Gonna Be Alright

“I think we’re gonna be alright.” Hank Grotowski in “Monster’s Ball”

I hadn’t seen “Monster’s Ball,” one of my favorite movies, since it came out in 2001 but found it on HBO and discovered a few surprises, including recognizing Heath Ledger as Hank’s sensitive son and Mos Def as neighbor Ryrus Cooper.  Halle Berry (Leticia) is absolutely gorgeous and Billy Bob Thornton a revelation, transforming from a racist to a sensitive man after falling for her. The film’s final line, “I think we’re gonna be alright,” is hopeful but perhaps naïve, considering they live in rural Georgia and Leticia just has discovered, while he went out for ice cream following steamy sex, that Hank was her late husband’s prison executioner.

“Gonna be alright” is a popular song lyric, used in Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Justin Bieber’s “Be Alright.”  Bob Fitts sang “Everything's Gonna Be Alright in Christ” while Alicia Keys used the phrase about a lover in “No One.” Mus and Tupac used it to ease someone’s pain who was thinking about suicide.  Jennifer Lopez in “I’m Gonna Be Alright” employed the line as a confidence builder to escape the life of kept woman or prostitute. The Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” promises that it’s gonna be alright “even if you’re old and grey,” and “even if the sun don’t shine,” a fitting description of the past four days in Northwest Indiana. The hopeful sentiment is reflected in many 1950s popular songs about teen concerns.

I had a fun time delivering my Munster Art in Focus” talk “Relivin’ 1957: A Dance Party.”  Dave playing the music and showing photos on the screen was a major stress reliever, as he did a yeoman job. Good buddy Mike Olszanski came, as did Rich and Pat Gonzales from Miller and former Purdue Calumet historian Lance Trusty’s wife Janet.  Lance, laid up with a bad back, was a mentor when it came to giving lively talks to community groups, as is South Shore Arts director John Cain, willing to take risks and let it all hang out. As John Sheehan said, “When we’re not afraid to be fools could be when we’re wise.”  Also in the audience, Mary Kocevar from bridge and Donna Catalano from history book club, who in November will report on Nathalia Holt’s “Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us from Missiles to the Moon to Mars.”

 Donna Catapano

Jillian Van Volkenburgh provided a dance floor, but most in the audience were content to sway to the music and mouth lyrics from their seats.  Corrine Kelleher danced with me three times, and two couples jitterbugged to several fast dances.  When one of them got cheers for slow-dancing with both hands on each other’s bodies, I joked that it was nothing compared to how teens make out on the dance floor today.  The seniors enjoyed when I read this dialogue from the steamy potboiler “Peyton Place,” 1957’ runaway best-seller.

        “Is it up, Rod?” she panted, undulating her body under his. “Is it up good and hard?”

      “Oh, yes,” he whispered, almost unable to speak. “Oh, yes.”

      Without another word, Betty jackknifed her knees, pushed Rodney away from her, clicked the lock on the door and was outside of the car.

      “Now go shove it into Allison MacKenzie,” she screamed at him.

Before I played “C.C. Rider” by Chuck Willis, a raise of hands revealed that fewer than half of the folks remembered the stroll, so I demonstrated how dancers form two lines for participant to go between one by one or two by two.  Someone exclaimed, “Oh, that was in “Grease.”  It occurred to me then that many of the “seniors” were younger than me.

Beth Ann McCabe, Jim "Dandy" Lane, Jillian Van Volkenburgh

Afterwards, one person said she could see me transitioning back to being a teenager.  I got laughs recalling some of my own high school experiences, including these:

I turned 15 in 1957 and easily got turned on by sex, cars, and Rock ‘n’ Roll – but the first two are subjects for another day.

“At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors was first titled “Do the Bop” until Dick Clark suggested that the Philadelphia group build the lyrics around the concept of a record hop.  It was a favorite of mine at sock hops following basketball games at my suburban Philadelphia high school, Upper Dublin.  Dick Clark had a financial interest in many performers, not only Danny and the Juniors but Mary Swan, whom I danced with at a Dick Clark record hop at Willow Grove Amusement Park.

Whenever I heard “Over the Mountain, Across the Sea,” I’d fantasize about African-American classmates Addie Beatrice Green and Charmayne Staton. Sigh!  If only Addie hadn’t been nearly a foot taller than I or Charmaine about ten times more sophisticated and dating seniors.  Plus, there was the racial barrier.  Eyebrows were even raised when WASP class President Bob Reller started dating Italian Catholic Marianne Tambourino.

I couldn’t do the dirty dig like some of my cool Italian-American classmates or the “Woody Walk,” like black stud Percy Herder, but I could jitterbug, especially with such memorable partners as Mary Delp to “Party Doll” by Buddy Knox, Judy Jenkins to Fats Domino’s “My Blue Heaven,” Alice Ottinger to “Bristol Stomp” by the Dovells or with Pam Tucker to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”

At a flea market called Montgomeryville Mart I scoured the used .45 bins for early Fats Domino rarities.  In tenth grade, I was elected to the student council on a promise to pipe music into the school cafeteria.  My first offering was “Blue Monday,” written by the “Fat Man’s” band leader Dave Bartholomew and featuring a mean saxophone solo by Herb Hardesty. The final verse goes:

Sunday mornin' my head is bad
But it's worth it for the time that I had
But I've got to get my rest
'Cause Monday is a mess

At age 15 Vincent Curll, Chuck Bahmueller, and I went to a Rock and Roll show in Philadelphia and gaped at a lineup of stars that included Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, who performed “Lotta Lovin’.”  With great urgency he sang the line, “I want your love, and I want it BAD.” 

