Enjoy Every Sandwich

“Enjoy every sandwich,” Warren Zevon

Old friend Pete Drake is passing through Northwest Indiana on I-65 in two weeks on the way to a Wisconsin fishing trip and wants to have lunch.  I suggested two possibilities in Merrillville, Abuelo’s if he likes Mexican, or TGI Friday’s.  Jerry Davich wrote about a protest at the latter place, which has a policy of not seating unchaperoned teenagers after nine.  A year ago, a large group of eighth graders from Thea Bowman Leadership Academy entered while several adults were parking their vehicles.  The manager on duty, backed up by an off-duty Hobart police officer working security, turned them away, and TGI Friday’s now has a lawsuit on their hands.  The company later offered the “victims,” who went to Appleby’s without incident, fifty-dollar coupons. The question is, would the manager have turned away white teens?  Teenagers of all races are commonly discriminated against.  I suspect the manager was being over-zealous, perhaps in reaction to the others copping an attitude, and may even harbored racist thoughts.  The staff may have resented such a large group appearing near closing time.  I can’t believe his superiors were pleased with how the manager on duty handled the incident.  It certainly wasn’t good for business.  In fact, the restaurant counts on black customers to stay profitable.  I have had lunch there several times with African-American attorney Jackie Gipson, and people have always been friendly.  

 Post-Trib photo by Charles Mitchell

After a Pacer victory in game six Saturday, Roy Hibbard used the phrase “no homo” and the NBA subsequently fined him $75,000 for this supposedly anti-gay slur.  The slang term originated in Harlem 20 years ago, and hip hop artists such as Lil Wayne and Cam’ron have used it.  According to Dave and Tom Wade, high school students at E.C. Central and Thornton Fractional utter it without it having pejorative implications.  While Hibbard can afford the fine, he doesn’t deserve it, especially since he apologized.  I use the phrase man-hug when embracing guys – is that anti-gay?  Is the term “homo” ipso facto a slur?  Only, I’d think, if homosexuals are ashamed of their sexual orientation.  What about “queer,” a word many gays embrace and themselves use?  If the NBA forces players to do post-game interviews, they should allow more freedom of speech.  Here is what Hibbard said, according to Pro Basketball Talk: “I felt I let Paul (George) down in terms of having his back when LeBron was scoring in the post or getting into the paint because they stretched me out so much — no homo (laughs) — but I want to be there for him. I think he has a chance to be MVP of this league next year.”  Maybe after saying “no homo,” Hibbard should have used the Seinfeld line, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

In “Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940” historian Chad Heap identifies four phenomena in vogue during that time, especially in Chicago’s Bronzeville and New York City’s Harlem: red-light district pleasure-seeking, bohemian “thrillage,” the “Negro vogue,” and the “pansy and lesbian craze.”  I wonder if using the word pansy would have brought the wrath of the NBA down on Hibbard.  During the Blackhawks victory over the Kings, an announcer declared that neither team was pansies.

The Chicago Street Theatre production of Arthur Miller’s tragedy “A View from the Bridge,” starring John Larrabee as Italian longshoreman Eddie Carbone, was very impressive.  A college professor who came out of retirement after 30 years on stage, Larrabee has played Henry Higgins in “My Fair lady” and Harold Hill in “The Music Man.”  I can imagine he was great in both.  Although I don’t normally like non-musicals, “A View from the Bridge” kept my interest throughout.  Taking place in 1950s Brooklyn, it is the story of a man’s obsession with an orphaned niece in love with Rodolpho, an illegal immigrant.  Eddie regards him as a rival and claims he is queer (in his words, “weird” and “not right”) because he cooks, sews, and sings. An over-protective ethnic patriarch who felt disrespected if his every command was not obeyed, Eddie squeals on Rodolpho to immigration authorities, alienating family and neighbors.  The act ultimately dooms him.

Best known for “Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible,” and for being married briefly to Marilyn Monroe, Miller at age 89 announced his engagement to 34 year-old minimalist artist Agnes Barley.  Within hours of the playwright’s death two months later, daughter Rebecca Miller ordered Agnes to vacate the family’s Connecticut farm.

