Beast of Burden

“Political power has too long been the monopoly of the few, and the many are not beasts of burden but also beasts of prey,” B.R. Ambedkar

Also known as Babasaheb, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was one of India’s first “Untouchable” college graduates.  A fighter for social justice, he became chief architect of his newly independent country’s progressive 1949 constitution.  Beasts of burden, such as oxen or donkeys, are used for heavy work while beasts of prey hunt other animals for food.  The meaning of Ambedkar’s quote, I believe, is that capitalist oligarchies force the poor to prey on each other in order to survive.   The Biblical phrase “beast of burden” has become associated mainly with a song by the ageless Rolling Stones, gearing up for a fiftieth anniversary tour, which includes stops in Chicago.  One radio station offered free concert tickets to the tenth caller phoning in after hearing three straight Stones songs.

IU Northwest was pretty deserted Friday although in the Archives were Notre Dame grad student Felicia Morales examining (at my suggestion) the International Institute collection and African-American novelist Michelle McGill-Vargas, interested in the nineteenth century Tolleston Gun Club.  I ate a sloppy Joe alone in the cafeteria, then waved to Psychology prof Karl Nelson, who gave a thumbs up when asked how his new adopted baby was doing.  Movie critic Roger Ebert, who passed away Thursday, popularized the “thumbs up” signal on “Sneak Previews” with Gene Siskel.  Throat cancer left Roger unable to speak, but he could employ a computer voice that sounded like him.

After reserving Elizabeth Stout’s “The Burgess Boys” at Westchester Library, I picked up favorite novelist Richard Russo’s memoir “Elsewhere” about his relationship with his unbalanced and dependent mother, who called him Ricko-Mio.  The grandson of Italian immigrants who moved to Gloversville, New York, once a chief manufacturer of women’s gloves, Russo describes his latest effort as “a story of interactions: of place and time, of private and public, of linked destinies and flawed devotion.”  In his manic, discontented mother and ne’er-do-well, free-spirited, compulsive gambler father one can discern characteristics similar to the parents of many protagonists in Russo’s works of fiction, such as “That Old Cape Magic” (2009).  When his dad told Russo, “You know, your mother’s nuts,” it was both a relief to hear and a great burden that in the years to come threatened the author’s marriage and at times his sanity.

Former neighbor Tom Coulter posted photos of him and daughter Mary Alice at Dunes State Park.  Coincidentally, on Saturday afternoon we picked up granddaughter Alissa at the South Shore’s nearby Dune Park stop.  Fresh from a conference in Chicago on student overseas programs, she hopes to travel to Ghana in the near future.  We dined at Sage Restaurant, a favorite of ours.  At a nearby table with her son was old friend Patti Shaffnrer.  This poem of hers appeared in my “Tales of Lake Michigan and the Northwest Indiana Dunelands” Shavings: “These singing sands/ shift and change year by year,/ sting my eyes/ or warm my back./ These sands on the shore of the Michigan Sea/ will always be the singing sands.”  Patti, an accomplished singer of Forties standards and folk songs, has an upcoming gig at the eatery succeeding the Miller Bakery Café.

After the Louisville and Michigan victories in the NCAA semi-finals, Alissa and I watched the Saturday Night Live appearance of Phoenix, a French band we both love, performing “Entertainment.”  We agreed that Thomas Hedlund killed on drums. Who knew that a Phoenix song could have such a great percussion backing?  The opening SNL skit featured Bobby Moynihan as Kim Jong Un with a cameo by Dennis Rodman, who recently visited North Korea.  “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage appeared as Drunk Uncle’s brother Peter Drunklage.  Tomorrow “Mad Men” debuts opposite a “Thrones” episode.  I’ll miss both but can catch them later OnDemand.

Sunday eight of us celebrated Cheryl Hagelberg’s birthday by enjoying “The Book of Mormon” at Bank of America Theatre in Chicago, followed by a Tapas feast at Café Ba-Ba-Reeba.  Marianne McGuan drove Toni and me since husband George still has an arm in a cast from a skiing accident, and I don’t drive into the Windy City.  As befitting a musical by South Park writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, “The Book of Mormon,” the 2011 Tony award winner, was ribald, outrageous, and thoroughly funny, following two Mormon missionaries who end up in Uganda.  The brilliant Elder Price is way in over his head, but klutzy Elder Cunningham (called “a dick” by the actor playing Jesus) wins over villagers by presenting Mormon theology as a cross between “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings.”  The highlight is when the new converts perform “Joseph Smith American Moses” for increasingly appalled church officials.  In the opening scene Mormon missionaries sing “Hello” while pretending to be knocking on doors.  In the finale Ugandan missionaries are reprising the scene.  Interestingly, the Church of the Latter Day Saints took out an advertisement for the playbill.  Richard Bushman, professor of Mormon Studies, wrote: “Mormons experience the show like looking at themselves in a fun-house mirror.  The reflection is hilarious but not really you.  The nose is yours but swollen out of proportion.”

