I Do, I Do

Toni and I saw the play “I Do, I Do: A Musical about Marriage” on Saturday evening with the Hagelbergs in Munster. Beforehand, we ate at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant (Mishkenut) run by Palestinians that served delicious food at very low prices (my shish kabob was $10,99 and could have been enough for two. The place doesn’t serve liquor, so I wonder if they’ll make it financially. My back was really sore, so I wasn’t very good company. I noticed the radio was on near the kitchen, and I heard familiar songs by Owl City and Phoenix. The station was probably WXRT. “I Do, I Do” was witty and kept me awake most of the time. It had a cast of just two and just one set – a bedroom, living room and focused on married life episodes over a half-century, beginning in 1895. The songs were snappy although none was memorable with the possible exception of “My Cup Runneth Over.” On Google I learned that it opened on Broadway in 1966 and starred Mary Martin and Robert Preston (the “Music Man” guy who sang “Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana”). Most of the audience was older than me probably and very appreciative.

Got in seven board games at Dave’s on Sunday. My two victories were both in St. Petersburg, which until recently Tom Wade dominated. Dave won three games, including Air Lords, invented by a friend of ours who changed the rules several times in an effort to get it marketed. We like the original version best, however, and have a homemade board so we can play it. Dave put the Cubs game on, a rout of the Brewers to complete a three-game sweep in Milwaukee. In a bold and somewhat desperate move manager Lou Paniella has moved Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen to be a set-up man. So far, so good.

Wrote down some things to include in my Wednesday talk to the Hobart Kiwanis, to wit: Steel Shavings magazine started out in connection with having students do family oral history projects and then publishing the best of them. Most articles focused on the immigrant experience since few Region residents have been here more than three generations. One early issue focused on Latinos. Others centered on themes within specific time periods, such as Depression experiences, WW II Homefront activities, the Postwar Age of Anxiety, Relationships between the Sexes during the Teen Years of the 1950s, and Racial Tensions during the 1960s. Doing family histories can teach students about both local and national historical trends. I have edited special issues on Portage, Cedar Lake, and Gary, with the dominant emphasis being family life and social change over time. Social history encompasses sports, work experiences, school experiences, popular culture fads and fashions, and leisure activities of young and old (i.e., square dancing), and I have put out issues on all those subjects. Starting in the 1990s I gave students the option to write about themselves, looking back on memorable moments as well as keeping journals of day-to-day activities (everything from working out to making out). These stories often provided insights into what I call the contemporary history of adolescence although at IUN there also were many nontraditional students writing about the perils of married life and encounters with death and illness. One article, entitled “Emptying Nest,” dealt with taking one’s youngest child off to college.

If I had a future issue devoted to the social history of Hobart, one subject could be how Lake George has changed over time. Another could explore how bowling alleys have evolved. At Cressmoor Lanes, where I bowl in the Sheet and Tin league, players used to keep score themselves and tip pinsetters by putting a dollar bill in one of the holes at the end of the night. Other topics deserving of coverage include July Fourth parades and fireworks displays, the unique Art Theater, and Hobart’s bar and restaurant scene (Rosie O’Grady’s is now Cagney’s). I’d love to see a history of the Hobart Jaycee Fest where in the Strack and Van Til parking lot I have seen Blue Oyster Cult, Cracker, the Smithereens, and Joan Jett perform, as well as my son’s band Voodoo Chili. Stories about Hobart social activities have appeared in most issues. In the Nineties issue, entitled “Shards and Midden Heaps” (a phrase borrowed from my favorite Region author Jean Shepherd) there are eight pages alone devoted to Brickie Pride, the football program under Coach Don Howell and three humorous remembrances of high school days. I’ll conclude by persuading six people to read excerpts from Ryan Maicki’s humorous remembrances of his high school days, entitled “Bad Seeds.” Volunteers will get to keep a copy of the issue.

Jeff Renn, who invited me to speak to the Kiwanians, is one of my favorite former students. Going into his final year, he was the second leading scorer on IUN’s basketball team. Then some really talented players were recruited, and Jeff was happy letting others take most shots so long as it helped the team. He’s a real class act and invited Toni and me to his graduation party at the Patio. I invited Fred McColly to be my guest and read part of Ryan’s “Bad Seeds” when I talk to the Kiwanians. His latest Facebook message deals with a story that made yesterday’s news shows. He writes, “Eggs and smoke bombs in the Ukrainian parliament over an extension of the Russian lease on the naval base at Sevastopol...I have to admire their editorial elan...perhaps bottle rockets in the imperial Senate would enliven public interest in the legislative process here.” One Ukrainian legislator was fending off eggs with an umbrella.

Finished Anne Tyler’s “Noah’s Compass” – the title is from a question Liam’s young granddaughter asks him about Noah’s Ark. Noah didn’t need a compass because he really wasn’t going anywhere, just trying to float above water. As in many of Tyler’s books, the main male characters are less interesting than the women in their lives. Finished it and picked up Kurt Vonnegut’s 1997 novel “Timequake,” in which people (including one of the author’s doppelgangers, Kilgore Trout) are thrust back in time ten years and doomed to repeat every thing they did once again. Vonnegut claims ‘Timequake” would be his final novel since at 74 he was way past his prime and with his older brother having died, “Now I don’t have anybody to show off for anymore.” Vonnegut constantly belittles those with literary pretensions and writes: “If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.” At one point in this semiautobiographical novel he writes: “You want to know why I don’t have AIDS, why I'm not HIV-positive like so many other people? I don’t fuck around. It’s as simple as that.”

I have two new Facebook friends, Lorraine Todd-Shearer and Colin Kern. I was surprised but pleased that they requested hooking up with me. Lorraine is married to former Voodoo Chili drummer John and is one of my favorite dance partners. She is always upbeat and fun to be with. She was at Marianne’s Superbowl party and had dinner with Dave, Darcy, Marianne, and me prior to the Steely Dan concert a few months ago. Colin is the son of friend and former colleague Paul Kern. I knew him when he was a kid and would talk to him at some length when he’d answer the phone when I called Paul. He is a graduate student at the University of Delaware, where I once applied for a teaching position. The school is a traditional rival of Bucknell, where I was an undergraduate. I applied for a job there, too, and never heard back from the History Department. I had sent them copies of my books “Jacob A. Riis and the American City” and “City of the Century” and told them they could donate them to Bucknell’s library when they were through with them. Some months later, the librarian wrote me a note thanking me for the donation. Looking back, I am glad I stayed at IUN.