"We Are E.C."

“Put some cheery folderol

On every wall and every nook.

Tinsel up each corner

Till it’s Christmas everywhere you look.”

    “SparkleJollyTwinkleJingley,” from Elf: The Musical

At the Indiana Welcome Center John Davies’ South Shore Legends inducted three people into Wall of Legends.  Actor Avery Brooks grew up in Gary starred in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “Spenser: For Hire.”  Several years ago he talked at IU Northwest on the day he received an honorary degree.  Dyer native Jack Chevigny played for Knute Rockne as a blocking back at Notre Dame, was head coach for the Chicago Cardinals and University of Texas, and, a marine lieutenant during WW II, died during the battle of Iwo Jima.  Paleontologist Sue Hendrickson grew up in Munster and discovered the skeleton of a Tyannosaurus Rex known as Sue.  Steve McShane and West Side Theater director Mark Spencer spoke about Brooks at the ceremony.

I attended Discovery Charter School’s Winter Concert at Chesterton Middle School.  Grandson James was in the Glee Club and the Advanced Band, playing drums and xylophone.  His favorite song was “SparkleJollyTwinkleJingley.”  Wonder if he knows that folderol means novelty items, trifles, silly doodads or gewgaws.  Becca was also in Glee Club but was performing in a play at East Chicago Central.  Fourth graders sang “Frosty and the Hand Jive” while doing hand motions like we used to do to the Johnny Otis “Willie and the Hand Jive.”  Surveying the couple hundred people in the audience, I wondered if any had been students of mine.  In the lobby waiting for James a young woman with a middle school kid said, “Hi, Mr. Lane.”  “Good to see you,” I replied, but before I thought to ask her name, she was gone.

In his account of postwar diners Andrew Hurley mentions Steffie’s, a truckers’ rest stop in Gary, which, he writes, “was regularly subjected to vice squad raids and was ultimately shut down by the local health commissioner in 1949.”  In the footnotes Hurley mentions that he learned about Steffie’s from a Post-Trib clipping from the Philip Roosenbloom Collection of the Calumet Regional Archives.  Dr. Rosenbloom was a Gary health commissioner, and looking through his scrapbook I found the clipping, which identified Steffie’s as being located at 1439 East Ridge.  The reason for the vice squad raids was that there were slot machines and punch boards on the premises.  My guess is that Hurley made use of the Rosenbloom collection while researching his gary book “Environmental Inequalities.”  I wonder if that’s when he got the idea to do a book on diners, bowling alleys, and trailer courts.

A 20 year-old killed at least 27 people, including 18 kids, at an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut, after gunning down his own mother at home.  Only in America!  Bob Lane commented, “How many times does this have to happen before we stop selling guns?”  Cristin Donahue-Brouillard wrote, “My prayers go out to those at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Not such a happy Friday any more.”  President Obama had tears in his eyes talking about it.  Flags across the country are at half-staff.

Dave’s band Blues Cruise performed at the Camelot Lounge Friday.  The room was packed, in part because East Chicago Central teachers were there to honor James Vrehas, a special education teacher who was retiring.  The band sounded great, and Missy Brush sang numerous songs, including a Lady Gaga number that couples gratefully slow-danced to.  I danced with MaryAnn, her mom, when the band dedicated “Rockin’ in the Free World” to her, and she got me up for “Brown-Eyed Girl,” which Dave has been singing for years and that the manager requested.  Mr. Vrehas mentioned to me that his son Peter was a student of mine one summer during the 1990s, and his wife Irene, a retired English teacher, told me she was so happy that Dave invites her back to talk to his AP students about “Hamlet” and other Shakespeare plays.  A teacher named Chris Bajmakovich recognized me as someone who taught his Vietnam War course.  He recalled the books “365 Days” and “Chickenhawk” that were on the required reading list.  I had him write down his name, showed it to MaryAnn, and she said that one of her husband Tim’s best friends was a Chris Bajmakovich.  It turned out to be Chris’s cousin.  At one point Dave got the crowd to chant “We Are E.C.”

Lo and behold, when Dave introduced me to the E.C. principal, Wendell McCollum, he also turned out to be a former student.  In fact, he wrote a poignant paper about his mother, Theola Wright, that I published in my 70s Shavings.  It mentions that Wendell, born in 1974, was named for his father Willie’s best friend. Willie and Theola, whose nickname was Honey, met at a Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes concert in Chicago.  Wendell wrote that Willie’s “Arkansas accent kept her trying to hide a smile every time he spoke.”  A year later Theola gave birth to son Rodney.  The inspiration for the name came from Rodney Allen Ripple of the Burger King ads.  Theola told her son that Seventies music by such groups as Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament Funkadelic, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and the Bar-Kays set the table for everything that came after.  He wrote that she believed, “If you couldn’t do dances like the Robot, Bump, Pop, Hustle or Step, you were left watching everyone else get down.”

Several old friends are sending their Christmas cards via email.  LeeLee Devenney, looking radiant in a blue sweater, was everybody’s buddy in high school, while Rich Baker, in a plaid shirt behind wife Susan and joined by what looks to be three children and their spouses and six grandchildren, was my roomie at Bucknell for two years.  He still calls me Lanezer.

I attended “Big Joe” Petras’s twenty-second annual benefit brunch for Marquette Kids Park at Miller Pizza.  I talked with George Rogge about his great 12/12/12 party and with Steve Spicer’s son about folks, him included, who think the Rockabillies lifestyle is cool.  I told him about being in a public park in Barcelona and watched about 20 young people dancing to swing music.  “Big Joe” saw the Memorial Opera production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” that we will be seeing Sunday and gave it effusive praise.

Home in time for the IU-Butler game.  It was exciting, especially when baby-faced Yogi Ferrell hit a three-pointer to tie the game with six seconds left.  Even though IU lost in overtime, it was thoroughly enjoyable, nothing to get upset over, even though I am a Hoosier fan.

On the way to East Chicago Central for the play “A Holiday Shelter of Hope” I wasn’t aware that a right lane on Cline Avenue ended until almost too late.  That highway is a death trap, and I am not at my best behind the wheel after dark under rainy, foggy conditions.  Fortunately I was able to move over despite the heavy traffic.  Written by choir director Dr. Leon Kendrick, the musical was very moving, taking place in a homeless shelter and featuring characters wounded by terrible life experiences.  James and Becca were in a scene where kids in an orphanage watch a play about Raggedy Anne and Raggedy Andy at Chicago’s United Center.  They and other Raggedy dolls did four numbers, and both James and Becca did solos.  Because Becca sang “Tomorrow” from “Annie” so well at try-outs, Dr. Kendrick inserted her singing it into the show.  We said hello to several teachers, including Jim and Irene Vrehas, who I’d been with the previous night.  As Dr. Kendrick had written in the program, “A Holiday Shelter of Hope” was a message of love, peace, and joy.  With more than 40 talented cast members to deal with, hats off to him for putting it all together and pulling it off in such a professional way. 

 Becca and James Lane with Dr. Leon Kendrick