“The nicest thing about fussy people is, they have their little routines,” Anne Tyler, “A Patchwork Planet”
I don’t consider myself a fussy person but do have a normal weekday routine that includes getting dressed, putting coffee on, fixing grapefruit slices and juice, retrieving the Post-Triband Times, having cereal (usually Rice Krispies) and bacon or Kielbasa, and fixing a half-sandwich and veggies for lunch at IU Northwest, where I’d eat with Mike Olszanski on Wednesdays and leave early Tuesday for a nap before bridge. Routine also means unexceptional, such as a routine fly ball.
Saturdays I’d normally to take James bowling at Inman’s and beforehand cook kielbasa and pancakes (with chocolate bits for him, blueberries for me). Afterwards, we’d have lunch at Culver’s, using newspaper coupons Toni found for us. Last week, however, he had play practice, and this weekend is competing in a tournament in Indy. In the car I usually listen to WXRT’s “Saturday Morning Flashback” show, this week featuring the year 1973, when the Watergate scandal caused Nixon to say plaintively, “I am not a crook.” Hearing “Ramblin’ Man” and “Dark Side of the Moon” reminded me of getting high listening to the Allman Brothers at Larry Kaufman’s and Pink Floyd at Al Sterken’s. “Long Train Running” was on my favorite Doobie Brothers album, “The Captain and Me,” which Milan Andrejevich would put on for me at his parties. Many 1973 songs contained long instrumentals jam, such as Steely Dan’s “Bodhisattva.”
In Mary Kate Blake’s Urban Sociology class to discuss Gary’s recent history, I passed out the new edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History” showing photos of Tyrell Anderson and the Decay Devils, whom they will meet at Union Station on their tour Friday. Then I exhibited the front page Post-Tribstory about Bill Pelke’s Monday IUN appearance, featuring photos of Bill with Paula Cooper and a photo of “Nana” Ruth. They had read about the murder in Glen Park of Pelke’s grandmother at the hands of four Lew Wallace ninth graders including Cooper, initially sentenced to death, and how it contributed to white flight. A student asked whether Richard Hatcher’s election in 1967 caused whites to move to the suburbs. I discussed contributing factors that took place before Hatcher assumed office, such as passage of an omnibus civil rights ordinance and federally-mandated bussing of black students to Glen Park schools. I described scare tactics unscrupulous realtors used to induce rapid turnover in “changing” neighborhoods. When I discussed middle class black flight, someone asked if I felt they were abandoning their people. I replied that families shouldn’t feel guilty about doing what’s best for themselves and that many retain connections with their old neighborhoods and churches. A Mexican international student asked how long it took to put together Steel Shavingsissues and was incredulous when I answered yearly. He had not yet found any area authentic Region Mexican restaurants but seemed unfamiliar with East Chicago. I recommended Casa Blanca, where Lorenzo Arrredondo recently took me. I told him about “Maria’s Journey” and when he asked the spelling of Arredondo, promised to give him a copy Monday.
At the library I picked up the Weezer album containing covers of their favorite Oldies, including “Africa,” “Take On Me,” and “Billy Jean,” among others. Even though I’m already reading three other books, I couldn’t resist Saidiya Hartman’s “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval,” about young black women living in New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century who found Victorian standards of behavior irrelevant to their lives. Hartman wrote:
Few, then or now, recognized young black women as sexual modernists, free lovers, radicals, and anarchists, or realized that the flapper was a pale imitation of the ghetto girl.
The wild idea that animates this book is that young black women were radical thinkers who tirelessly imagined other ways to live and never failed to consider how the world might be otherwise.
Having done lots of walking, I must have grunted loud enough going down IUN’s John Will Anderson Library steps for a student to turn around. Driving down Broadway, I noticed English professor George Bodmer lugging what appeared to be items from his office as he nears retirement. I felt a pang of regret that this once close friend no longer speaks to me over a university matter that occurred several years ago. Despite his cantankerous disposition, I’ve missed having lunch with him. He was never boring.
Gary NAACP leader Jeanette Strong in 1963 Fair Housing protest, virtual museum photo from Calumet Regional Archives
On the front page of the Post-Trib was an article about scholars from Ball State starting a virtual museum about Hoosier civil rights history. Recipients of a $50,000 grant from the Interior Department, the Ball State team includes professors of history, anthropology, and archaeology and a team of grad students. Reporter Nancy Webster wrote that representatives met with Steve McShane and me at the Calumet Regional Archives and David Hess at Gary Public Library. They will be holding a forum in East Chicago in order to solicit community input. I alerted Lake County clerk Lorenzo Arredondo since his family deserves being featured as in the documentary “Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana” based on the book by historian James Madison.
Sam, parents, and Sam, Jr.
