Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Growing Up

“Growing Up in Stages
Livin’ life in phases
And I’m running out of pages
Growin’ up.”
         “Patience,” Tame Impala
Tame Impala, an Australian psychedelic rock band reminiscent of MGMT, played “Borderline” and “Patience” on “Saturday Night Live.” I was not familiar with many Tame Impala songs other than “Let It Happen” but was impressed.  Sandra Oh hosted, and the show opened with a sketch featuring Robert DeNiro as Robert Mueller, Aidy Bryant as William Barr, Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani, and Alec Baldwin as Trump, whose best line was that Roseanne was coming back on TV in a show called “The Barrs.”  
Kurt Varricchio’s “Behind in the Count: My Journey from Juvenile Delinquent to Baseball Agent” (2018) is an inspirational tale of an abused child overcoming a troubled adolescence.  Varricchio turned his life around after repeatedly being told that he’d be dead or in jail by the time  he turned 21. Dr. Juan Anaya, the son of Mexican immigrants who became an East Chicago school principal, told me on a drive to Terre Haute for his PhD dissertation defense (I was on his committee) that a teacher once scoffed at his wanting to attend college and it motivated him to prove her wrong. 

Baseball season has begun.  The Phillies swept a series from Atlanta with new superstar acquisition Bryce Harper pounding out two home runs.  On the other hand, despite scoring 26 runs, the Cubs won just one of three games from the Rangers as, aside from ace Jon Lester, their pitchers sucked big time. I frequently switched to NCAA basketball.  Only one number 1 seed, Virginia, made it to the Final Four, and the Cavaliers needed a miracle shot at the buzzer of regulation to prevail over Purdue in overtime. Most fun was watching Michigan State defeat Duke by repeatedly denying Zion Williamson the ball.

A study in the International Journal of Sexual Health documented examples of nonsexual orgasm.  Not surprisingly, some had to do with dancing, listening to live music, or reading a graphic novel. Others involved eating succulent food such as rich chocolate or a ripe cherry tomato.  Responders mentioned shoplifting, breastfeeding, getting a tattoo, and itching a mosquito bite.  One person confessed: “I have orgasmed when my cats have climbed on my lower back and kneaded my skin and purred.  I’ve always felt very weird about that, and it doesn’t happen often because I don’t let them lie on me like that anymore.”  Here’s my favorite: “I once stuck my foot out the window of a moving car.  The wind tickled them, and I had an orgasm.”

In Anne Tyler’s gracefully written “A Patchwork Planet” (1998) onetime juvenile delinquent Barnaby Gaitlin works for Rent-a-Back.  Partner Martine is tiny but tough, a Sparrows Point steelworker’s daughter. At Baltimore’s Penn Station, Barnaby, on his way to visit a daughter in Philadelphia, spots an older couple “hauling their wheeled bags behind them, like big, meek pets on leashes.”  Nice comparison. The train speeds past row houses and factories before the scenery changes to farmland and matted woods.  At Thirtieth Street Station (where I often exited a Pennsylvania Railroad coach on the way to Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium) one could hear, as Tyler noted, echoes of voices due to the high ceiling and the clatter of footsteps on the marble floors.
 photos by Post-Trib's Kyle Telethon
Bill Pelke gave a moving talk to kick off SPEA’s Public Affairs month, recounting his grandmother Ruth Pelke’s murder in 1985 and his transformation from wanting killer Paula Cooper executed to forgiving her and working to have her life spared.  The former Bethlehem Steel crane operator has been crusading to abolish the death penalty in all 50 states and throughout the world through such organizations as Journey of Hope . . . From Violence to Healing and Murder Victims Families for Human Rights.  Criminal Justice instructor John Tsolakos, a former policeman who had been friends with his IUN predecessor Gary Martin, brought his class.  Several area residents whose loved ones were murdered were in the audience. One noted that many on death row are mentally ill; Bill added that some felons go years before becoming truly sorry for their crime.
above, Pelke and Rhonda LeBroi; below, with great-grandchild, by Elizabeth Ashley
During Q and A Pelke introduced Paula Cooper’s older sister Rhonda LaBroi, who gave him a big hug and encouraged everyone to support the Journey of Hope. Knowing that Bill’s father had wanted Paula executed and initially resented his son’s change of heart, I asked him about the matter.  Bill showed his father the first letter he sent to Paula, and the conversation did not go well but his father eventually muttered,“Do what you have to do.”  Later, Bill added, his father forgave him for forgiving Paula. Asked his reaction to Paula’s suicide after being released from jail, Bill, fighting back tears, replied that he went from disbelief to being devastated and speculated that she could never forgive herself for what she had done.

After I told Jerry Davich about Pelke’s appearance, he promised to urge the Post-Tribto cover the event. In fact, they sent ace reporter Carole Carlson and top-notch photographer Kyle Telechan. Carlson’s front page article mentioned that according to Prosecutor Jack Crawford, Ruth Pelke recited the Lord’s Prayer as she was repeatedly stabbed, something Carlson must have found researching the case since Bill didn’t offer that information.
Jerry Davich posted a photo of the vacant Slovak Club on Eleventh Avenue in its present condition and speculated that “deceased hunkies must be rolling over in their grave” because of its current condition.  I sampled homemade pierogis there while writing about Anna Yurin, whose mother was a cook.  Stevie Kokos recalled:     
 My Baba would be in the pierogi prep army there for the Friday sell outs back in the day. That’s where I was raised on them as a real young kid. I remember the Fallout Shelter signs there and at the K of C building. Won’t be easy to raze that structure.  I also recall going there from the Primich grocery shop at 11th and Polk. I would drive my 91-year-old father passed there if I knew he would not get depressed at seeing his city in ruins.
Francisco Cantu’s “A Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border” (2018) arrived via inter-library loan from Bluffton, Indiana, of all places, where Gary’s first School Superintendent, William A. Wirt, attended school. Gaard Murphy Logan recommended it, and it appears to be a tear-jerker.  The book jacket calls it an empathetic look at both border police and migrants who seek a better life in America. Reviewer Barry Lopez wrote that Cantu calls for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric.

Joe Biden is under attack from a women who claims he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.  A second accuser then came forward to charge that he leaned in so close to her that their noses rubbed.  Suddenly this nonsense has become the top story on the evening news.  Is there any sense of proportionality?  

I distributed the new Steel Shavingsto a half=dozen bridge players interviewed in the past year by IUN students. Helen Booth first with a score of exactly 50 percent and each earned .28 of a master point.  When I mentioned Bill Pelke’s IUN appearance, she knew what a wonderful guy he was. She belongs to an anti-death penalty organization and said Bill had been top her house several times, once with “Dead Man Walking” author Sister Helen Prejean, who, she said, slept on the floor because there were so many house guests.  My best hand came after Helen opened I Club.  With just 5 points I almost passed but said a No trump.  Helen jumped to 3 No Trump, and I took 11 tricks.

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