Katherine Walsh Ryan is seeking information about grandfather George Hurubean, whom she believes emigrated to New York City and then East Chicago from Romania around 1906.  The Inland Steel employee married in 1916, went back to Romania after getting divorced, and returned in 1929 with a second wife and daughter (Katherine’s mother).  There are records of Hurubean entering the country in 1929 but not the first time, perhaps because he was using an alias.  I suggested that Katherine consult East Chicago city directories. 

Furnishing background material on Hurubean, Katherine wrote: “Perhaps as early as 1906 at age 14, my grandfather was a carefree student and part-time hardware store employee in Sighisoara, when he was out celebrating at a pub with friends and family members.  Suddenly, a group of Austro-Hungarian soldiers burst into their gathering, demanding to see the young men's papers proving they had served in the Austro-Hungarian Emperor's army.  George's older brother, Ion, had already served, but George had not.  He stood and sang, ‘Rise up Romanian,’ which angered the soldiers.  One is rumored to have pulled a gun on him or another family member.  George swatted it away, and the soldier, holding his own gun, discharged it into another soldier.  Chaos ensued and George ran for his life.  His mother instructed him to hide in The Breita, a heavily wooded area populated with wolves, wild boar, bears, and foxes.  He was instructed to meet older brother Ion on a train at a nearby station on a certain day and time, to exchange identities (papers, clothing, etc.) because soldiers were watching their house and the Sighisoara train station.  They met, and George continued on to the port town of Fiume, Italy where he sent his mother a postcard, ‘I've decided to go to America.’  East Chicago had the new steel industry which was hiring, and a large Romanian population.”

“Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher died.  No friend of the poor, the British Prime Minister held power while Reagan was President, and the two reactionaries were kindred spirits politically who pursued ruinous economic programs.  Maggie waged war with Argentina in a quixotic effort to retain their imperial possession, the Falkland Islands, but, bowing to the inevitable, agreed to the gradual end of British rule in Hong Kong.  Also succumbing, former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello at age 70.

Alex Semchuck invited me to the premiere of his documentary “Stagnant Hope: Gary IN” at the keynote session of Communication Week on April 16.  Hope to be there.

Jack Gruenenfelder gave me several Shavings issues that are out of print, including “Weasal” and “Steelworkers Fight Back.”  I took my favorite route from IUN to Miller, down Georgia and Virginia to Twenty-First, past Four Brothers Market to Martin Luther King Drive, and then east on Fifteenth until it turned into Lake Street.  Deciding to see our old Maple Place domicile, I got stopped by a train (naturally), parked at Miller Village Apartments, and trudged up the road and driveway to view the boarded-up building and surrounding landscape.  One lone purple crocus was in bloom, but several lily plants were popping out of the ground.  Sometime in May the leaves will wilt, but then a month or so later a stem will appear, yielding beautiful pink flowers.  I transplanted some when we moved and plan to go back for others. 

After a rainy and windy morning (my umbrella got blown inside out walking across campus) the sun shone for the Cubs home opener.  Unfortunately the wind played havoc with a bases loaded pop up, allowing Milwaukee to score three runs.  With the score 7-4 against them, the Cubs loaded the bases in the ninth just as the wind, which had been blowing out all afternoon, shifted, robbing Starlin Castro of a game-winning grand slam HR.

The first half of the Louisville-Michigan game was exciting, but, not really caring who won, I fell asleep midway through the final 20 minutes, then later tuned in to Les Grobstein’s overnight show on WSCR to learn Louisville had pulled it out after being down double digits.  “The Grobber” is amazing.  A caller from East Chicago mentioned that his high school classmate Junior Bridgeman played for the 1975 Final Four Louisville Cardinals.  Without missing a beat, Grobstein claimed that they would have beaten Kentucky had a teammate not missed two free throws and had the ball at game’s end been in Bridgeman’s hands.  He added that Louisville would surely have triumphed over eventual champ UCLA, whose point guard was Bridgeman’s former EC Washington teammate Pete Trgovich.  The caller then wanted Grobstein’s most vivid memory of East Chicago basketball.  Grobstein isn’t even from Northwest Indiana but referred to Kenny Lofton leading the Senators to the state finals in 1985, Washington’s last hurrah before it ceased being a high school.  Best known as a baseball player, Lofton was point guard on an Arizona team that made it to the Final Four in 1988.  The only other athlete to compete both in the Final Four and the World Series was another former Senator, Tim Stoddard, teammate of Bridgeman and Trgovich on EC Washington’s undefeated 1971 squad.

Anne Balay posted: “True confessions of an enabler. The dog now only eats if I stand near her bowl saying cheery things. SO I stand near her bowl and do it. Dr. Wake (of Hyde Park Animal Clinic) predicted this behavior in his "the dog you get when your kids leave" monologue.”  She added: “I once had a cat who only ate if you read to her. Wouldn't tolerate this crap from my kids, but the pets.”

“Beast of Burden,” like so many Rolling Stones songs, has a bluesy feel evoking memories of Chicago greats John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters.  In the lyrics, wondering why he’s been scorned, Mick Jagger asks if it’s because he isn’t rough enough, tough enough, rich enough?  The last lines go, “I’ll never be your beast of burden/ I’ve walked for miles my feet are hurtin’.”

Mick, on right