Margate Sands

“I may be crazy

But it might just be a lunatic you’re looking for.”

    “You May be Right,” Billy Joel

“Margate Sands,” the finale of “Boardwalk Empire,” saw Nucky outsmart his gangster adversaries, including Gyp Rosetti, who before dying at the hands of Tennino, his own lieutenant, was singing these lines from Billy Rose’s 1923 hit “Barney Google (with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes)” – “Barney Google bet his horse would win the prize.  When the horses ran that day, Spark Plug ran the other way.” Similarly, Rosetti’s horses – or shock troops provided by Masseria -  bailed on him before being ambushed by forces led by crazy Al Capone, who is puffing on a cigar and obviously enjoying a rush as he blasts away, then says, “Well, I got that outa my system.”  A corrupt cop claims he picked up his neck scar from a stabbing in an area of Mulberry Bend called Bandit’s Roust – a place Jacob Riis wrote about in “How the Other Half Lives.”  While there is a Margate Sands near Atlantic City, it’s also a location near Kent, England, that T.S. Eliot referenced in his “Lost Generation” poem “The Waste Land.”  Eliot wrote in 1922: “On Margate Sands.  I can connect nothing with nothing.  The broken fingernails of dirty hands.  My people humble people who expect nothing.  La la.”

There were two winners of the record $587 million Powerball jackpot.  The winning numbers matched the retired numbers of Kansas City Royals stars George Brett, Bo Jackson, Dennis Leonard, Mark Gubicza, Dan Quisenberry, and Willie Wilson.  Although winner Mark Hill is a big Royals fan, he claims the numbers got picked for him at random.

Recuperating over the weekend, I watched a documentary about YouTube celebrity Chris Crocker entitled “Meet Me at the Zoo.”  Defining himself as a freak of nature, first gained fame with a tearful video entitled “Leave Britney Alone.”  He made it after Spears cut off her hair, so frustrated was she with the paparazzi that stalked her every public move.  Living in rural East Tennessee, the flamboyantly gay Crocker lamented on one video, “The only gay pride parade where I live is in my bedroom.”  He added: “We don’t have bathhouses; we have outhouses.” 

I also watched an HBO documentary about IU’s 1981 NCAA championship season.  Led by Isiah Thomas, the team also starred Landon Turner, permanently paralyzed from a car accident the following summer.  On the day of the finals President Reagan was shot.  Not wanting it known how serious the wounds were, the White House told the NCAA to go ahead with the game.

Chesterton Tribune ran a story about my receiving the Dorothy Riker Hoosier Historian Award on page 1, causing Darcey Wade to congratulate me on Facebook and by phone.  Neighbors Sue Harrison and Bernie Holicky also sent nice emails.  Traveling to Indy with Toni for the award dinner at Indiana Historical Society museum, we stayed at the Mariott Courtyard  across the street, compliments of the historical society.  At a photo shoot Carl E. Kramer told me he ran into Ray Mohl, one of my predecessors at IU Northwest, at an urban history conference and told him about my award.

Traces editor Ray Boomhower introduced me to Katie Turk, winner of the Emma Lou Thornbrough Award for the best 2012 Indiana Magazine of History (IMH) article.  She thanked me for my help on her piece, about discrimination faced by Black Women from Gary at the WW II Kingsbury Ordnance Plant.  I was delighted to learn she won and traveled all the way from Dallas, Texas, to accept the prize.  I told Boomhower I may submit an article about Nobel Prize winners in Economics Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz, both from Gary.  He pondered that for a minute and decided he liked the idea.

Mike Gray, a dead ringer for Pete Daniel, said he was a good friend of Purdue Cal historian Lance Trusty and confided that he voted for my Alex Karras article for the Jacob P Dunn Award for best Traces article.  The winner was Frank A. Cassell for “A Hoosier Love Story: The Courtship of Josie Chafee and Salem Hammond.”  Maybe next year.  One award per year is plenty.

Jim Madison, on the Awards Committee, said I was a worthy choice and told me he enjoyed “Valor.”  He’s updating his Indiana text and mentioned that it’s been so long since the last edition he’s producing virtually an entirely new book.  Teresa Baer, so helpful in preparing “Maria’s Journey” for publication, introduced herself and added her congratulations.

In the magnificent Eli Lilly Hall a choir provided Christmas music.  The beef tenderloin was so lean no steak knife was necessary, and the merlot was a nice touch.  Seated next to me was IMH editor Eric Sandweiss, who nominated me for the award.  He is friends with Andrew Hurley, who wrote “Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980.”  When Hurley spoke at IU Northwest, he was working on a book about diners, bowling alleys, and trailer parks, so I gave him my Portage Shavings that contained trailer park stories.  Eric also knows Paul O’Hara, whose Gary book was an outgrowth of his IU dissertation.  Eric had some questions about Vivian Carter and Vee-Jay Records and is quite a Jimmy Reed fan.

The Hoosier Historian Award is named for Dorothy Riker, an Indiana Historical Society editor for a half-century.   Since editing is my greatest talent, I’m proud that I am a recipient.  Other award winners included Darlene Rigg of the Lowell Public Library, fourth grade teacher Peggy Eckerty, and Howard County Historical Society, for an oral history project documenting Ryan White’s crusade to attend school after the 14 year-old was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 after infected from contaminated blood.  What a worthy project; hearing of it brought a tear to my eye.  Ryan’s family moved away from Kokomo to Cicero, Indiana, after someone fired a bullet into their living room window, but he successfully enrolled in in Hamilton Heights H.S.  He died in 1990, one month before his graduation.  Michael Jackson and First Lady Barbara Bush attended the funeral, and pallbearers included Phil Donahue and Elton John, who sang “Skyline Pigeon.”  Its final lines: “Please free me from this aching metal ring and open out this cage towards the sun.”

I stayed up relish Robert Griffin III (RG3) leading the Redskins to a 17-16 victory over the NY Giants.  Even though I picked the game and was the only won to select Pittsburgh to upset Baltimore, I finished third out of 11 in the pool due to the Colts last second win over Detroit.  Otherwise, I’d have won.  I did finished first in the eight-team LANE fantasy league and earned a bye next week.

Greeting me Wednesday were 87 emails, including congratulations from Chancellor Lowe “for continuing to make us all at IU Northwest very proud to have you as a colleague.”  Kristina Kuzma from the Reiner Center wants me to speak about Vivian Carter in March.  I picked up two framed “Rockabillies” pieces from Jennifer Greenburg and took them to Lake Street Gallery for Saturday’s PopUp Art. George Rogge invited all the authors signing books ay Joyce’s to a party next Wednesday at a fancy new place that he calls the Rutsen-Rogge Beach Shack.  It should be quite something.

At Cressmoor Lanes we all bowled above average, but a team of 200+ bowlers swept us.  Beforehand, Jim Fowble announced that a Hoosier Historian of the year was in the house. I got a round of applause, and somebody yelled, “Buy the man a beer.”  Jim’s son Dave rolled an 800 series in the lanes next to us.