After dining at Pikk’s Tavern in downtown Valpo, we and the Hagelbergs played a round of bridge and chatted with Phil, on his way to Michigan after a Chicago Fire soccer match.  He had heard Roy Hibbard was fined and wondered what he’d said.  I gave him a “no homo” man-hug as he took off and repeated the ritual when Dick left with Cheryl.  I’ll have to ask Anne Balay, who spent last week in L. A. with her daughters, what she thinks of the phrase.  Posing in Disneyworld with Leah and Emma, who plays Tinkerbell in a stage show, she wore a t-shirt proclaiming, “FAIRY with an ATTITUDE.”

At Portage Healthcare center to have blood work done, I was tempted to ask Sheena, who registered me, if she was a punk rocker.  Maybe her parents were Ramones fans and got the name from their song “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.”

John Dos Passos’s “The Shackles of Power” contains a dialogue between former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson about getting old.  Jefferson wrote: “My temperament is sanguine, I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern.”  Adams found the sentiments of his former rival valiant but wondered, “who can tell what will become of his Bravery when his Flesh and his heart shall fail him.”  Both Founding Fathers died on July 4, 1826, on the golden anniversary of the nation’s birth.

Traces editor Ray Boomhower intends to use my article on Nobel Laureates Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz late next year.  In his email he quotes a Warren Zevon line from an interview on Letterman shortly before the Chicago native died of cancer: “Enjoy every sandwich.”  Well put.  The phrase became the title of a 2004 tribute album.  Zevon poked fun of those who feel sorry for themselves in “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” first recorded by Linda Ronstadt.

In a blurb about Ken Schoon’s new pictorial history, “Dreams of Duneland,” IU Press asserts that it “highlights the places that inspired people who dreamed of the potential of an unusual and dynamic landscape.”  The cover is a painting by Mary Kay Peter Whitlock, and most photos come from the Archives, including some by Herb Read.  Coincidentally Herb visited the Archives today to identify other of his slides.  Prior to the Central Dunes being leveled to make way for Bethlehem Steel, with the sand used as fill for Northwestern University, Read had accumulated about 5,000 images.  Herb and Charlotte have been married since 1952, the same year the Save the Dunes Council that they led for so many years got started.

Ray Smock wrote: “The Sequester has cut the National Parks budget by a whopping $110 million.  While this won’t stop the trees from growing in national parks or rivers from flowing, it will affect maintenance, access, keeping roads open, providing a modicum of security for millions of tourists, but it goes beyond the immediate effect to the parks themselves.  This is where the Tea crowd cannot think beyond their own noses.  Thousands of small businesses and vendors and in some cases the economies of dozens of small towns that depend on national park tourism will be hurt by this large cut. They never look at the consequences of the cuts. They only want to cut. The cuts they make are arbitrary and based on their beliefs that this is good for the country. Screw the little people who make their livings selling hot dogs to park tourists.  Screw the towns near major parks, which are composed of hotels and gas stations to accommodate the flood of tourists each summer.  National Park tourism generates $30 billion annually for the economy.  A portion of that comes back to the government in the form of taxes.  Across the board cuts, the kind that result from sequesters and failure to debate and deliberate on specific expenditures, is the absolute worst way to reduce the budget for purposes of reducing the national debt.”

 Caiscais and Praia da Ursa, photos by Josh Leffingwell

On the third leg of her European trip Alissa wrote: “Olá família!  Josh and I are winding down our second day in Portugal. It turns out that the entire month of June is basically a huge festival for Lisbon - and we just so happend to fly in on June 1 - a Saturday night. By day the city is incredibly charming.  There is music and dancing everywhere, cats and dogs running free in the street.  It definitely has an old world feel - storeowners just total things up for you using a pen and paper and everything is so cheap - we are eating like kings and queens!”  She and Josh are currently at the seaside resort of Caiscais and visited Prai da Ursa (Bear Rock), the western-most point in Europe.