Gary Water Tower

"gift is random, assigned here, here withheld—almost always correctly

as it's turned out: how your hands clear easily the wreckage;

how you stand—like a building for a time condemned,

then deemed historic. Yes. You will be saved.

    Carl Phillips, “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm”

Carl Phillips “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm” follows in a long line of aubades or dawn poems dating back centuries and originally recited or sung to musical accompaniment. While many Hoosiers have greeted the coming of May with hope that the worst of the pandemic has passed, the death toll keeps rising, and only a fool would buy into the delusion that life will get back to pre-Covid-19 normal any time soon. African-American poet Carl Phillips, born in 1959, first published “Aubade” Some Peaches, After Storm” in Boston Review prior to it appearing in the anthology “The Rest of Love” (2004).

Post-Trib photo by Carole Carlson

Indiana American Water (formerly Gary Heat, Light and Water Company) has begun implementing plans to demolish the historic water tower at 650 Madison Street in Jefferson Park.  Built in 1909, the imposing structure was considered an engineering and architectural marvel.  Brad Miller, director of Indiana Landmarks’ Northwest Field Office, wrote in the Post-Tribune that his organization recommended alternatives and offered to financially support a rehabilitation plan in vain, even though the estimated million-dollar cast was not much more than the $900,000 price tag for razing it.  How shortsighted of a corporation that claims to be a good civic partner that has the Region’s best interests at heart. Arguing that enhanced support from the City of Gary and cooperation with regional planning agencies are necessary to save other endangered landmarks as well, Brad included among them Gary Roosevelt High School, the Miller Town Hall, the Palace Theater, the North Gleason Park Community Building, and others.

An obit indicated that Gus Mavronicles (above) died at age 78; born March 20, 1942, he was a month my junior. Of Greek ethnicity, the Mavronicles family moved from East Chicago to Gary’s Brunswick neighborhood, and Gus played varsity baseball and captained Gary Edison’s football team in 1960, his senior year.  After a stint in the navy and working briefly at Union Carbide, he embarked on a career at Amoco Oil refinery in Whiting. Assigned as part of the VU Flights Paths Project to interview Brunswick

residents during the period of rapid racial changes in the 1960s, I’m sorely disappointed to now only be learning about Gus in this sad manner. Like virtually all memorial services, his has been postponed indefinitely until such time when such gatherings will be deemed safe.

Last week’s movie watching included Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” (2002), about the Nazi occupation of Poland and persecution of Jews; “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), the epic Sergio Leone spaghetti western starring Henry Fonda playing against type as the villain; and the comedic heist satire “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988), written by Monty Python genius John Cleese, playing a barrister who falls for zany con artist Jamie Lee Curtis.  During the filming Cleese gave 78-year-old director Charles Crichton a t-shirt proclaiming, “Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.”