Patrick Chase emailed a couple dozen photos of grandfather Carl, who built a golf course on the grounds of American Bridge, and Patrick’s father Sam, who as a student opposed the 1927 Emerson School Strike. He recalled his father saying that he and others opposed to the walk-out – perhaps Principal E.A. Spalding or even Superintendent William A. Wirt - got on Emerson’s roof to speak to the rebellious students, urging them to stay in school.
above, Mika Brzezinski; below, Freddie Gray
What a bummer was the final episode of the HBO documentary about convicted felon Adnan Syed, who has spent 20 years in prison for a murder he may not have committed – allegedly strangling a fellow high school student, Korean-American Hae Min Lee, and burying the body in Baltimore’s Leakin Park. On a related note, a recent New York TimesSunday magazine article entitled “The Tragedy of Baltimore: How an American City Falls Apart” traces the uptick of violent crime (309 homicides in 2018 alone) since the death of 25 year-old Freddie Grey while in police custody. Stung by criticism and upset over new procedures that restrict their freedom, Baltimore’s men in blue drastically reduced their police presence in high crime neighborhoods. At a community forum Renee McCray spoke of visiting Baltimore’s tourist-friendly Inner Harbor. She recalled:
The lighting was so bright. People had scooters. They had bikes. They had babies in strollers. And I said: What city is this? This is not Baltimore City. Because if you go up Martin Luther King Boulevard we’re all bolted in our homes, we’re locked down. All any of us want is equal protection.
Lonnie at Kentucky and in West Side uniform
Reporter Chase Goodbread, researching a feature story on University of Kentucky cornerback Lonnie Johnson, Jr., projected to be a first round draft choice, wanted background information on his hometown of Gary. A two-way star at West Side, in addition to his defensive skills Lonnie rushed and caught passes for over a thousand yards. Coming from a close-knit steelworker family, Johnson helped West Side win the 2014 state track and field championship, winning the long jump and the 4x100 relay. What Goodbread knew about Gary came from Wikipedia and a two-day visit that included interviewing his grandmother and parents Nora and Lonnie. I told Goodbread about Gary’s proud high school football tradition that produced Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram and such NFL players as George Taliaferro, Les Bingaman, Alex Karras, and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson. During the past half-century basketball has attracted most local athletes, as Gary schools can no longer field gridiron teams that can compete with Region suburban powerhouses with squads 3 or 4 times that of West Side or Roosevelt. Gary’s public schools have suffered from the state’s funding of charter schools. Goodbread told me that Nora Johnson had been a track star and praised Mayor Richard Hatcher’s support for youth sports programs. At his request I mailed him “Gary’s First Hundred Years.”
Mrs. Garrison, Mr. Slave & Big Gay Al
IUN hosted Indiana University’s annual Women’s and Gender Studies Research Conference. Noticing that Kaden Alexander was presenting a paper on queer stereotypes in the satirical Comedy Central adult cartoon “South Park,” I decided to attend. He was great, not reading his paper like most undergraduates and speaking in a loud, clear voice about something that obviously interested him. The enthusiasm was contagious and his observations enlightening. He spoke about ornery Mr. Garrison who transitions into Mrs. Garrison and receives a “fancy new vagina” as well as breasts but then is remorseful because she doesn’t ovulate or become pregnant like a “real woman.” In a clip Mr. Slave and Big Gay Al (one a body builder, the other a “bear”) ridicule Mrs. Garrison and call her a fag. I sat next to David Parnell, whose student Emily McLean spoke on religion and LGBTQ identity. During Q and A I asked Em Beard, who had referred to Simone de Beauvoir in her talk “Defining Gender,” about the use of “lesbian” becoming less common compared to “queer.” The latter, she replied, is more inclusive. SPEA lecturer Jacqueline Huey lamented the insinuation that “lesbian” was an old-fashioned concept. Even the honorific Ms. is giving way to Mx. among many millennials.
At lunch I received hugs from former IUN professor Lori Monalbano, presently a counselor at IU South, and IU South Bend Gender Studies professor April Lidinsky, who, like me, testified on Anne Balay’s behalf when she was unjustly denied tenure and promotion. Kaden Alexander introduced me to his wife Terry, who was wearing a Lambda Delta Xi shirt. Rather than call the organization a fraternity or sorority, she used the word diaternity. Terry told me that it replaced the LGBTQ group Connectionz disbanded and has ten members of various gender identifications and a campus adviser, Beth Tyler. It’s only the second such chapter in the country, the Alpha chapter being at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. A former Valparaiso University student, Terry knew Liz Wuerffel and Allison Schuette, whom I’ll be in an oral history session with in Salt Lake City in October.
Danish women after Niqab banned
Keynote speaker Sherene Razack, who teaches at UCLA and whose many books include “Looking White People in the Eye,” spoke on the topic “The Racial/Spatial Politics of Banning the Muslim Niqab.” While I’m opposed in general to government bans on certain types of clothing, Razack condemned Canadian prohibitions against their use by police, teachers or women testifying in court. Not sure I agree, but I guess the state should not prevent it if those doing the hiring are aware of that beforehand. In the court case the woman had shown her face when applying for a driver’s license but didn’t wish to confront defendants on trial for raping her. When someone mentioned Niqabs being symbols of oppression and indicator of the plight of women in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Razack claimed that as a feminist she had little good to say about Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women but equated Niqab bans with western cultural imperialism.
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