Sweet Thunder

Salem Press wants me to review “Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson” by Wil Haygood, a Washington Post writer who previously did a biography of entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. I recall watching Robinson fight Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio on Friday night boxing sponsored by Gillette razor blades. He won the middleweight title by defeating Jake LaMotta. The two fought six times, causing LaMotta to quip that he went against Robinson so often, “I almost got diabetes.” Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” captures ferocity of those bouts.

At bowling Wednesday Frank Shufran gave me many green tomatoes that Joan sent along plus a book about the Hobart High School Class of 1965. One old grad noted that in terms of popular culture, fads, and fashions, her high school years were more like the 1950s than the stereotype of the Sixties. The volume looks great, but there isn’t much sex in it. Considering the number of teen pregnancies occurring at my high school, Upper Dublin (Class of 1960), in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, the atmosphere, to quote one person, was like “a regular Peyton Place.” Back then Grace Metalious’ best-selling potboiler was passed around and read by young and old. I even found a copy hidden behind other books at my maiden Aunt Grace’s house. Copies tended to open at the pages where steamy scenes took place.

High school buddy Phil Arnold reports that he has been getting a huge number of hits on his Elvis blog since reporting that Elivs' grandson, Benjamin Keogh, signed a five million dollar record contract. He received volume 40 and found the account of our meeting in Memphis for events coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of "The King's" death. I invited him to Elvis FANtasy Fest, taking place nexy weekend in Portage (IN) but he can't make it all the way from South Carolina.

Nicole Anslover invited me to speak to her Sixties class about Gary (IN) during the 1960s. I’ll talk about social change and race relations, culminating with the 1967 election of Mayor Richard Gordon Hatcher. Archivist Steve McShane burned jpegs of 25 photos on a CD that I can use. Most were from my Shavings issue or my Centennial History of Gary. I plan to give the students copies of “Brothers in Arms” (volume 39, subtitled “Vietnam Veterans from the Calumet Region’) and talk about how the lives of three vets on the IU Northwest faculty (Gary Wilk, Jim Tolhuizen, and Raoul Contreras) changed.

A student was at the Archives researching area casino boats, which first made their appearance in the Region during the 1990s. I showed her volume 31 (“Shards and Midden Heaps”), which contains a body of “casino stories” collected by Dion Thomas and Beth Searer having to do with celebrity sightings (Scottie Pippin of the Chicago Bulls was known as “no tippin’ Pippen”), sex, bizarre behavior, heart attacks, excited pregnant women going into labor, and other motifs. Dion Thomas wrote: “On the Empress a slot machine player turned away for a moment, and a lady put a token in his machine and the machine hit. The man was so distraught he sliced the lady’s throat. She was shaken but not seriously hurt.”