At Jedi’s Garden Family Restaurant, Dave asked why I thought Jerry Lee Lewis risked her career by marrying a 13-year-old.  I told him that it was not uncommon in the South and that Toni had an aunt from Virginia who married at that age.  It was often a precondition for couples ready to have sex.  For lunch I had a senior meal for $8.95: ice tea, salad, rolls, meat loaf, gravy, and mashed potatoes (I took half home), and sherbet for dessert.  Dave, who had eaten there before and recommended the place, had a gyros meal.

Sociology professor Tanice Foltz (above) gave a lively and enlightening talk in Nicole Anslover’s class about her Sixties life experiences, which had a profound influence on her later research interests.  First in her family to attend college, she took high school secretarial classes but had an opportunity to work for the Psychology program at IUPU-Fort Wayne, which led to her attending Bloomington.  Anxious to gain some real life experiences, she obtained a ride to Berkeley, California.  The driver let her out at People’s Park.  Until, on Governor Ronald Reagan’s orders, National Guard troops shut down the Hippie experiment in cooperative living, Tanice worked at a free food center, then at a free medical clinic, and played drums at Sproul Hall on the Berkeley campus so she could afford some evening yogurt.  Travels took her to communes and a festival where she met feminist witches.  While working odd jobs, including cocktail waitress, she eventually earned a Master’s degree at Arizona State and a PhD at University of California at San Diego.

Here’s a summary of Foltz’s academic interests, delineated in a book titled “Daughters of the Goddess,” that contains her chapter on “Goddess Spirituality and Women’s Recovery from Alcoholism”:

        Her interest in alternative healing in new religious movements originated with her graduate student research done in a Hawaiian Kahuna’s group and resulted on her book Kahuna Healer.  She began her research with a Dianic Witches' coven somewhat hesitantly, but her growing interest in this area and with other feminist spirituality practitioners has led to several publications, one of which is "Women's Spirituality Research: Doing Feminism," in Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2000, Vol. 61, No. 4:409-418.  Her work led her to spend a sabbatical with Witches and pagans in Australia.  Celebrating twelve years since she first participated in a Spring Equinox ritual, she is using the results of these research adventures to provide the context for her new book on “Goddess Spirituality and Healing.”

        Foltz's interviews and surveys of American women found that they emphasize wholeness of self and the healing that this wholeness entails.  Her chapter focuses on women who are recovering alcoholics and who believe that Alcoholics Anonymous fails to meet their recovery needs in very specific areas and necessitates their denying parts of themselves.  They have turned to Goddess Spirituality to supplement, mediate, and sometimes replace the support they had hoped to find in AA.  Through Goddess Spirituality, they affirm the totality of their identities and claim their power to heal themselves rather than admit to their powerlessness.

Javier Baez

The Cubbies salvaged game 3 from the Dodgers on Javy Baez’s two HRs (admiring the second reach the bleachers, he blew a big bubble) only to be eliminated the following day, 11-1.  Since they won it all in 2016, it wasn’t a crushing blow, as Los Angeles was the better team. The TV commercials caused games to commonly last over four hours.  I tried to avoid watching most, but I liked a GEICO ad where an orchestra percussionist did an outrageous “Triangle solo.” The absolute worst was a Direct TV ad claiming that rival customers enjoyed pain, such as sleeping in poison ivy or giving themselves paper cuts.  Yuck!  In Fantasy Football Phil and I both went to bed thinking he’d beaten me, but two TDs by Washington tight end Jordan Reed gave me the victory.

In Steve McShane’s Indiana History class I talked about Gary during the Roaring Twenties, stressing racial and class tensions despite the apparent prosperity.  I contrasted the lives of Northside teenagers from the Horace Mann neighborhood with their Southside counterparts, often pressured to quit school at 16 to support the family and whose social activities likely revolved their church and were closely chaperoned.  I ended by showing photos that originally appeared in Ron Cohen and my pictorial history of Gary.

Froebel first graders, 1922, mainly ethnic and a few black students

Gary Country Club clique (1925); courtesy of Allegra Nesbit, standing with hands on couch

Jim Spicer posted this:

    A Texan sauntered into a restaurant in Monterrey Mexico following a day riding by horseback in the countryside. While sipping his tequila, he noticed a sizzling, scrumptious looking platter being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful. He asked the waiter, “What is that you just served?” The waiter replied, “Ah senor, you have asked me about our house specialty. Exquisito! Those are called Cojones de Toro, bull's testicles from the bullfight this morning. It is truly a delicacy for which we are known in the region.” “A delicacy!” the cowboy said. “What is not to like, bring me an order.” The waiter replied, “I am so sorry, senor. There is only one serving per day because there is only one bullfight each morning. If you come very early enough and place your order, we will be sure to introduce you to this dish that night.” The cowboy returned the next morning, placed his order, and that evening was served the one and only special delicacy of the day. After a few bites, he called to the waiter and said, “These are delicious, but they are much, much smaller than the ones I saw you serve yesterday.” 

    The waiter shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Si, Senor. Sometimes the bull wins!”