Paradise in Harlem.”  The success of “Crazy Blues” paved the way for the more famous “Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith.  When Leon Redbone put out a cover version, he mumbled the following verse, obscuring the lyrics: “I'm gonna do like a Chinaman, go and get some hop/ Get myself a gun, and shoot myself a cop/ I ain't had nothin' but bad news/ Now I've got the crazy blues.” 

above, Mamie Smith, below, Bayer party at Round the Clock

Fifteen of us brunched at Round the Clock in Chesterton Sunday.  Mike and Janet Bayer were in town visiting Brendan’s family. In the old days a cloud of cigarette would have settled above our heads as we discussed politics, but thankfully none of us smokes and restaurants don’t allow it.  Janet would like to move back to Indiana, but Michael prefers where they are in Vermont.  Recovering from throat cancer, Mike joked that he didn’t lose what hair he still has on the top of his head but doesn’t have to shave near his chin because that’s where the chemo was concentrated.  Janet toasted Hoosiers for rejecting Tea Party Senate candidate Mourdock, thanks in part to union efforts and voters, especially women, taking offense to by his statements about it being God’s will if rape victims became pregnant. Mike, Oz, and I talked about radical longshoremen’s union leader Harry Bridges, most famous for organizing on the San Francisco docks but also influential in helping workers in Hawaii.  Mike blamed United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther for the defeat of President Harry Truman’s proposal for national health insurance, which would have been much more comprehensive than Obamacare.  Reuther shortsightedly thought he could get a better deal for his members.

In an effort to retrieve old files stored on zip disks, I attempted to use an Iomega drive that I attached to my computer.  When that failed, I tried one at the IT HELP desk.  Again, no luck.  Finally Steve suggested I try an ancient Archives computer that had an old-fashioned hard drive that accepted zip diisks.  Voila!  Success.

In her Traces article about the segregation of Gary’s parks, Tiffany Tolbert focused on an incident that occurred at Marquette Park on July 1, 1953.  When a group of black women went to the park, a policeman warned them that people might take offense and that he would not protect them.  Later, as they prepared to leave, they noticed that their tires had been flattened.  A number of white youths surrounded them, and one woman was slapped.  Clifford E. Minton of the Gary Urban League protested to Mayor Peter Mandich and Police Chief John F. Foley.  In response the city administration promised protection for any African Americans who wanted to use the Marquette Park facilities.  Incidents continued into the 196s, but Minton’s action resulted in city officials being on record in opposition to segregation at the beach.

Thanks to Andre Johnson’s 33 points, I fared better in Fantasy Football than the CBS Sports pool, where I foolishly predicted an Indianapolis upset in New England and that Lions would prevail at home against Green Bay.  Bob Lane needed a monster game from Frank Gore, and although San Francisco slaughtered the Bears, my receivers Crabtree and Daniels got more points than their star running back.

Fifty years ago the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to produce a nuclear catastrophe.  A year later this week JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  A student at Bucknell, I entered the house in Lewisburg where I rented a room and the landlady’s TV soap had been interrupted with the announcement that the President had been shot.  Initially I didn’t realize it was serious, but all too soon came the unconfirmed report that he was dead.  That evening at Women’s Cafeteria, where I was bussing dishes, many coeds were in tears.  It’s hard to believe he’d be in his mid-90s if still alive. 

There’s been a run on Twinkies because Hostess is threatening to declare bankruptcy rather than come to terms with union workers.  Tom Wade wrote” “The Twinkie Quest from the movie “Zombieland” was supposed to be fiction, right?  Now that it is reality, how much longer until the zombie apocalypse?”  Wife Darcey wrote: “Hostess made 2.5 BILLION last year – their CEO made 18 MILLION – and they can’t afford worker’s health care.  Sickening.

OMG (as Tweeters put it), Bettie Erhardt is a great-grandmother.  In writing about my fiftieth h.s. reunion, I said she was “still hot to trot,” which she took as a compliment, as it was intended.  I think she may be a Republican, like so many former classmates I’m in touch with, such as Phil Arnold, Wayne Wylie, and Mary Delp, but at least Gaard Murphy, Bob Wolf, and LeeLee Minehart are “in leftfield” (as Skip Pollard put it) with me.

Bettie Erhardt and her great-grandkid